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‘Afterwards’
The January light was more notable, the day I went back for his belongings to the room where he died; magnolia buds presented themselves differently, they uplifted as though nothing could compel death to reach inside their grey skin. His climbing boots, paired neatly as we had never been, and his torn denims left on…
Gill Horitz
Poem in Your Pocket Day
Every April people celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day by selecting a poem, carrying it with them, and sharing it with others. This year The Poetry School have joined the festivities and produced some special postcards to showcase a selection of wonderful poems written by our students. You can find physical copies of these postcards in…
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
CAMPUS Pamphlet – Paradise Lost: ‘An Express Elevator to Hell’
350 years ago to the day, John Milton signed his publishing contract for 1,500 copies of Paradise Lost. If you’ve not got the room on your bookshelves or the pennies in the jar to pick up this $750,000 first edition, we’re delighted to alleviate that problem by delivering a free, digital pamphlet of poems in response to…
Poetry School
Mixed Borders – Plan Your Visit
The snowdrops have blown, the blossom has had it – but the poets are still growing. With two months to go before Open Garden Squares Weekend, our resident poets are nurturing the seedlings of their poems and projects, ready to display them round London’s green spaces the weekend of 17/18 June. The poets have plans…
Poetry School
Primers Volume Two: On Sale Now!
On Sunday, The Poetry School and Nine Arches Press launched the wonderful Primers Volume Two at the Birmingham Literature Festival. The collection, featuring work from Cynthia Miller, Marvin Thompson and Ben Bransfield, and edited by Jacob Sam-La Rose and Jane Commane, is on sale now and available to purchase from Nine Arches Press. GET YOUR…
Ali Lewis
‘To a Mole’
Mouldiwarp, tunnel-grubber you with the shovel-paws pink as my skin, the purblind eyes, never once have I seen your snout poke through a lawn, caught a flick of your tail though I’ve grieved for you, rural guerrilla, gibbeted on barbed wire. King-toppler, gentleman in velvet, snuffling root-vaulted mazes driven to company by the sting of…
A C Clarke
‘Another Church Tour’
Coming into a church I can’t help thinking of Philip Larkin taking off his cycle clips in awkward reverence. I’m not here out of habit or curiosity I’ve filed in with a flock out of politeness and sit in the stalls feeling shifty. I want to escape this scripted space: stained glass stories of suffering,…
Chris Kinsey
Review: ‘Home Front’ by Isabel Palmer, Bryony Doran, Jehanne Dubrow & Elyse Fenton
Home Front (Bloodaxe) is a quadrilogy of book-length sequences by four female writers – English mothers and American military wives – whose sons or lovers are enlisted. Each book is a mix of gravitas and (sometimes black) humour often found in true stories, showing the psychological interplay of managing the day to day whilst picturing loved…
Maria Apichella
‘The Art of Memory: Poetry of the Past and Present’
Memory is who we are. It is the story that we tell ourselves about where we come from and how we got to be here now. At the same time, our sense of the past is constantly shifting. We re-interpret it in the re-telling and adapt our past to our present purposes. My new online…
David Clarke
‘Mill House’
After his mother moved out her clothes sat in the hall beneath the mirror they played lost and found in hollow rooms. He sat in the long kitchen with his so-called sister who scratched at her scabs as they gulped cold milk waiting for school. Awake with his new brother under the sleeping bag with…
Erica Jane Morris
‘A Quiet Passion’ Instagram Poetry Competition Winners!
We are absolutely delighted to announce the results of our recent Instagram poetry competition with Soda Pictures to mark the release of A Quiet Passion – a new biopic of Emily Dickinson (in cinemas from today!). Thank you to everyone who entered – we were overwhelmed by the high quality and great variety of the…
Poetry School
‘Boy’
Most mornings, I glimpse the boy walking to school. His shoes trodden down at the back. He trails behind, at the back, apart from the scuffle of boys. I worry they laugh at his shoes. He looks downtrodden, not just the shoes. I wonder if his mother is back. The eggshell pale boy. The boy…
Judith Wozniak
‘Occupancy’
After Staircase by Do Ho Suh I balk at stepping up and stepping down. There’s no perspective I can stand. Handrails that don’t hold and dizzy red-lit vertigo. Ladies with skin like aspic, squat behind balusters – in ruby lingerie. Blood, graffiti, dirty treads and risers. The janitor has lost his mop, his bucket and…
Anna-May Laugher
Fair Field Poet In Residence Call Out
Fair Field Poet In Residence a collaboration between the Poetry School and Penned in the Margins Written almost 650 years ago by William Langland, Piers Plowman enters the mind of a wanderer, Will, as he falls asleep in the Malvern Hills, dreams of a ‘fair field full of folk’ and embarks on a quest to…
Poetry School
‘To the Fates’
after Kathleen Jamie and Friedrich Hölderlin in your weaving grant me sight just once of it skimming the slow-flowing river lightning-blue mantle nape to tail in your weaving grant me sight just once of it poised above the slow-flowing river copper feathers belly to breast in your weaving grant me sight just once vertebrae leaning…
Jo Dixon
Tales of the Globe: Interview with Karen Whiteson
Your upcoming course for us is called Tales of the Globe, could you tell us a little bit about it? It is a 5 week course which will be stretched to bursting point in an attempt to contain its material. The main intention is to map some of the connections and differences between that body…
Ali Lewis
#Afterhours: An Interview with Inua Ellams
An Interview with Inua Ellams
‘I think, arguably, all poems are response poems and attempts by the poet to find or claim personal space in any given topic.’
Ali Lewis
Review: ‘Long Pass’ by Joey Connolly
W.H. Auden said he would always ask two questions of new writing: firstly, “how does it work?” and secondly – “what kind of a guy [or woman or non-cis person] inhabits this poem?” These are questions which cut to the heart of what Joey Connolly does (and does so well) in his first collection, being…
Will Harris
Review: ‘Complicity’ by Tom Sastry
This promising pamphlet showcases a fresh and original voice exploring the self as proud outsider challenged by family, relationships and the world but refusing to compromise. The poet’s biography tells us ‘he thinks that not belonging is more interesting than belonging’ and this is certainly borne out in the poems. It’s a daring feat indeed…
Jacqueline Saphra
Review: ‘Beginning With Your Last Breath’ by Roy McFarlane
There’s a quality about Roy McFarlane’s Beginning With Your Last Breath (Nine Arches Press) that makes me want to step away from academic language when describing it, and instead focus on the thoughts and feelings that come to mind. That is not to say that there is little here to talk about – McFarlane’s command…
Bridget Minamore
NaPoWriMo 2017
April is National Poetry Writing Month and in celebration we have devised a project to get you writing every day. We will be supplying a fresh writing prompt, and an example poem to get you in the right frame of mind, every morning over the whole of April. All you have to do is join the…
Poetry School
How I Did It – Ted Hughes Award: Salena Godden on ‘LIVEwire’
In the fifth instalment of our Ted Hughes Award ‘How I Did It’ series, Salena Godden explains the creative process behind ‘Can’t Be Bovvered’‘ from her shortlisted work LIVEwire. ‘LIVEwire‘ marks Salena Godden’s first album in nearly a decade, and is a compilation of live and studio recordings, archives and brand new work. It features live material from…
Salena Godden
Review: ‘Santiago’ by Cheryl Follon
Prose poems have been in season for a while now, but Cheryl Follon’s Santiago (Bloodaxe) has the potential to sweep away fatigue. The collection, Follon’s third, is entirely made up of brief prose pieces; the results are engaging and, frequently, very funny. Prose poetry is not without its pitfalls. For the writer, the risk of falling…
Jeremy Wikeley
How I Did It – Ted Hughes Award: Caroline Smith on The Immigration Handbook
In the fourth instalment of our Ted Hughes Award ‘How I Did It’ series, Caroline Smith explains the creative process behind ‘The Scarlet Lizard’ from her shortlisted work The Immigration Handbook. Caroline Smith’s The Immigration Handbook is the fruit of her career as an Immigration Caseworker for one of the most diverse inner-city areas in London. Immigrants’ dramatic emotions,…
Caroline Smith
How I Did It – Ted Hughes Award: Jay Bernard on ‘The Red and Yellow Nothing’
In the next instalment of our Ted Hughes Award ‘How I Did It’ series, Jay Bernard explains the many inspirations behind their shortlisted pamphlet, The Red and Yellow Nothing, published by Ink, Sweat & Tears Press. The Red and Yellow Nothing is written as a prequel to the Arthurian tale of Sir Morien – a young knight described as…
Jay Bernard