Tag: Poetry

Eileen Anderson

In the liminal space between the stunted Oak and the wild North Sea is Marram.
Sharp edged grass. Slice your fingers grass. Don’t try clutching it grass.
Root weaver. Sand binder. Dune stabiliser.
Sun-bleached, bone-white skull hider.
Breeze trapper. Foot tripper.
Dagger leaves pointing skywards, seeking the sun.
Roots
always travelling, east and west, north and south.
Each year inching their way out along the coast.

After a first career involving scientific writing, and a second writing people policies, Eileen Anderson now delights in creative writing. The natural world is a constant inspiration, and she is currently completing a collection of Badger stories alongside her poetry.

Debmalya Bandyopadhyay

Absence sleeps between the waves.
My father at the pier alone, picks up
the language of endless arrival, lends his
shirt to the wind’s wailing wardrobe.
Take this, and this, and this too.

Somewhere in him, the trees are still bending
to you humming Edelweiss. Through them,
a forlorn road finds the pier. My father –
your softest lover walks there all night,
and comes back shirtless each morning.

Debmalya Bandyopadhyay (he/him) is a writer and mathematician based in Birmingham, UK. He was a finalist for Sweet Literary’s 2024 Poetry Award and Sophon Lit’s 2024 Poetry Contest. He is often in parks confabulating with local birds and bees.

Ian Farnes

The clearing at the town’s edge
is a network of stillness muted by snowfall.

Two crows bolt black from the blank
flat skies and shift a hawk out, over

slate roofs, uphill to the miner’s village,
where we left the lines of rabbits’ skulls
along the broken wall.

Ian Farnes grew up in Burntisland, Fife but now lives and works as a translator and writer in Barcelona. His debut poetry pamphlet is due to be published in February 2025. More details can be found on his website.

Nazaret Ranea

My grandfather, at eighty years old,
climbs up the olive tree
without looking down.

From up there, his bald head shines.
He’s getting old.

The curly hair covering his chest
was once his shield in the war.
Now, back home, under this sun,
it looks like a layer of foam.

Nazaret Ranea is one of Scotland’s Next Generation Young Makars. Her poetry explores themes of nostalgia, memory, and home. Her work has appeared in over 50 publications internationally. You can find out more about her work here.

Prosper C. Ìféányí

There is a quest
         –tion about the numb

         –er of times
         our count
         –ry feeds us bull
         –ets and we

         –eds, and we can
         –not remember how to be
         –cause the over

–fed has sold his tongue.

Prosper C. Ìféányí writes from Lagos, Nigeria. His works are featured or forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Transition, Magma Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Wales, and elsewhere.

Isabella Waldron

white walls, white walls
i want to rub my hands in ash
watch them whisper on the white walls

i begin to hate my pink Mary-Janes
tongueless, they gape at me
grotesque against beige carpet, white walls

my father asks what i want to do
the weekend is ours, but it is all white walls

i tell him i need new shoes
so that he will matter again

Isabella Waldron is an American-British writer. Her play how to build a wax figure (Assembly/November Theatre) premiered at Edinburgh Fringe to critical acclaim. Plays Jawbone, Things I Never Told The Stars and Chatter were selected as semi-finalists for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival. Her poetry has been featured in Chewboy and won the Ruth George Poetry Award.

Jesse Domenech

It was the year we ran out
of lilies. There was so much loss
that funeral wreaths
were made of plastic bulbs.

That’s all that was left.
All the other flowers
had been pulled
and offered to the dead.

And the new lilies
had yet to bloom.

Jesse Domenech (1985-2023) was a Cuban-American poet and songwriter from Queens, NY, who championed compassion and generosity, often through humor, on the page and in life. He was a student of Billy Collins’ Poetic Hydraulics workshop and drew inspiration from hip-hop, standup comedy, and life’s curiosities. Although Jesse was a prolific author, his work had never before been published. He was a beloved friend to many.

The prize money has been donated to the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Manhattan in Jesse’s memory.