When I read a poetry collection I always look for honesty. I search for the raw and brutal truth which comes with being beautifully human and complex. Only a few ever meet this expectation for me. Too often, poets try to be clever and value style over substance. Too often, contemporary poetry collections focus on … Continue reading Advanced review of Snowdrop: A Collection by Olivia Snowdrop
You arrived at the beginning of me, a life spent so lonely in quarantine, bobbing in the breeze so effortlessly, bubbles pop blue like the sky and the sea. I watch you come in twos and threes, loved up in ruffled up feathers and yellow smiles; swallowing the sunshine, golden syrup, before drifting upon the … Continue reading A Sonnet for Bluetits
after Sylvia Plath Silence shudders through the room, yet I find forgiveness, whilst carving sculpture into my tomb. We love like gargoyles in gloom, painted grins for hearts bleeding. Silence shudders through the room. I search for bones and flesh, a womb to call my own, whilst whittling sculpture into my tomb. … Continue reading Mad Girl’s Love Song
I haven't written about being in the bath in a while. Larkin wrote about lambs whilst I write about the pink between my toes; wondering if when I was born I knew I would be raised for the slaughter. My lamb eyes blinking, drinking in the sun. Until I learned how to drink bathwater. … Continue reading My lamb heart
My pale, baby face blooms unseen in your bedroom mirror; I watch you, beautiful woman who is not yet mine, dancing in the scent of summer and hypnotised by half moon shadows playing across creaky floorboards. It's Friday night and you shake off those playground blues, put on your high heeled shoes, too dark … Continue reading Friday nights with you, before me
My redhead skin smells the thunder and says thank you; tastes rain in the wind and smiles - opens its stretch marks like smiles not hand-me-downs from sad days, lets the water trickle like glitter or confetti - my redhead skin feels loved. Despite my burnished shoulders, lobster red rather than gold, I know this … Continue reading Redhead
Sometimes I choose titles before my pen reaches the paper; today, this poem, this story, this limb severed from my heart is half untitled because this is for me, for you and the one in the mirror we're so adamant isn't us. As if our reflections are portraits we have painstakingly sat for, only to … Continue reading A poem for –
Jillian Richardson's The Virtue of Doubt is fresh and different yet harnesses poetry and playwriting with the skill of the old greats. Richardson's words on love and family were Shakespearean in their poeticism and rhythm. Whilst Avaricia's words put me in mind of Euripides' Medea and Beloved recalled Sophocles' Antigone. Richardson's storytelling is stunning. A … Continue reading Review of The Virtue of Doubt, Jillian Richardson
after Emily Blewitt This is not a rescue. This one will sting like bees and pomegranate seeds; Persephone, oval eyes turned upwards to the darkness beading the sky. This is the beginning of the end, the fall into something new. This is you - tobacco and loose lips, my hips and buttercups. This is … Continue reading This Is Not a Rescue
The Language of Ghosts is Lauren Poole's tremendous debut, raising the bar for 21st century poetry. Divided into three parts, 'preterite tense', 'imperfect tense' and 'present tense', Poole's deliberate and purposeful structure reminds the reader healing is not linear and nor is trauma. Similar to A. B. Cofer's Not Enough, Just Enough and Kait Quinn's … Continue reading Review of The Language of Ghosts, Lauren Poole
