Simone began writing poems in late 2004. She’s since been recorded, broadcast, published, & won several prizes. Simone also represented Wales in Radio 4’s performance poetry competition, 2009. She co-runs Ceridwen the Ceridwen Centre
If I tried to give you up, it would be like
buying a train ticket from Aberystwyth
to Hastings, on a Sunday or a Bank Holiday —
a reduced service, works on the line…
essential maintenance;
and I’d expected five changes, steeled myself for
Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, Reading, Gatwick
and Brighton,
had psyched myself to tick them off, one by one,
but found cancellations,
my progress halted, my plans thwarted,
my route re-arranged on a chalked easel
with quirky spellings…inaudible apologies…
and instead of three-down-two-to-go,
time for a coffee, a quick last sidinged pass
at crossword or sudoku,
I’d find I was just travelling — locomoting slowly —
in a large reticulated arc
back
to you.
Poem published: 1st Prize winner, Carillon magazine competition 2007, and published in Carillon issue 17, Mar/Apr 2007, ISSN 1474-7340.
Publications:
Cardiff Bay Lunch, Lapwing Publications (Belfast), 2010 – ISBN 978-1-907276-44-6 £8;
Not exactly getting anywhere but… – Ceridwen Press, April 2008, ISBN 978-1849231077 £3.50;
Juice of the Lemon, youwriteon.com, December 2008, ISBN 978-1849231077, £4.99
Simone Mansell Broome, Troed-y-Rhiw, Drefelin, Llandysul, Carmarthenshire, SA44 5XD
Simone Mansell Broome website
e-mail Simone Mansell Broome
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
Margaret took early retirement to live in Greece. She has had over 100 poems published individually and one collection, Spectators’ View (Peer Poetry International, 2002). In 2008: Cinnamon Press, Leaf Books, iota, Purple Patch and commendation in Barnet poetry competition.
In a forgotten drawer
my father’s wooden rule,
brass-hinged to unfold
sideways and lengthways
for measuring boat timbers.
I hear the slap and click
of its closing,
before I can say ‘lifeboat’,
see it vanish
into that long pocket
on the thigh of blue overalls.
Indicator of his precision
love of numbers
a life measured
in feet and inches
business takings
cricket scores
football pools
bingo calls.
His emotions kept in check,
marked off by pencil,
held in columns,
buttoned up in cardigans,
till an outburst
a sea-squall soon past.
Now he’s gone to talk
spans and cubits
and dead-reckoning with Noah.
Poem published: Iota, 2007
Publications: Collection, Spectators’ View, Peer Poetry International, 2002
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Jenny Hamlett has an MA in creative writing, has facilitated writing workshops and was Poet in Residence for Cassies, a garden on the Isle of Wight. She organised Penzance Poetry Society Stanza and is the current Treasurer of Moor Poets in Devon.
Kinlochleven
Discovered late evening
the fall
is the colour of a woman’s hair
as she strides
her last few years.
This sheer beauty
offers no pulling back
from the uninhibited
plunge
down vertical rock
a snatching of time,
hurling it
into the pool.
If seconds were iron bars
she could jam
in the cog wheels of a mill
she could not keep them,
against this grey fall.
Better to turn away
climb
one slow, hard step
after another towards
the winter pass
at Lairigmor.
in collection Playing Alice, Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2017;
previously in ARTEMISpoetry Issue 7, 2011
and Words in Air app, 2013
Publications:
Playing Alice, 2017, Indigo Dreams Publishing, ISBN 978-1-9108343-2-9
Talisman, 2009, Indigo Dreams Publishing, ISBN 978-0-9561991-9-5
The Sandtiger, 1994, Longman, ISBN 0-582-12169-8
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Gill Learner’s work has appeared in magazines such as Agenda, Acumen, ARTEMISpoetry, South and The High Window, and many anthologies; it has also won prizes and commendations. She has lived in Reading since 1966, is a keen gardener and fan of Radio 3.
With apologies to Derren Brown
The illusionist says
Think of a tune and write it on this card.
Let no-one see. Place it face down.
The conductor does as he is asked.
Please put your hands behind your back.
The illusionist binds them there, explains
The orchestra will start. They can tune up, play scales,
however they choose to make a quiet noise.
You, thinking a tune, projecting it, will conduct with just your eyes
till they all pick up the theme.
The players begin: a soft cacophony of strings, woodwind, brass.
Random threads stand out then blend until
one rope of notes emerges from the blurry sound.
The conductor nods, the orchestra plays on,
the audience begins to hum.
The music spills into the street.
Passers-by stop, add their voices, la-la-la-ing
if they don’t know Schiller’s words.
Cabs, buses, cars slow to a halt as drivers, passengers join in.
Office cleaners silence vacuums, chefs pull pans from the heat.
Out in the suburbs TVs are muted, conversation stops.
Everyone is carolling.
Ferries carry the song to Denmark, Belgium, France and Spain.
The chorus grows, colonising continents:
Tibetan monks chant the melody, favelas samba it,
townships kwela to the cadences, Memphis bends it blue.
Now the whole world is harmonising Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’.
The illusionist smiles.
Published in collection: Change, Two Rivers Press, 2021.
Publications:
Collections: The Agister’s Experiment, 2011,
Chill Factor, 2016; Change, 2021, all from Two Rivers Press.
Anthologies: Fanfare (2015) & Her Wings of Glass (2014), Second Light Publications; The Emma Press Anthology of Love, 2018; plus over eight from Grey Hen Press, plus others from competitions.
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
Elizabeth Rapp lives in Somerset. She runs residential and day poetry workshops at various South West venues. She is a graduate teacher, Lay Minister, and has worked with the homeless and with children.
I begged him for a garden,
hollyhocks and delphiniums.
He gave me grottoes of ice.
No birds sing here: only the sound
of moonlight dreaming snow at midnight.
I have become bone carved from ice.
I spin on a needle’s point,
watched by an angel huddled
in snow with icebound wings;
his stricken face as I twirl and twirl.
Those dark and subtle hands
have locked me in this kingdom,
this palace of death-white ice.
Floors are as slippery as his lies.
I wander through cubes of refracted light
where indigo and jade dance on my silver dress,
turn into birds of paradise.
But today a small brown bird
perched on my wrist, then
gave me a pomegranate seed
from his beak.
Poem: Winner of the A.A. Sanders poetry prize, 2000
Publications:
Dancing on Bones, full collection, Rockingham Press, 2000.
Living Proof, The Amate Press, Oxford.
Hare and Sixpence, The Rigmal Press, Devon
A CD of Elizabeth’s poems is available, £7, direct from Elizabeth.
The Lodge
Dillington
Ilminster
Somerset
TA19 9EH
tel: 01460 259898
e-mail
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Joan Sheridan Smith’s work has been widely published in the small (and not so small, ed) presses including Acumen, Envoi, Iota, Poetry Monthly) and she has a pamphlet collection available (Gallery, Poetry Monthly Press, 2006).
You have a gentle touch with living things.
I can’t pick up a mouse, a frog, a bird,
afraid of harming them. You scoop them up,
cradle them in your hands and lift them clear
of the cat’s predatory paw.
You also love the cat.
In this I am reminded of my father.
He'd trap a window wasp
with an upended glass,
and sliding underneath a piece of card,
release it to the hazards of the air.
Publications:
Gallery, Poetry Monthly Press;
Schubertiad, collaborative CD (poems interspersed with piano pieces), £7.50 (orders via Joan);
A Garland for David, Poetry Monthly Press, £5 from www.poetrymonthly.com
38 Holcombe Crescent
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP2 9QZ
tel: 01473 601965
Joan on poetry p f
e-mail
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Sue Wallace-Shaddad is a Suffolk- based poet with an MA from The Poetry School/Newcastle University (2020). Her poems are widely published and she is digital writer-in-residence for the Charles Causley Trust and Secretary of Suffolk Poetry Society
Head against cheek,
arms holding tight,
they rise from the water
like disembodied ghosts.
No words to explain
from where they have come.
The sea is a foreign place.
Not all will escape.
poem from Sleeping Under Clouds, a collaboration with artist Sula Rubens
Publications:
Sleeping Under Clouds, art and poetry pamphlet, 2023, Clayhanger Press, ISBN 978-1-7391770-2-7, £10
Art (anthology), 2021, Hybrid Press, ISBN 978-1-8734121-6-9
A City Waking Up, pamphlet, 2020, Dempsey & Windle ISBN 978-1-9133292-6-6, £8
A working life, self-published pamphlet 2014, out of print
Sue Wallace-Shaddad website
e-mail Sue Wallace-Shaddad
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Hilary Hares lives in Farnham, Surrey. Her poems have found homes online and in print and she has an MA in Poetry from MMU. Whilst waiting for the muse, she’s slave to a demanding bird table and lives in hope of meeting the perfect dog.
All Gormley’s kin each is his own man.
The local children call one Jeff.
They drown every day.
Like gods they have no smiles.
Sometimes Titian or Hockney
will paint them a dawn and,
when the tide recedes, jellyfish land
at their feet like green glass plates.
I watch as seagulls perch on their shoulders,
mirror their gaze, ask: Why stare so hard?
But they’re not letting on, their eyes fixed
as though they can’t bear to look down.
I persist: According to Frost nothing
we’re searching for is out far or in deep?
Their silence is deeper than the sea. I make
a final bid for conversation, tell them this:
I can see what’s happening behind you.
There’s no turning back.
Winner: Write by the Sea 2018 Literary Festival Competition, 2018
Publications:
A Butterfly Lands on the Moon, sold in support of Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Jay Whittaker’s debut poetry collection Wristwatch (Cinnamon Press) was the Poetry Book of the Year in the Saltire Society Literary Awards 2018, and her second collection, Sweet Anaesthetist, is published October 2020 (Cinnamon Press).
(day 20, first chemo cycle)
Do tree tips tingle, niggle like my scalp?
Most people’s hair (I’m told) comes out on day eighteen.
White hairs work loose first, waft down.
This late summer evening, my scarfed skull
as bald and vulnerable as a fledgling’s,
I stand under the row of sycamore, my neck sore
from looking up to the abundance of leaves.
Whatever happens to me, the earth is turning.
At the same hour in winter, haven’t I stood
in this very spot, watching bare branches
implore the sky for light?
Poem originally published in Wristwatch, 2017, Cinnamon Press
Publications:
Sweet anaesthetist, 2020, Cinnamon Press, ISBN 978-1-7886408-3-1, £9.99
2 poems in Staying Human: new poems for staying alive, 2020, Bloodaxe Books, ISBN 978-1-7803739-0-4, £12.99
4 poems in Scottish feminist judgments, 2019, Hart Publishing, ISBN 978-1-5099232-6-7, (hbk) £95
Wristwatch, 2017, Cinnamon Press, ISBN 978-1-9108368-0-4, £8.99
Pearl, Selkirk Lapwing Press, 2005, 0953121267, out of print
Pearl, 2005, Selkirk Lapwing Press, ISBN 0-9-531212-6-7 (out of print)
Jay Whittaker website
e-mail Jay Whittaker
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet