You may also wish to listen to poem recordings that have been added to our (small but growing!) digital archive. We have poems there by:
Nadine Brummer, Daphne Gloag, Gill Horitz, Mimi Khalvati, Lottie Kramer, Gill Learner, Gill McEvoy (read by Anne Stewart), Maggie Norton, Jennie Osborne, Elizabeth Soule, Jill Townsend, Marion Tracy, Fiona Ritchie Walker, Sarah Westcott and Lynne Wycherley.
Select and listen here Poets of the Month (other dates)
Anne Stewart founded poetry p f in 2005. Her awards include The Bridport Prize, Southport Prize, Silver Wyvern (Poetry on the Lake, Italy) and a Hawthornden Fellowship. Her collections include The Janus Hour (2010) and The Last Parent (2019).
Anne is editor of the SecondLightLive web-site and serves on the Second Light Network Committee and as part-time administrator for the Network. (see ‘More’ link below)
sample poems and comments on ‘The Last Parent’
"I like the whisker of hair/ under her armpit. It suggests/
that she’s not one of those women/ who are always trying
to get rid/ of their smell."
Vicki Feaver, OI YOI YOI
Give me silky legs glistening in the sun,
bikini line and oxters done and no shame
for the dishonest shape-shifter I’ve become.
Give me orange and magnolia to bathe away
my scent – when it’s Woman-Ready-for-a-Man,
I’d just as soon my body said "Only if I say".
And when I choose to go against the master plan
by coating earthworm lips with New Dawn Rose
or copper pink, grape or cherry blossom balm,
it’s no more a disguise than wearing clothes.
Or would you have me naked? No deceitful lines
between my vulva and the twitching public nose?
Hirsute and unscented may be truth of a kind,
but there are worse things, when you feel exposed,
than silk and oranges, and roses, to hide behind.
Poem published: The Interpreter’s House, Nov 03, ISSN 1361-5610, and
nominated for Forward Prize, 2004;
Discussed in Mary Michaels’ article How Does Your Poem Smell?, in Connections, Spring 2005 edition.
Strix Varia published Anne’s reflection on the writing of Body Language in their PoetSpeak series.
Collection: The Last Parent, Second Light Publications, 2019, ISBN: 978-0-9927088-3-2, £9.95 (Book Club offer £40 plus feedback).
Collection: The Janus Hour, Oversteps Books, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-9068561-6-8, £8.
Anthology: Ten Hallam Poets, Mews Press, 2005, ISBN: 1-84387-123-8, £7.99.
Glossy illustrated postcards: 2 of Body Language and 2 of Melting into the motorway on the inside lane, £1, from Anne.
20 Clovelly Way
Orpington
Kent
BR6 0WD
tel: 07850 537489
Anne’s web-site
e-mail
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Elaine Briggs lives and works in France as a translator. Poems have received prizes in Segora and Hungry Hill competitions. A collection has been long-listed by Cinnamon.
A harp is a made thing,
the heartwood of Homer, an ode.
It’s a flightless wing
with speech in its keys
and strings taut and resonant
open for winds to frisk at sea.
It’s the prow of a boat
where Orpheus turned helmsman
set a rhythm
for oars to dip and rise
and the water that streamed from their blade
outsang the Sirens’ wolfish howl.
You stand alone, your frame
spindly as the African lyre you cradle.
Then, in Afghan headgear worn for a crown,
you swell – wind and breath
sing to me the Muse’s song
and the rage of Achilles is re-made.
Address:
Tours, France
e-mail Elaine Briggs
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Helen Ivory, poet and visual artist; sixth Bloodaxe Books collection Constructing a Witch (2024). Editor, webzine Ink Sweat and Tears; poetry tutor, UEA/WCN online; work translated into Polish, Ukrainian, Croatian, Spanish and Greek for Versopolis.
When they laced me tight this morning
my body split asunder.
Clouds heaved themselves across my eyes.
Nobody heard the crack of rib
or witnessed the small moth of my soul
slip from my mouth.
All day I felt the separation so keenly,
yet the household continued about me
as if unaltered.
When Nell came to dust the parlor,
I feared for my soul – my little ghost –
settled on the mantle.
At dinner, my soul watched from the wallpaper
as I raised the soup spoon to my lips –
there wasn’t space beneath my corset for a single bite.
I rose to reach my hand out
but her wings blurred ash.
I felt the table and the diners fall away.
I awoke inside this little room
to find the doctor had been summoned,
with his new, mechanized instrument.
My binding had been loosed,
the doctor applied the treatment
until a paroxysm possessed me.
I breathed deeply of the whole earth.
My soul flew into my open throat.
My husband dropped some coins into his hand.
from The Anatomical Venus, 2019, Bloodaxe Books.
Publications:
Constructing a Witch, 2024, Bloodaxe Books
Wunderkammer: New and Selected Poems, 2023, MadHat Press (USA)
The Anatomical Venus, 2019, Bloodaxe Books
Maps of the Abandoned City, 2019, SurVision
Waiting for Bluebeard, 2013, Bloodaxe Books
Helen Ivory website
e-mail Helen Ivory
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Jenna Plewes lives in Worcestershire, belongs to Cannon Poets and escapes to Devon whenever she can. Her poems appear in several anthologies, including Heart Shoots (for Macmillan Cancer Support). She was highly commended in the Hastings International Competition 2012.
When I die
don’t put me underground
cut down a giant oak
as they did
four thousand years ago
pull out the stump
drag it across the wide salt marsh
with honeysuckle ropes
upend it where the curlews call
lay me across its outstretched hand
under the sun, the moon
the turning stars
encircle me in
fifty trunks of oak
each split in two
fold a seamless skin of bark around my bier
leave me the smell of fresh cut wood
the shine of pale oak flesh
the sound of wind and tide
birds will clean my bones
midsummer’s rising sun will
find me through the keyhole of the east
and when midwinter sunrise looks for me
I will be gone.
Seahenge on the Norfolk coast is a prehistoric monument built in the 21st century BC.
Winning poem in the Sampad competition and published in their anthology Inspired by my Museum.
Publications:
Pull of the Earth, 2016, Indigo Dreams Publishing, ISBN 978-1-9108340-6-0, £8.99 +p&p
Gifts, 2014, CreateSpace, ISBN 978-1-4953944-0-9 £5 – proceeds to charity (buy direct from Jenna Plewes)
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Kathy Miles is a librarian and poet who has lived and worked in Wales since 1972. Her work has frequently appeared in magazines and anthologies. She is a Writer on Tour, and member of the Red Heron performance group.
She took it in both hands.
Examined it to see its colour, the quality,
what she might expect of it.
A surprise, she said, but still she smiled,
pale against the whiteness of the bed,
the wrappings from her present
scattered on the floor like a spilt
phial of pills. There was ribbon,
of course, a yellow bow, a card.
The air smelt of red carnations
and something else, something sweeter.
Her breath was a pearl in the hot room,
a slipstream too slight to stir a bee’s wing.
And the flowers were difficult,
competed with her for the sliver of air.
Her hands fussed over the covers
astonished fingers slid over silk.
And my gift, that small bequest
I took back home
was the moment our fingertips touched
and the air was brimming.
Poem published in Envoi, Issue 164 February 2013
Publications:
The Shadow House, 2009, Cinnamon Press;
The Third Day: Landscape, 1993, Gomer Press
Word, 1993, Gomer Press
The Rocking-Stone, 1988, Poetry Wales Press
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Lyn Moir, a Hawthornden Fellow, lives in St. Andrews. Her latest of four collections is Velásquez’s Riddle (Calder Wood Press, 2011). Her work is much published, including in Second Light’s major anthologies and in many of those from Grey Hen Press.
Rather compare me to a winter’s night,
snow on the roof and not much on the fire.
Even December’s gales have lost their bite.
Can you remember what it was, desire?
Passion’s a concept creaking with disuse,
a half-remembered trembling in the gut
at unexpected moments, an excuse
for rutting, heaving bodies mingling… but
the time for that is over, says my head.
My stiffening bones concur, my sinews scream,
stretched on the rack of years. We’re not yet dead,
just dying. Summer’s still midwinter’s dream
and we its shadows, turning on the wheel
of time, condemned to watch, no more to feel.
published in South 54, 2016
Publications:
Velázquez’s Riddle, Calder Wood Press 2011
Easterly, Force 10, Calder Wood Press 2009
Breakers’ Yard, Arrowhead Press 2003
Me and Galileo, Arrowhead Press 2001
2 Shorehead
St. Andrews
Fife
KY16 9RG
tel: 01334 472717
e-mail
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Maureen lives in North Wales. Poems published in Iota, Poetry Nottingham, Other Poetry, Second Light, Helicon, and various other magazines. Success in local competitions. Chapbooks: Shared Ground and Turtle Stone. She is currently working on a new collection, Alternatives.
It would have been a July afternoon
with everyone piling out into the sun.
And I remember the dog rose blooming
in a flush of pink, as we waded through green meadows,
hunting for lucky leaves among the purple clover.
Then someone made a daisy chain, and suddenly
we were all crowned in gold and white,
and there were butterflies,
(orange tip, common blue, cabbage white)
dancing around our heads.
And I recall those colours midsummer bright,
but any sounds have slipped away.
Memory runs a silent film, which is strange
and sad, because I’m sure, so very sure,
that all our hearts were singing.
Publications: Chapbooks, Shared Ground and Turtle Stone
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Nadine Brummer Has had poems published in many magazines and in many anthologies. First full collection ‘HalfWay to Madrid’ (Shoestring Press, 2002) was made a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
That night, finding him in my bed,
within kissing distance,
I wanted to take the stare
off his face – those eyes
all bulge and goggle.
Then I saw their depth, a look
that could take me anywhere
backwards in time. I recalled
an aquarium under the sea where
I’d pressed my face to the glass
of a wolf-eel’s tank, mesmerised
by a little reptilian head
with eyeballs lifting off
like spaceships that settled
into an expression beyond
a seal-pup’s dopey smile
or the pout of fish –
like that of some new-born child
you swear has been here before.
The frog was like him,
but when he gulped and a mouth
smelling of weed or bull-kelp
came close to my lips
I flinched and held out my hand
to stop his jump and touched
a spasm of green, a creature trying
to slither out of himself.
I’ve been so often trapped
In flesh that didn’t feel mine
I wondered what he could see
when he gazed into a pond;
he took my sigh as a signal
to kiss. I loved him best
the moment before he changed,
a small, crouched, alien thing
in need of a body.
Poem published: Poetry London, May 2003
Publications:
What Light Does, Shoestring Press, 2017, ISBN 978-1-910323-90-8 £10
Any Particular Day, Shoestring Press, 2013, ISBN 978-1-907356-66-7 £9
Out of the Blue, Shoestring Press, 2006, ISBN 987-1-904886-31-0 £8.95
Half Way to Madrid, Shoestring Press, 2002. ISBN 1-899549-70-6 £7.50 (Poetry Book Society Recommendation)
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Sheila Lockhart lives on the Black Isle in Scotland. Her poetry has appeared in journals online and in print. Her debut pamphlet Brother (2023) is published by V.Press.
we walk away from town at dusk
red sand already darkening around us
you wouldn’t let me take a torch
said eyes would get accustomed to the dark
soon neon lights are out of sight
and the pale horizon fading
clouds turn violet like fresh bruises
and when the moon appears its beams
make hollows into pools of indigo
make sand glow like polished copper
I worry about snakes
then we hear the sound you hold my hand
it’s only the wind you say but I am fearful
two black shapes loom out of the darkness
impossibly tall against the night sky
I sense in them deep suffering
like all the sadness in the world
one is pierced through its chest
just as you in your soul’s darkness
will later be pierced
and the wind blows through the holes
like someone moaning
Published online in The Ekphrastic Review, 09/03/21;
in pamphlet collection Brother, V. Press, 2023
Note: After Archeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus by Salvador Dali
Publications:
Brother, V. Press, 2023, IBSN 978-1-7398838-9-8, £6.50
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Viv Fogel is an integrative psychotherapist and an artist. Her poems have been published in anthologies and magazines since the mid-70’s. From 1980-82 she was one of the Evettes, a performing poetry quartet. First collection: Without Question, (Mandaras Publishing 2006).
My daughter enjoys the safety of lines,
but I prefer the blank page, to dive
and spiral bird free in a cloudless sky.
She cuts paper into delicate shapes,
pastes petals, turns butterflies into collages,
begins again if there is one mistake.
I splatter words like Pollock onto clear canvas
and smudge, rub holes in paper, stain and tear.
My daughter bathes in milk, soaks in Carrib sun,
paints her nails as bright as her imagined future.
She perfects her dress, her look, takes time,
whereas I, careless, will wear the same for days.
She emerges at last, silky in a swirl
of turquoise, pink ipod, humming out of tune,
as I wait for her in the afternoon’s heat,
my hand’s shadow on the filling page.
Publications: Without Question, Mandaras, 2006. ISBN 0-9544730-5-1. £10
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet