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‘The flaw in the pattern’ by Rachael Mead – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
13 thoughts on wilderness 1. It is a word for something imaginary. 2. The deep blue bowl of sky, the microbial cities in the folds of my skin. 3. Web, palimpsest, machine – nothing can capture it. All we can say is what it is not. 4. Warping the laws of physics, time drifts with…
Poetry School ‘What the trees do’ by Laura Scott – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
They play with us they want to be us they once were us a long time ago one of them caught the heel of a girl in the crook of its branch, snagged it like a bird caught in a bush flicked her up into its leaves. She cried and the birds scattered so no-one…
Laura Scott ‘Walking with Rilke’ by Linda France – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
When, after a day of rain, evening light plucks us out of the four-square house to rinse our screen-bleached faces and it takes a while to adjust then notice grass heads leaning into each other like our shadows far off to the south intent on their own attenuated adventure woven between sheep, recently shorn and…
Linda France ‘River, post-spate’ by Joanna Guthrie – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
………..‘…one broad presence that proceeds by craft and gratitude’ – John Burnside The river reassembles after being in spate. It is small water moving in shining self-interrupting wrinkled glyphs and dimples, a body of thought in movement. It flows severally in adjacent clear layers and overlays takes circular spinning journeys within itself. Having got itself…
Poetry School ‘Dawn of a New Age’ by Sue Norton – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
Of ten green bottles, two are glass and make music, ringing the bell of the bottle bank. Eight are plastic: two are scrunched, recycled by the council; one floats in the canal, one rolls in a ditch tossed from a car; one embarks on a sea voyage. Three truck to landfill. It’s a new beginning,…
Poetry School ‘Fractures’ by David Clarke – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
i This house just moved ………..and all the bodies in it. Our finger-pointed grip on earth dislodged another fraction. Floodlit rigs ………..assault the ground and sky, scarred trucks idle at stop-lights. Now we are tutored to open – ………..this spell of force that conjures each fissure apart, its pitching release. Whatever holds us here, together,…
David Clarke ‘Windward’ by Paul Stephenson – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
The sea all water, yet receives rain still And in abundance addeth to his store… ……………………………………..Sonnet 135 Could be thirteen, asleep on a beach, the sand palms still, the sea uncertain. No announcement: just the heavens in a sudden rush, but even this much water is never enough. I run for shelter, quick sink my…
Paul Stephenson ‘Dhanakosa, Scotland’ by Cath Drake – Resurgence Prize, Second Place
The mist came through the glen, past the waterfall ………..roaring vertical, sweeping through trees, the sturdy quivering stems of wildflowers and vines, ………..and uncurled itself across the loch. A heron appeared from the grass, craned its neck, ………..lifted its legs and steered its insect-like body to pierce the mist, disappearing into it ………..with flashes of…
Cath Drake ‘Bomb’ by Emily Diamond – Resurgence Prize, Third Place.
Our ancestors didn’t leave us words for this. Rain, downpour, deluge Do not describe cars and central heating Become invisible, argued-over carbon – Heated air that holds the weight of oceans And, drop by millions of drop, Returns it to us, Filling fields with the fish-coloured back and forth of sudden lakes, Reversing gravity to…
Emily Diamand Seán Hewitt Wins Resurgence Prize with the Poetry School!
At a special reading yesterday at Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival, we announced the winners of the 2017 Resurgence Prize with the Poetry School. Our winner took home a cheque for £5,000 and will be attending an artists’ residency at Great Glemham. Second and third prize won £2,000 and £1,000 respectively. Congratulations all! Winners Winner: Ilex by…
Poetry School ‘Ilex’ by Seán Hewitt – Resurgence Prize Winner
Distracting myself, waiting for news, I walked until I saw this white cluster of holly growing at the base of a tree, the stems yellowed, the angled clutch of leaves like a bleached coral, a pale antler, almost medieval, like a relic unearthing in the gloom of the wood. Later, still the baby would not…
Seán Hewitt
Primers Volume 3 Shortlist and Longlist Announced!
The Poetry School and Nine Arches Press are delighted to announce the shortlist and longlist for Primers Volume 3, a mentoring and publication scheme. After reading thousands of poems, judges Hannah Lowe and Jane Commane have selected ten manuscripts for the shortlist and nineteen manuscripts for the longlist. We’ll be publishing poems by all of…
Poetry School
Spring 2018 Course Quick Guide
Spring Term 2018 is now open for booking! We are delighted to open the booking period for the second term of our 20th anniversary year at the Poetry School. Feast your eyes on our forthcoming line-up of brilliant courses and workshops, and start planning your new year of poetry writing! Remember that new students get 15%…
Ali Lewis
Half-Ghazal (for Reneé)
“The word [Ghazal] is of Arabic origin and means ‘talking to women’ (women in purdah, with all that that implies)” – Mimi Khalvati in her Notes to The Meanest Flower I flinch inside as you corroborate my name, which is your name now. You spell it out over the phone to a call centre…
Edward Doegar
Review: ‘Swims’ by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett
Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s compelling ‘long poem taking many forms’ begins by defining the action ‘To Swim’: To give up. To disappear. To appear in Vanity Fair before breakfast. To afterwards destroy economy of Greece. A footnote tells us that the final sentence refers to Christine Lagard, Director of the IMF, describing her morning swim…
Andrew Jeffrey
‘His Bottom Lip’
Clitoral, like finding a small, hidden part of myself in someone else. Nerve-wet, fleshy – for a white guy, and stained between life-lines with red wine gone black. Only this I point with sharpest teeth. He weighs this up. Eyes roll over what this means, how and where it can lead, all the things it limits. …
Rachel Long
Neringa Dastoor: On the ‘Drawing Poetry’ Residency
This one-month experimental poetry residency was a very healthy and refreshing process for me, an absolute treat in terms of professional development. Having no particular plan to start with was already very different to what I am used to when teaching BA students or running a creative workshop with the public. Workshops throughout the month…
Neringa Dastoor
‘The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx’ by Tara Bergin
It’s perhaps a sad indictment of the way in which history is recorded that many potential readers of this, Bergin’s second collection, might not have heard of the lamentable story of Karl Marx’s youngest daughter Eleanor (1855-1898). The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx seems to step into the breach and breathe new, memorable ways into…
Richie McCaffery
Mixed Borders III – a new CAMPUS Pamphlet
The Mixed Borders project is now in its third year. With our partners at the London Parks and Gardens Trust, we placed thirty poets-in-residence in gardens all around London for Open Squares Weekend. As well as entertaining the public, our poets wrote a huge number of excellent poems, a selection of which we’re delighted to…
Poetry School
Poetry in Aldeburgh: An Interview with Raymond Antrobus
Our new programmer Andrew Parkes caught up with poet Raymond Antrobus ahead his appearance at this year’s Poetry in Aldeburgh in one of a series of events curated by the Poetry School. Hi Ray, before we get into anything, I’d first like to extend hearty congratulations from all of us here for being awarded a Jerwood Compton…
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
Vacancy: Senior Project Coordinator
A great opportunity to join the Poetry School’s dynamic and growing team in a key role as the charity celebrates its 20th Anniversary. Job Description This is a fantastic opportunity to join the UK’s largest provider of poetry education at a time of dynamic growth, celebration and development as Senior Project Coordinator. Founded in 1997…
Poetry School
Семечки by Iris Colomb: Art from the Drawing Poetry Residency at the Centre for Recent Drawing
Throughout August, six poet-artists took part in our ‘Drawing Poetry’ residency with the Centre for Recent Drawing. John Sheehy, Claire Collison, Sria Chatterjee, Eleanor Penny, Neringa Dastoor and Iris Colomb spent a month in the studio at C4RD, developing hybrid and cross-genre drawing-poems. Throughout September and October, we’re showcasing their work. The third poet-artist whose work we are displaying is Iris Colomb. She discusses her work Семечки…
Iris Colomb
‘Ellengæst’
It’s karaoke in The Globe on Morning Lane: throatfuls of song of heady beer & beery heads pushing the pubglow — this hallowed circumference of yellowed light — out to its furthest limits ………………………………… into the beyondwhich where boys with blades and orcish grins kick cans down streets where daughters of Cain text naked anxieties …
Emma Simon
By Heart in C Minor: On the ‘Drawing Poetry’ Residency
Throughout August, six poet-artists took part in our ‘Drawing Poetry’ residency with the Centre for Recent Drawing. Sria Chatterjee, John Sheehy, Eleanor Penny, Claire Collison, Neringa Dastoor, and Iris Colomb spent a month in the studio at C4RD and attended workshops with poets Holly Corfield Carr and Chris McCabe, and artist Jamie John James Jenkinson, as well as…
Claire Collison
‘The Book of Tides’ by Angela Readman
The Book of Tides is a triumph of femininity, transformation and transience. Daring and unsettling, Readman’s poems subvert the status quo, blurring the boundaries between myth and reality with a visceral feel that draws you in from the very beginning. These are poems that beg to be read out loud, crammed with short, sharp words…
Rachel Carney