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)
After writing poems throughout her adult life, Alison Mace has at last got a full collection out: Man at the Ice House, published by The High Window Press at £10. Her work takes on difficult, often personal subjects, but is essentially positive.
on visiting a premature baby
Three weeks breathing, now, Eve,
twenty-one days in a box
under a measured glow.
Thirty-six weeks today,
that’s what the nurses say,
so another four to go
before you can start to live:
shouldn’t have smelt the air
till a day beyond New Year.
Your tiny pulsing weight
I lift, invited, and lay
you down, unwrapped, on the bed:
hot red torso, distended,
limbs like fingers and thumbs.
Your legs spring into the cross
of the foetal diagram
‘Your Baby at Thirty-Six Weeks’ –
I glimpse the child unborn.
You seek about, the mouth
wide in your turning head.
Last week you learnt to suck;
now I’ve given you back
you feed with an earnestness
that shows you mean to grow.
Eve, claiming your future:
whole woman in waiting,
exquisite miniature
first published in anthology, Seven Ages of Woman, 2014, ed. Toni Wilde and Heather Randall; in pamphlet collection, Man at the Ice House, 2019, ed David Cooke, The High Window Press
Publications:
Man at the Ice House, 2019, The High Window, £10;
several poems in Seven Ages of Woman, Blue Funk, 2014, ISBN 978-0-9535473-5-7, price £6.50
Alison Mace website: http://alisonmacepoet.org.uk
e-mail Alison Mace
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Chiara Salomoni’s poems were published in Acumen, in Poetry Salzburg Review, in the PRS Review, in New Humanist and in Orbis. Her translation of a poem by Andrea Zanzotto was published in Poem. Her translations of a poem by Corrado Govoni were published in The Rialto and in New Humanist respectively.
Nonna Ida’s bag was in the cattleshed
for forty years, her beloved photos inside.
Paper perfect, colour intact
as if recently printed by a photographer.
Love is a strong thread
Photos of my parents’ wedding in the church,
my mother smiling under her veil.
My father standing in his uniform.
My father’s cousin, the embroiderer, laughing.
Love is a strong thread
One of my aunts flirting with a local bloke.
My cousin’s confirmation with her parents;
two other cousins shyly playing,
a view of sweet hills behind them.
Love is a strong thread
Nonna Ida wore black after nonno’s death,
and put her long hair up. But life went on.
Her big hands held her infant nephew
when his own mother suddenly died.
Love is a strong thread
Nonna Ida baked chestnut cakes for everyone,
told tales and folk stories, fought her battle
for her family safety during the war
when her Appennino was occupied.
Love is an endless thread
Nonna Ida longed to see me when I was born,
the only grandchild she never met.
Ida, from old High German, ‘woman warrior’,
the woman I would like to be.
Poem published on
The Blue Nib Digital Platform, May 2020;
also at poetry p f, 2021
Note:
Publications:
The High Window, Italian 3, 2021, includes a number of Chiara’s translations of poems by Andrea Zanzotto
Chiara Salomoni at poetry p f
Chiara Salomoni at The Society of Authors
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Alwyn Marriage has been a university Philosophy lecturer, Editor of a journal, Chief Executive of two international NGOs and is now Managing Editor of Oversteps Books. Her poetry and non-fiction are published widely and she reads in Britain and abroad.
the restaurant was called la Matelote,
– the same word as le matelot
but ending in an ‘e’
and therefore feminine.
We debated what a female sailor
would be called in English
other than, of course,
a sailor –
‘fish wife’ hasn’t quite the same
éclat: shore-bound and down-to-earth,
she scolds her husband
wipes scale-covered hands on bloodied apron;
‘sailor girl’ sounds
far more jaunty, even saucy,
a jolly sea shanty of a lass
who’s good at knots, but lacks maturity;
a ‘woman of the waves’, though cumbersome,
has a more romantic ring,
laid-back and offering
her ebb and flow, her undulating curves.
In our minds these women all
transmogrified into a mermaid,
sea-born and always breaking free
like words for which there’s no equivalent.
Consulting a dictionary to check
the latest addition to our French vocabulary
we found ‘la matelote’
simply means ‘fish stew’.
Poem published in French Literary Review and ARTEMISpoetry, Issue 6
Publications (a selection):
Possibly a Pomegranate: Celebrating Womankind, 2022, Palewell Press, ISBN 978-1-911587-61-3. £9.99
Chiara, ebook, Cutalongstory, 99p
Pandora’s Pandemic, 2021, SPM Publications, ISBN 978-1-9162263-7-1. £8
William Harvey’s Visitor, ebook, Cutalongstory, £1.99
The Elder Race, 2020, Bellinghouse Books, ISBN 978-0-9930443-1-1. £10
Rapeseed: Following rape – a novel, 2017, Stairwell Books, ISBN 78-1-939269-51-5. £10
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Helena Hinn lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. She has been published by Virago, Faber and Faber, and in Women’s Press anthologies and has a published collection of prose, Histories of the Imagination.
pins are silver – the colour of the moon
long ago women would throw pins into wells
giving back to the earth
a tiny part of what had been taken
the tiny insignificant pin
which is invaluable to women
: to secure when sewing
: to fix, to enable work to happen
women work for pin money
an insubstantial amount to the world
but essential to them
if women had an emblem
I would promote the pin
to the world it seems a small unimportant object
but women understand the value of a pin
and women’s values
know the essential nature of the tiny
and its part in the whole
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Iris Anne Lewis is published in a variety of publications. She has featured in the Silver Branch Series of Black Bough Poetry. In 2018 she founded Wordbrew, a Cirencester-based group of poets.
Mother stitches mackerel eyes
as sequins on my bodice. They wink
dark gold in the sun.
My sisters leave their baskets
brimming full of gutted herring.
They braid my hair with seaweed.
Grandmother binds my thighs together,
strokes my silver scales. Her hands
are rough with barnacles.
Trawler men sing shanties of storm-
tossed ships and foundered boats.
There is salt in their voices.
Women lead me to the water’s edge,
show me how to dance to the surge
and suck of the waves.
They break in a bridal froth
of foam. Spindrift settles
as confetti on my shoulders.
I flip my tail,
rip through the tide,
dive deep in the ocean.
Claim the sea as my own.
Poem published in Seaborne Magazine, 2022
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Jenny Morris writes poems and fiction. She has taught in the UK and abroad. Her writing has won awards, been published in five collections, numerous magazines and anthologies. She has read at literary festivals, on radio and in prison.
This circle’s rolled through many women’s lives.
This working hoop, this noose, this golden band
worn thin, so close to bone, it still survives.
This circle’s rolled through many women’s lives.
A spinning world that loses, shines and thrives
on grandma’s, mother’s, daughter’s thin left hand.
This circle’s rolled through many women’s lives.
This working hoop, this noose, this golden band.
Poem published in The Oldie
Publications: Domestic Damage, Cinnam on Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-7886490-1-8 Keeping Secrets, Cinnamon Press, 2015. ISBN 978-1-9090776-0-7 Lunatic Moon, Gatehouse Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-9554770-0-3
The Sin Eater, National Poetry Foundation, 1993. ISBN 978-1-8705563-8-5 Urban Space, National Poetry Foundation, 1991. ISBN 978-1870556811Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Kathryn Southworth, known as elmvillagepoet, is a retired academic. She was a founding fellow of the English Association, Vice Principal of Newman University College, review manager for QAA, governor in mental health and Rose Bruford Drama College.
Stopped outside Wigan Station on a rainy Tuesday
my eyes are drawn to writing on a factory wall – sweets –
and round the corner you can just make out
Uncle Joe’s mint balls keep…
Then childhood sweeps back on me –
my godfather, gentleman farmer, exotic
with Wigan accent and red wig, pressing on everyone
a sticky bag of amber globules –
these’ll keep thee warm.
His green eyes were the colour of country
to a town child, and the pocket watch
in his best black waistcoat shone
with the glamour of long ago.
My train moves on, and the writing on the wall
comes into full view, so now I know and how
could I forget – Uncle Joe’s mint balls
keep you all aglow.
Poem published in Between the Lines, City LIt Anthology
Publications:
Someone was here, 2018, Indigo Dreams Publishing, ISBN 978-1-910834-90-9
Wavelengths, poetry pamphlet with Belinda Singleton, June 2019, Dempsey and Windle, ISBN 978-1-907435-85-0
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Maggie is South Cumbria Poet Laureate 2007, and is having a wonderful time as Cumbria ambassador for poetry here and abroad. She is a writing tutor at Lancaster University. She adores waterways and lakes, preferably steering a 1.5hp Mariner engine on an orange inflatable.
And Life with the Great Poet?
I feel so privileged, being Alfred’s helpmeet
copying his works, for his hand is clarity itself.
All correspondence I attempt to answer in his style
and ink the pens for signatures during tea.
Interests?
Oh, yes, indeed, of course I have.
His poems I set to music on the pianoforte
and compose the hymns for family celebrations.
Between ourselves, my dear, I confess
to writing fiction of an autobiographical derivation,
but pray don’t make a note of that, for he
does not know of it but it is a comfort
that I might show it to the grandchildren.
Encouraged?
I always have, yes indeed.
Being late to marry at thirty-six
I had a very full life before and during
our long engagement, when dear Alfred
and I together made a name for him.
Family Life?
He’s built a sphere of love around us
in the houses I run both here and Aldworth.
So much to thank God and dear Alfred for,
so much, so much, and bless him,
he allows me to place upon his desk
handwritten notes (in what he charmingly
calls ‘my poetic prose’) on subjects
he might care to work up into poems.
Ah, yes – your interests?
Though not so much of late have I attended
to his needs, being easily fatigued
with a weary dragging pain that chains
me to this sofa, and dear Alfred
is so patient with what he terms
‘a womanly trouble’. He is my rock,
my fortress and my strength. What would I do without him?
Poem: Strokestown International Poetry Competition
in collection Onions and Other Intentions
Recent Pamphlets:
Onions and Other Intentions, 2012, Indigo Dreams, ISBN 978-1907401565, £7.99
Making Hay, with videopoem, commissioned for Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust and Sedbergh Book Town, in collaboration with videographer Kate Harrison Whiteside;
The Bundle on the Dresser, with DVD. The story of Tom, a hill farmer who wants his son to take over the farm. Then foot and mouth disease arrives;
Kurt Schwitters–in Praise of Life, a commissioned poem for radio, now with CD of two voices reading, with
Maggie’s music.
web-page on wordmarket.org.uk
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Marion Oxley is originally from Manchester but has been living amongst the flood plains of the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire for many years. Her poems are published widely in journals and anthologies.
after a Calderdale folktale of Gabriel Ratchets; spectral hounds and the hunting of Lady Sybil
who takes the form of a doe and is also thought to be a witch.
The valley is saturated, full to the brim,
a prayer bowl carried in anxious hands.
A woman strides out, walks the rim from moor to crag
sings to the wind of the substance of things not seen.
Breath dances in droplets, shapes form in a mist
spreading out beyond the black and white gates,
the lock unpicked, a question mark waiting; a cormorant
lost, sea-wings spread; a crucifix in the cold sun.
A glide of Canada Geese heads held high
hiss a warning, pink tongues quivering.
And the dog spoke of you last night
of the shiver of milk-white skin
of slender legs cleansed in the river
the pendulum swing of a racing heart
of when suspicion slid to a stop
in the moonlight the turn and weight
of your belly, a boulder flung down
from the out-crop, the arch of your hips
sprung making ready for the leap,
flames licking at your heels.
You’ll burn in hell, they said.
Listen to the thrum coming up
from underground, the hillside shifting, the movement.
In the rush and swell, push to the surface a split in bedrock.
Riven granite clouds release a yelp a howl left circling
the siren’s wail chasing tales out across the valley.
Second prize in The Red Shed Poetry Competition 2019. Published in a pamphlet of winning poems by Currock Press.
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Poet and novelist Pauline Kirk lives in York. She is editor of Fighting Cock Press, a member of the Pennine Poets group and on the editorial board of ‘Dream Catcher’. She also writes the DI Ambrose Mysteries with her daughter as PJ Quinn.
In Maltese heat
three terracotta heads
challenge through museum glass.
Noses tilt, eyes appeal,
yet each is no bigger
than a fifty-penny piece.
Who fashioned you? Who
took clay six thousand years ago,
to fashion your exact ears,
slender horns and throat?
Each neck hints a missing handle
now crumbled back to dust.
Did you decorate jars
for a god, or perfume for a bride?
My mind shudders
beneath the weight of years.
My ancestors crouched in caves,
but they carved horses’ heads on bone,
still beautiful.
I turn to safer displays,
but a question nags on.
What of our time will amaze,
when the silt is cleared,
six millennia gone?
Poem published in Pennine Platform, no 79, 2016;
in collection Time Traveller (see below)
Publications:
Time Traveller, Graft Poetry, 2017, ISBN 978-0-9558400-9-8, £8.50
Poetic Justice: A DI Ambrose Mystery, writing as PJ Quinn, Stairwell Books, 2017, ISBN 978-1-939269-77-5, £10.00
Thinking of You Always: the Letters of Cpl. Hill 1941-1945, Stairwell Books and Fighting Cock Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-939269-36-2, £10.00
Border 7, Stairwell Books, 2015, ISBN 978-1-939269-25-6, £10.00; also available as an Audio Book: Amazon Audible, 2019, ISBN 978-1-939269-72-0, £22.00 or Audible subscription
Walking to Snailbeach: Selected and New Poems, Redbeck Press, 2004, ISBN 1-904338-15-1, £8.95
Pauline Kirk website
Pauline Kirk at poetry p f
web pages Pennine Poets
e-mail
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Victoria Gatehouse is a poet and researcher. Her poems have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies and have featured on BBC Radio. Competition wins include Iklley, Otley, PENfro and the Indigo International Wild Nature Poetry Award. Victoria’s second pamphlet, The Mechanics of Love, published by smith|doorstop, was selected as a Laureate’s Choice in 2019.
The doctor says it’s nothing serious, something
she’ll just have to live with, a malfunction
of the nerves perhaps, not uncommon in women of her age
and she leaves with a script for a mild antidepressant,
a leaflet counselling moderation in alcohol, tobacco
and spicy foods and when she returns, he says it again
after taking a look at lips, teeth and tongue –
nothing to see and he says it with a smile when she can feel
the bees humming in her blood, the tips of their wings
chafing artery walls and she knows without being told
they’re house bees, the ones who feed, clean
and ventilate the hive, pack nectar into the comb
without really tasting it, the ones who wait for mid-life
to take their first orientation flights and she can really
feel the smart of them, the bees in her blood, unfurling
their proboscises to touch the corolla of her heart.
So many years spent licking out hives, all the burn of it
here on her tongue and they’re starting to forage now,
to suck sweetness into their honey stomachs, and the doctor
he’ll keep telling her it’s nothing when they’re rising
like stings, the words she’s kept in.
Poem published in Mslexia
Publications:
The Mechanics of Love, 2019, smith|doorstop
Light After Light, 2018, Valley Press
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet