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
Four poems have been published in ‘Mirrored Voices’ An Anthology of Emerging Poetsfrom around the world. It was incepted by the American fiction/non fiction author Paul Morabito.
My blue kettle has stood for years on the kitchen counter.
Boiled innumerably over years:
cups of tea, coffee, hot water for cooking, or a winter’s bed bottle;
gently doing its job – unacknowledged!
This morning as I lift it to fill it with water for a coffee
a shaft of sun glitters over its old surface.
I stop, my hand raised between the handle and tap
listening to the water running –
my thoughts pour-back to that old farmhouse
where water was precious – the only source
a single tap that piped rainwater from an open concrete tank
unfit for drinking, only for boiling.
Even in age my aunt twice daily, would hang two white metal buckets
on the handlebars of her bike, ride/walk to the pump
fill them with spring water, her only drinking water.
I look again at the kettle and recognize other women
who today have the same task: –
for drinking water is the source of life
prized by them as without a single bucket or bottle
they die.
Poem published in Reach Poetry 300, 25 Anniversary Edition
Collection: Timelines, Indigo Dreams, 2014, ISBN 978-1-909357-53-2, £7.99
Anthology: Mirrored Voices Emerging Poets Anthology, Star Investment Strategies LLC, 2015, ISBN 978-1-5077107-1-5, £6.95.
Tel: 07950 395607
web-pages on poetry p f
Carolyn O’Connell blog
e-mail
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Dilys Wood has connections to Wales, Yorkshire, London and Sussex. She returned to writing in late middle-age and founded Second Light in 1994, her interest in greater opportunities for women having been re-inforced by her experience as Secretary of the Women’s National Commission.
Dilys is the founder and organiser of Second Light Network. (see ‘More’ link below)
A poem is as new as beginnings,
as fresh as the first day at school.
A poem is as bright as our admiration
for courage, our respect for freedom.
A poem is as early as the first leaf,
as white as the most swan-white cloud.
A poem is a drop of rain, a little
convex mirror with the prime of day in it.
A poem is so raw, so young that it has grown
no first, second or third skin.
Publications:
Antarctica, Greendale Press, 2008 (all proceeds to Second Light Network funds). Direct from Dilys, £5.95.
Women Come to a Death, Katabasis, 1997.
address:
3 Springfield Close
East Preston
West Sussex
BN16 2SZ
e-mail [NOTE: tiscali address is redundant. Please amend your record to btinternet address]
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Gill Horitz has worked in the arts for over 30 years. She co-edited South 47. Her work has been published/placed in various magazines/competitions, including a shortlisting for the Bridport Prize. She belongs to a Poetry Group run by Paul Hyland.
End of day, end of year – and she’s thinking what’s next,
her head against the pane and the wind slamming the gate.
When she looks up, the trees are moving through the half light
towards her, through snow piled over the vanished road.
Not a single thought holds her back.
All the meanings held by the trees she remembers,
and how their barks can be unrolled and written upon.
No ordinary wood moves like this, and time is short.
Through the holly tunnels she sings a low song to the owl
and the night leans down, savouring her wintry breath.
What will I take from this? she thinks, looking back
as the moon hurries her along. To believe just once
that such a place exists, the imaginary heart
where everything worth moving towards lies.
Poem published in Smiths Knoll, Issue 50
State of Play Arts
Gill Horitz at poetry p f
e-mail Gill Horitz
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Jan Bay-Petersen, a New Zealander, worked in agricultural development and lived for 20 years in Taiwan. She began writing poetry after she moved to Cambridge. She has published in several poetry journals and won the 2013 Poetry Society Stanza Poetry Competition.
The closer we live to our gods, the more we need games.
Luck isn’t random: it chooses and fondles, then flits,
while we phantom midges soar high on the breath
of the gods or are drowned in their spit.
If our buzzing offends, if we stick in their throat,
they may take as amends what we don’t want to lose,
and you pay with an arm and a leg. Let us pray.
Playing games gives a hint. They’re a rear-vision mirror
to show what is coming up close from behind.
They won’t stop the truck, but maybe you’ll pause
a significant tick while you’re sending a text
so your paths don’t collide. If you’re ten over par,
if your darts hit the wire – give the blind date a miss.
Don’t ask for a raise, not today. Catch the bus.
Wait till you throw double six, till your horse
gallops home, till the ball draws a line
from your boot to the goal, till the Queen, King and Knave
join the cloverleaf Ace. Though you can’t read the stars
you can tip them like Braille and the rhythms are good,
your sails belly and fill, the duck’s entrails are pink.
There’s a cat and he’s black and you’re blessed. Take the trick.
Poem published in The North, 50
Jan Bay-Petersen at poetry p f
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Joy Howard’s poems have featured in several anthologies. Now retired from social services, she works as a freelance consultant, lecturer and editor. She is a co-founder of Grey Hen Press and a contributor to Grey Hen’s inaugural publication Second Bite.
and anchored in a fretwork of foam
over sea-shimmering silver gilt sand
I’m bliss-basking like an old grey seal
beached and loving it
so till the seventh wave
lolls over me and nudges me back
to the sea let your hands glide
over mounded flesh and soft pelt
while you plumb my fathomable eyes
and marvel at my stillness
believe me
I’m more graceful in water
in collection Foraging, 2017, Arachne Press;
previously published in anthology Running Before the Wind,
2013, Grey Hen Press
tel: 01535 645711
Grey Hen Press
Joy at poetry p f
e-mail
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Editor, novelist & poet, Kay Syrad’s third solo collection is What is near (Cinnamon, 2021). She co-runs eco-poetry courses as half of the composite eco-poet kin’d & kin’d. She lives in rural East Sussex.
caught by the sun the fly zigzags darts
disappears another or the same fly appears
darts disappears the beech branches grow out
horizontally seeking light the leaves bright green
and shadowing some yellow the oak
hooshes in its high canopy the wind
the sound the green the yellow
in here
shame happens and a proxy shame happens
the feeling filters down through organs
tissue as if woven on a loom as if the body
is a loom and shame the warp the weft
out here
is where I am in the all-ish vastness of wrong acts
a half-thought a said/unsaid the buzzing
isn’ continuous but pulses at intervals re-charging
in the (de) forest in the parched soil
Poem from collection What is near, Cinnamon Press, 2021
Publications:
What is near, 2021, Cinnamon Press
Wild Correspondings: an eco-poetry source book, 2021, Elephant Press
Inland, 2021, Cinnamon Press
Exchange, 2015, Little Toller
Send (novel), 2015, Cinnamon Press
Kay Syrad website
e-mail Kay Syrad
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Marie Papier is a French-Swiss novelist and poet. Author of three novels including the Prix Schiller. She studied English Poetry with London Poetry School. Published in several magazines, anthologies, online.
For Dana Smith-Littlepage
She has a way with apples
as mothers have with babies
How she looks at them
silently smiling, as if about to
peck their flesh, relish
the smooth grain of their skin
and how tenderly she brings
her knife into play
the blade slicing through
the pulp, deftly sparing
the core – the fruit’s
intimacy unscathed –
as mothers hold the integrity
of their child until self breaks free.
first published in The Lighthouse poetry magazine issue 23
Publications:
English, as Marie Papier
in anthology Voices for the Silent, 2022, Indigo Dreams Publishing, ISBN 978-1-912876-74-7
The Weather Indoors, 2020, Pandemic Poetry, Tangent Books, Bristol, ISBN 9781914345005
Calyx, 2019, Bristol Stanza anthology, Tangent Books, Bristol, ISBN 978-1-64606-889-0
French, as Marie-José Piguet:
Petits Contes d’Outre-Manche, 1990, Editions de l’Aire, Lausanne, ISBN 2-88108-055-3
Une Demoiselle Eblouissante, 1987, Editions de l’Aire, Lausanne
Jean Fantoche, Portrait bouffon d’une auguste famille,, 1981, Ed. Bertil Galland, Prix Schiller 1982, ISBN ISBN 2-88015-064-7
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Myra Schneider has many collections of poetry. Other publications include novels for young people and books about personal writing. One is Writing My Way Through Cancer (Jessica Kingsley 2003). She tutors for the Poetry School in London.
Myra is a Consultant to Second Light Network, a previous competition judge, and is on the Tutor list. (see ‘More’ link below)
Plant yourself in the quiet on a familiar floor
or on an uncut summer lawn
and, thinking of seabirds, stretch out your arms,
let them ascend through the unresisting air.
With palms facing upwards, travel your hands
till your fingertips almost meet,
then release your breath, begin to separate yourself
from the weight of all that lies on you.
Allow your mind to open to this moment and your arms
to rise as they lift the palpable blue
high above the crown of your head.
Your wings will fold away
but raise them slowly to the blue again, maybe
a lightness like liquid amber will flow through you.
Poem published: Lifting the Sky, Ward Wood Publishing, 2018
Publications:
Siege and Symphony, Second Light Publications, 2021, ISBN 978-0-9927088-2-5, £9.95
Lifting the Sky, Ward Wood Publishing, 2018, ISBN 978-1-9087426-8-1, £9.99
Persephone in Finsbury Park (pamphlet), Second Light Publications, 2016, ISBN 978-0-9927088-2-5, £7.95
The Door to Colour, Enitharmon, 2014, ISBN 978-1-9075875-1-1, £9.99
Writing Your Self (with John Killick), Continuum, 2008, 978-1-8470625-2-9, £17.99
Writing Your Way Through Cancer, Jessica Kingsley, 2003, 1-843101-13-0, £19.95
Myra Schneider website
See Maitreyabandhu 2012 interview with Myra (40 minutes): Poetry East Interview
and Basil Clarke interview with Myra on her collection Siege and Symphony: Feb 2022, Poetry in Palmers Green
e-mail
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
I am a retired lecturer in English Literature. I write poetry and short stories and I have just completed a memoir, and I’m now working on a novel. I contine to write poetry as it is my first love.
What picture soothed the mind’s eye
and brought her to life again?
Maybe the white pillow case on the line
puffed up and puckered like a barnacle goose.
Or the memory of my first love,
waiting for me in his room, while I
a callow, skimp of a girl – barely
seventeen, and not yet broken in –
carelessly lingered by the landing
window, where below, over the fence,
I saw a young mother, pegging
out nappies in the snow along
a frosted loop of rope – her red hair
plaited and coiled like a coronet
to frame the loveliness of her face.
And I found myself caught in the silent
beauty and rhythm of her movement –
arching down, and reaching up
on the ringing, frosted path –
her raw, worn hands pinching
the corners of her parchment poetry –
her masterpieces stretched out to dry.
I didn’t know then that her mirrors
were already sheeted, and her spirit
demised with every shot of breath.
I didn’t know she wanted a sarcophagus
stamped with the face of the moon – bold, too, with tigery stripes,
and her body embalmed in warm
honey to lie beside her copper cauldron
and rouge-pots, glowing vermillion
like the eyes of a predatory god.
And her heart to be wrapped
in brown paper, tied up with string
and tucked between her bare, crossed feet.
23 Fitzroy Road is a prize winning poem: Sentinel Poetry competition, September 2012
Publications:
Short Story, Crake’s Troll, published in collection Significant Spaces,
Earlyworks Press, 2013, ISBN 978-1-9064518-6-8 £8.99
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Veronica Zundel is a freelance writer for the Christian market, and has written poetry for over 50 years. She graduated (Dist.) in 2019 from the Poetry School/Newcastle Un. MA in Writing Poetry. Poems published in Magma, The Alchemy Spoon, Mslexia.
The Dresden Philharmonic are playing Jewish violins,
salvaged somehow – who knows? – from the ashes of camps,
force-played by the inmates for their torturers’ amusement
If I forget you, O Jerusalem
and rebuilt by this Israeli man, speaking French, in whose eyes
is the clarity of devotion. He has done this for twenty years.
On one fiddleback, a swastika and ‘Heil Hitler’ had been drawn
Let my right hand lose its cunning
but who’s to say if the music dragged from these guts
is disturbing the dead, or lament, or the dare of resurrection?
Who has the right to tell?
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth
if I forget
poem based on a YouTube video
Poem published in Magma 75, 2019
Publications:
Going Out, Hodder 1990
Faith in her Words: six centuries of women’s poetry, Lion 1991
The Time of our Lives, BRF 2007
Crying for the Light, BRF 2008
All I know about God, I’ve learned from being a parent, BRF 2013
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet