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Hear poet Phoebe Gilmore read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Phoebe Gilmore wave 24 winter 2025 back next the poet Originally from Devon but based now in London, Phoebe Gilmore has work in And Other Poems , Propel Magazine , Seaford Review , The Shore and eggplusfrog . She was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize in 2024, and is currently working towards her debut collection. the poems Gynaecology Ranch 00:00 / 01:00 Giddy up leather filly there’s no use in lying down like a dead book our appointment opens me to the hills the secret once found is grainy and black buried under gut and a disposable mini- skirt of blue paper doctor in the field give me an answer clear and thick as cold lubrication so I may slip prescription into my filly’s mouth a brilliant metal knocking against teeth when I squeeze left and right dig my spurs into her bloated belly knickerless animal on animal when home I’ll sleep off the long ride like shrugging out of a winter coat Turning King 00:00 / 00:47 When I attempt to atomise, when I’m a ball of spine and flinging small dogs from my throat across bathroom tile, figure womb before as a light membrane of a forgotten sock, transformed to a pale fist of mud night beginning and with it a fire engine in my underwear, in my blood pills spinning their wheels, I open to the toilet bowl, turn king, it’s my castle. Here comes the big one After Hase 00:00 / 00:55 Godspeed big pink bunny you appeared brief and accidental but five years of hands made you and assembled your gangles like you fell from the sky cartoonish slide whistle a dropped clown apple covered in hiker ants on Colletto Fava the weather ate you in the end and in the end the weather ate you into a greying gym sock I’m trying to find your ghost on Google Maps I too will deteriorate before my predicted time of deterioration lying on the floor of my hallway assembled like I’ve fallen from the ceiling Publishing credits Gynecology Ranch: And Other Poems Turning King: Goldfish Anthology (Goldsmiths University) Here comes the big one: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Holly Bars read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Holly Bars wave 24 winter 2025 back next the poet Known for her work on surviving CSA, Leeds poet Holly Bars has been published in The Moth , Stand , The London Magazine , Ink, Sweat & Tears and elsewhere. She was one of six New Northern Poets in 2024, as chosen by the Ilkley Literature Festival , and published her debut, Dirty , with Yaffle Press. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Leeds. the poems Rewriting my Mother’s Death 00:00 / 00:59 The Moon kissed my mother, came in through the front door, to her room, to her bed, and it fitted perfectly; the Moon was all cream and sugar that night, and my mother was coffee. Moon kissed my mother like mercy: the awaited home after a journey; smoke in the chimney; the warm teacup. Kissed my mother, and I can see how the Moon filled the room with the opposite of alone. Moon kissed my mother when my mother could barely hold herself up; the longest night. The Moon kissed my mother, Alicia, and she kissed back. Breathing in stardom 00:00 / 01:32 with all the glamour of a maisonette in Bramley. Our coke is cut with crystals of Persil, paracetamol, gunpowder. Someone’s mum’s kitchen is our dressing room whilst she’s sectioned. Someone else fetches a mirror, CD cases, rolls up five pound notes which probe our nostrils, fills them fat till our amethyst veins crack. We stream onto the red carpet of the living room, clamour in 60-watt light, and not even beetling mould can dampen this. Everyone wants us. Someone plays bassline and it beats down our arms, pulses in our nipples and clits and cocks. And we hang off fire, white and obvious, lips releasing, talking the rabbit off the moon. Even our blood is noisy, itching with wishes and achievement because we’re seventeen, bright and brilliant in this beautiful snow blanket we dress ourselves in for a night; kiss and talk, fuck forever. Before morning dusts us, sun steals our starlight and blood becomes black. The Magic Circle 00:00 / 01:11 Magicians keep their methods in a ring, wear ordinary clothes, ordinary faces, have ordinary jobs. Some people tell you that magicians are old men with a pension and no hobbies: this is a trick. Magicians love tricks, especially that one; it helps them, makes them mythic. Magicians love getting away with it. They love their stage and apparatus, their wands, pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Magicians pick their assistants carefully. But most of all, they love the hoodwink. Magicians love showmanship, to flaunt. They love the awe of the audience, the round of applause. Magicians love the climax; the white dove disappearing; a body sawn in half. They live for the wonder in a child’s eyes. A good magician never tells their secrets. Publishing credits Rewriting my Mother ’s Death : Black Nore Review (Nov 28th 2024) Breathing in Stardom / The Magic Circle: Dirty (Yaffle Press)

Hear poet Deborah Finding read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Deborah Finding wave 14 summer 2023 back next the poet Originally from North-East England and now living in London, Deborah Finding is a queer feminist writer with a background in academia and activism. Her poetry has featured in fourteen poems , The Alchemy Spoon , The Friday Poem and anthologies from Live Canon, Renard Press, Victorina and Fly on the Wall Press. She came first in the poetry category of the Write By The Sea Literary Festival Writing Competition 2022, and was commended in the Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2022. Her debut pamphlet vigils for dead and dying girls is forthcoming from Nine Pens. the poems amortisation 00:00 / 01:34 you explained to me that amortisation is the depreciation of non-tangible assets which are things like goodwill and loyalty and relationships you can depend on it’s a complex calculation to figure out what these things are worth, the factors that add to or detract from their value and how quickly they can be lost but I want to try, I always did I can show my workings out, in your spread sheets, under which we did, to an advanced level, excel … I write this as addictive additive, also when you said you would love me all of the days. like infinity plus one but plus one was the problem which leads us to the minus column your creative accounting of her to me, to her of me, every evasion a reduction of your credit score and now we disagree on the answer I show you a number in the red you tell me of future investments and paint me a unicorn valuation but it turns out amortisation is just the process of slowly writing off a debt on paper at least. so consider it done, books balanced, no net gain loving you was a zero-sum game dear ______ 00:00 / 03:24 My therapist told me to picture you as a scorpion in a guided meditation, in which she had me imagine – in a very visceral way – crushing you to death with my foot, till you were nothing but shit and dust. Now, I know what you are thinking: surely a real therapist would never suggest such a thing! but to be totally honest with you she is somewhat unconventional in her methods and only the week before this she had asked me to imagine finding a grave and looking down to see your lifeless body in the deep and open dirt – the knowledge of your death giving me back my own breath which I'd been holding all these months terrified that I could see you on every corner your dark hair swinging behind you in front of me a kind of ponytail PTSD. I wish I was joking. Anyway, back to you as a scorpion, did you know it’s said they're viciously venomous for no reason? Have you heard that fable about the frog and the scorpion, that ends with the scorpion saying, it’s in my nature ? Well, I don’t believe that shit. I don’t believe you were born like that to sting for the sake of it. But it doesn’t matter because you are that now and you should be approached with extreme caution and protective clothing, if at all and I learned the hard way that anyone who would keep a scorpion for a pet is a fool. There’s an urban myth that if you light a circle of fire around a scorpion it will sting itself to death horribly … for a long time I thought about how I could set your world on fire: trap you in a prison with only your own poison for company, and glass walls and spotlights for all to see who you really are. I texted your name so often that my phone still wants to gift it to me in autocorrect whenever I type the first three letters but this is progress, because for a while just the E would do it. One day I hope I can look at your name in black and white or even meet someone else with it, and not hate them on sight and though today is not that day I know it must be coming. I don’t think of you so much now and I wear a scorpion earring. Not every day but on those mornings where I wake up shaking or when the offence of an injustice is simply overwhelming. It helps remind me that it’s ok if a battle is too bloody to fight, that self-care sometimes means you don’t get to win even when you’re right and the day I grew up is the day I understood that the sun shines just the same on evil and good. Ah, scorpion … despite all I learned about you it’s not in my nature to claim you have no path to salvation but it does bring me comfort to know that at any moment any enemy can be crushed if only in imagination. distracted 00:00 / 00:42 today I did not want to write about desire I had loftier plans for worthier topics some notes about injustices and a page already half-baked with an idea about a town but you walked me home last night after dinner and before you took a cab so now my hands are your hands thinking dextrously of the five delicious minutes spent kissing you in the rain, our cold wet faces in refreshing contrast to our hot wet mouths tongues tasting intoxicatingly of our desserts and of not having kissed each other for a week Publishing credits amortisation: Live Canon Anthology 2022 (Live Canon) dear ______: exclusive first publication by iamb distracted: Hearth & Coffin Literary Journal (Vol. 2, Issue 1)

Hear poet Daniel Hinds read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Daniel Hinds wave 11 autumn 2022 back next the poet Winner of the Poetry Society’s Timothy Corsellis Young Critics Prize and commended in the National Centre for Writing’s UEA New Forms Award, Daniel Hinds lives in Newcastle. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in a wide variety of respected titles, including The London Magazine , The New European , Wild Court , Stand , Poetry Salzburg Review , The Honest Ulsterman and Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal . Daniel was commissioned by New Creatives – a talent development scheme supported by Arts Council England and BBC Arts and delivered by Tyneside Cinema – to produce an audio piece based on his poetic sequence The Stone Men of Newcastle . This has been aired on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 6 Music. the poems The Crying of the Gulls 00:00 / 01:08 Between the shadow line on sand of your parasol And the lapped slush beside the salt threshold Is her hunting ground that moves With the light and the tide. Her dark painted nails dip in the white pool Of Mr Whippy’s spilt beach bleach Like livid pupils, small in the sick waters Of her mascaraed eyes. Sometimes the swaying of the black fans Around her pink legs catches a man’s eye. But not even the most spasmodic twitcher Looks for long at her yellow lips, marked By a red beauty spot, And the long grey bruises of her arms. The thick muscle of her neck undulates, Jaw unhinges, and untouched by the waves Of arms, she lets the slick suntan grease Ease the passing. Between the beach’s squashed chips and faded newsprint She plucks and swallows a knotted spotted handkerchief. Ode to a Magpie / One for Sorrow O for a beaker full of the warm South ~ John Keats ~ Ode to a Nightingale 00:00 / 01:28 Keats can keep / his numb-tongued nightingale; / I’ll save my stolen silver speech / for my pale and black / kleptomaniac. / Magpie, your bad luck beak is slick / with Satan’s serpent blood / and was / silent, / when all the others bayed for Christ / on his wet-blooded bough. / When Noah took to his Ark, / you alone stayed, / and strayed / to see the world drown, / to hear the secret knowledge of its last words, / and drink down its last / best / breath; / and like Noah, / swallowed your sorrows, and became Bacchus’s bird, / with wine-dark wings. / When all the other blackbirds were put in a pie, / you stole the silverware, / and carved out a bad name for yourself. / The world gives good mornings / to the one who heard its last good nights, / who would not shelter, / or sing / for a god on his beam. / Bad luck bird – be trod upon. / Bridge / the starry silver stream. / Link us / to the weaver of worlds / and words. The Magi’s Camel With the voices singing in our ears ~ T. S. Eliot ~ Journey of the Magi 00:00 / 02:21 The fat god squats between back braes. Does not discern the soft gasp as hoof meets grit; Even the dust fears the determined, unerring hammer Of two dark nails. The murmur of cloth, creaking leather and dry lips, The gold of a weak winter’s sun, a thin wash for a parched place. The sense behind, of a conversation on direction spoken frank. This is a life with few gifts; noses closed to scent, Thick lashes shading even the season’s poor wealth. The murder of your bones by flights of carrion birds. The shaggy and silken fortress moves, Gains and loses territory with every step. Stamps the sand with an alien sigil. A creature with six hands; two to bear the whip, Four to do the work. The adoration of the magi is a tough love. The way always, of those of the hill And those who speak from the mount. Slick guts work the miracle; A drop will last a week. A drink lasts longest for those last to drink. Only the sight of a horse without rider, white and old as starlight, Running masterless among long grasses, cooled and stilled by night, Stirs the hard muscle of a young heart from its dry and steady beat. The blurred and furry pulpit makes its way across the desert. Magicians preach from the turret, but none here will follow the hard way. For all they say, only thick soles and spindle limbs know the hardness. They know the weight of all the far-travelled books of sorcery. The washerwomen and shepherds jeer, fling earth; They have their own magic to work. Yes, three kings, three trees, a star, a child, But two humps. Discarded crowns gain swift burial in the desert. No, the way back the same as the way there. Publishing credits The Crying of the Gulls: Travels & Tribulations: An Anthology (Acid Bath Publishing) Ode to a Magpie / One for Sorrow: Rewilding: An Ecopoetic Anthology (Crested Tit Collective) The Magi’s Camel: Southword (Issue 41)

Hear poet Kate Caoimhe Arthur read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Kate Caoimhe Arthur wave 23 autumn 2025 back next the poet Kate Caoimhe Arthur lives in Co. Down, Ireland, having spent time in Cambridgeshire as the 2017 Fenland Poet Laureate where she collaborated with fine art printmaker Iona Howard . As well as winning the award that secured her the poet laureateship, Kate also won the 2023 Spelt Magazine Nature Poetry Competition with her poem, The Irish farmhands mourn the death of a child at Denny Abbey . Currently at work on her first collection, Kate has poetry in The Stinging Fly , Blackbox Manifold and After... the poems MOTHER ... After the Studio Morison installation MOTHER ... at Wicken Fen (2020) 00:00 / 01:23 I am coming back inside / you the hayrick oikos I’ve been looking for / I know there are some changes I should make / need stilts now to lift these hems off the hostile earth / my basal body temperature dropped as my skin puckered up / I felt my skin ripple to a sheen in its tansy beetle phase / I made for the haywalls but the light fell on my oil-spill flanks / I knew myself reflected in the eye of a bird / braced and pushed files of keratin / -like needles along my back and sides / grew down and feather fold over fold / I flew up to a rafter near your apse mother / but all I could taste in my throat was beetles beetles / in my hunger I could feel my leg muscles extending / my claws contracting into nubby pads / I didn’t know what I was any more / but my lips wrenched back so my face was all teeth / at least part of me is shadow and needs to be dragged / I will be ready when the next one comes through Bewildered Mothers 00:00 / 01:09 like a nuclear facility in a suburban zone to an Artificial Intelligence operated drone is the nutrient-dense squalene-rich liver of the Pacific Great White Sleeper tucked tenderly by its other vital organs behind the plate-glass reflection sheening a baby-plump underbelly to the taste of an orca, specifically the Flat-Toothed Ecotype or the North Pacific Offshore these same Killer Whales who can pinpoint the precise location to disjoint unctuous purple lozenges slow-releasing of potency are those bewildered mothers propelled through coastal waters say, off San Juan Island, Washington, pushing and holding aloft its dead baby regardless of the state of decay for seventeen days bearing the carcass offering the ocean a chance to witness squint 00:00 / 01:04 I entered the cell slowly and delicately cringing to fit the space this action accorded with a version of myself I admired 4ft x 6ft subfusc but for a cross shaped slit through which meaty drops of candle flame or is it god steal either way I lap it up opposite a puckered flap through which food comes and shit goes I always wanted to inhabit another body and now here I am a woman constantly on the edge when the host is held to my tongue I swoon it burns through my body licking at the tips of my numb limbs they say I tether the church to the earth on which it stands Publishing credits MOTHER ... : After... (Dec 8th 2022) Bewildered Mothers / squint: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Hilary Watson read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Hilary Watson wave 23 autumn 2025 back next the poet Growing up in South Wales and now living in Cardiff, Hilary Watson graduated from the University of Warwick with a BA and MA in Writing. She was a Jerwood/Arvon mentee, and has had her poetry published widely in UK and international magazines, including Atrium , Ink, Sweat & Tears , Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal and The Interpreter's House . Hilary is also an editor at thrutopian writing magazine, Bending The Arc . the poems Accountability Badger 00:00 / 01:31 Badger glares at you in the street from behind the net curtains of his two up two down. No chimney smoke, no love escapes the chamber of his heart. He knows what you did, what you keep doing to yourself each time you choose avoidance, when you’re too fearful to forgive. ‘Unforgivable,’ he mutters, sips tepid Marmite, his claws tight on the handle of the mug. He’s thinking now of earthworms, slugs, of how you hold him hostage in this Valleys town because you crave accountability, refuse to take the test, to do the work yourself, the stripes behind his ears turning grey. ‘One last job,’ he’d said, typically assignments taking half as long. He clasps the teaspoon in his padded paw, stirs clockwise, anticlockwise, tuts, shakes his head as some new excuse issues from your mouth. Excuse 00:00 / 00:59 The excuse arrives in the palm as though it was always going to land there, like a dragonfly out on the hunt, settling to eat its catch. The excuse is effervescent, more delicate than expected but who can deny that weight of legs in the centre of an outstretched hand? Fortunes cannot be read, but look here; that stance across the life and love lines folded into crevices. Who could ask for a more convincing reason, conceive of a lie that cuts so deep as the jaw of that magnificent dragonfly crushing a gnat to cells? Pygmy Hippo 00:00 / 01:05 Lean on my gate. The man in green throws carrots into this stew of my own making. Submerged, I can hold my breath for ages, walk underwater, bob for air, my nostrils bubbling apostrophes. Toss me a dandelion leaf. I’ll show you that to love me is to know no decency. Shy, me? I can go months without making a peep. I sweat blood. Ferocity’s my middle name. The man in green throws cucumber, fern fronds. I am going to die here. A young human climbs an old human. Some fun, at last. Find the diamond resting on my tongue. I’ll open wide. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Nichola Deane read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Nichola Deane wave 11 autumn 2022 back next the poet Nichola Deane’s first collection, Cuckoo , followed on from her pamphlets Trieste , a Laureate’s Choice, and My Moriarty , which won the 2012 Flarestack Poetry Pamphlet Prize, and was The Poetry Book Society’s Autumn Pamphlet Choice for 2012. Nichola’s poems have appeared in Poetry London , Archipelago , Magma , Oxford Poetry, The North and elsewhere. Michael Mackmin describes her work as ‘amazing’, while Carol Ann Duffy says Nichola is a poet who is ‘sophisticated and lyrically charged, precise and daring.’ Douglas Dunn goes further, calling Nichola ‘a future English Elizabeth Bishop.’ the poems ‘Hotel de la mer’, ‘Hotel de l’Etoile’ After Joseph Cornell 00:00 / 00:44 I have arrived here with my suitcase, full of the sea wind. I am unpacking, laying out on the bed, Black Rock, Port Madoc, Rhos Neigr, Caldey: small hotels of my childhood, rickety static caravans, the last pinks and purples in the west, the tracing of lines and faces and first names in darkening sand. I am looking at all that I made with mere pebble and shell in those fading oases. I am looking at my hopes and can smell salt. Cuckoo 00:00 / 00:34 When the buds on the birch disappear I appear so spooked, het-up, heaven-fretted, bejesused, souped up with all the may- bees in May, the new plight of the new ( Cuckoo , Cuccu ) to haunt us back, to the sleeping greenwood ( like that? how so? ) with a – wake for a voice, my loopy echo, a bit of locus pocus Anubis January, 2015 00:00 / 00:22 The heart will weigh – what after all its watching? Less than a sparrow’s, and then, then nothing at all: heart-in-the-branches, heart-in-the-split-bark, heart-in-the-nodding-wind. Publishing credits 'Hôtel de la Mer', 'Hôtel de L'Étoile': The Rialto (No. 84) Cuckoo / Anubis: Cuckoo (V. Press)

Hear poet Kate Jenkinson read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Kate Jenkinson wave 22 summer 2025 back next the poet Dr Kate Jenkinson is scientist and poet reconciled – and one of a handful of LinkedIn Business Poets . Her work has appeared in publications such as Flights , Feral and Steel Jackdaw . In 2022, she performed her TEDx talk Poetry Never Abandons Us . Two years later, her debut collection Un/Broken was born. Kate is the founder of the groundbreaking Poetry in Business Conference, launched in 2024, with its mission of creating more paid jobs for poets. Her neurodivergence and aphantasia are both features of her recent work. She also likes hats, writing about the many she wears. the poems Curated Chaos 00:00 / 02:11 INCOMING TEXT: ‘It’s been a right faff. But I’ve got it sorted.’ Love is: changing a tyre at 10.30pm so I can go to my poetry workshop, and he can play golf Love is: asking if you want to eat tea together Love is: eating tea together ADHD is: forgetting you said you would eat tea together, getting distracted and forgiveness. Zuihitsu legitimises distraction allowing me to follow the flow of a busy brain. Lyrics that are my life’s soundtrack I’ll tell you what What I have found That I’m no fool I’m just upside down. Kairos time is my favourite. It’s not chronology. It’s being ready to seize the moment! Is a neurodivergent brain synonymous with creativity? I think it could be. Would you be interested in attending more live events in Hebden Bridge or the local area? I don’t know what the local area means, so how do I answer that question? I definitely want to attend more live events in the North as opposed to virtual, but I really miss the chat function – which is ironic (it should be called the random thoughts function). Random thoughts I have often that infiltrate and illuminate my dreams: • losing my teeth • resitting my ‘A’ Levels • getting to school late and then waking to remember I’m 55 and I can never be late for school again. Ducks sound like they are laughing – well they would – they outlasted the dinosaurs. Corporal Punishment 00:00 / 01:42 I pushed you hard: in sport, in study, in life, at work. I burnt you out three times at least. I neglected, ignored, dehydrated and undernourished you. Dear Body , I am sorry I didn’t learn to love you more when we were young. I only noticed you in pain or pleasure, never in-between. I rebelliously loved the features others called out in playground names: rubber lips, hairy legs, melancholy eyes. I had to cover up for shame of exposing thighs, ‘above the knee’, that others should not see. Now I wish I had been there for you, as you have always been there for me. Had I understood your needs I may not have fallen so low. Menopause feels like your revenge as you demand attention through every wayward regulation. P.S. I will do my best to listen, to understand the transformation we are going through. I must accept this for what it is: a time to be wise, womanly, mature. Where sleep, thoughts, thermoregulation, nutrition, heart beats, beauty are in transition. Body , I will learn to love you more. Forgotten 00:00 / 01:11 I forget. Then remember I’ve forgotten to forget, again. A repeating pattern. Every time the shame, the stinking shame of it screws my face, makes me gag. Those reeking memories plague me. Remind me of all I wish I’d done for me, instead of giving that promise of a better life to someone else. I could have asked for help. But a strong woman has no voice. She shoulders the burden mute; stubborn as a beaten mule. She digs in deeper. Calloused hands dig so deep, she is buried in remembering. And only when she’s six foot under, coffin-deep, bone-cold, where no-one can hear her, forgotten: she screams. Publishing credits Curated Chaos / Forgotten: exclusive first publication by iamb Corporal Punishment: Un/Broken (Poetic Edge Publishers)

Hear poet Jonathan Humble read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Jonathan Humble wave 17 spring 2024 back next the poet The poetry of Jonathan Humble, a retired deputy head teacher who lives in Cumbria, has appeared in numerous print and online magazines and anthologies. He's published a short collection of his work – Fledge – and is editor of the much-praised, much-admired children's poetry website, The Dirigible Balloon . As well as delivering poetry workshops in schools for Wordsworth Grasmere, Jonathan was Poet in a Fridge for Radio Cumbria's Poetry Takeaway during the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in 2020. the poems Derek’s Theory of Quantum Stiles 00:00 / 00:51 Einstein phoned the other day. Wanted to speak quite urgently with my dog, Derek: said that Derek’s theory of quantum stiles was interesting but lacked empirical evidence and wasn’t supported by the mathematics. Derek disagreed: described the process of walking with me, taking the early morning river route along the side of the Kent under Cumbrian skies. Every gate and stile a quantum barrier, separating countless possibilities of constantly branching parallel universes: facts on the far side of each wall blurred, until the stile is crossed with a new reality created through observation … and sometimes, rewarded with a biscuit. Red Pencil 00:00 / 01:36 I am six years old, my pencil breaks mid-word in Mrs Foster’s class. So I turn to my friend Martin, show him the pencil and whisper, ‘Martin, Martin, my pencil has broke.’ ‘Use this,’ he says and passes a substitute, secretly under our desk. ‘But it’s a red pencil, Martin,’ I say. He smiles a smile. It is an ‘it’ll all be okay’ sort of smile and so I carry on, copying lines of words I cannot read, but which I try my very hardest to replicate, as neat and true to the original as I am able, at six, to do. At the finish, I look down at my page of writing; my teacher’s lines above, with mine in red below, and I wonder about the words I have written. I am happy with the result of my effort; especially the esses, which are smooth and curvy, and flowing and lovely. They are the best I have ever done. So, I walk twenty paces to Mrs Foster’s desk, clutching my paper with pride, and return ten yards with a slapped leg, my work in shreds in a basket, having a brand new perspective on the way of things, and on the reliability of my friend Martin. Early Morning Effrontery 00:00 / 00:59 I fear porcelain is not your milieu and your persistence in performing eight-legged running man dances up sheer white bathroom edifices under the gaze and malevolence of the attentive cat bastard flexing its tail on this toilet seat will prove an effrontery too far. Darwin’s theory of natural selection will happen well before adaptation occurs. Before the hairs on your scopulae develop greater adhesive powers and you are able to ascend unharmed, I suspect you will become terribly broken. So here I am again, 6:30 in the morning, offering toilet paper ladders in the bath tub, before I can shower in peace and the furry purry assassin, so beloved in our household, can be persuaded out of the bathroom to wander off and find something else to murder instead. Publishing credits Derek’s Theory of Quantum Stiles:Tyger Tyger Magazine Red Pencil: Atrium Early Morning Effrontery: Fledge (Maytree Press)

Hear poet James Giddings read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. James Giddings wave 9 spring 2022 back next the poet Born in Johannesburg and now living in Sheffield in the north of England, James Giddings is the author of Everything is Scripted , published in 2016 by Templar Poetry. the poems Look inside 00:00 / 01:00 At the base of the back of my neck is the button you press to get a look inside. One firm push with your thumb and FWIP! my head pops back like the top of a kettle and a noise strikes the same tone as a microwave casserole when it’s cooked, a mushroom cloud of steam ballooning from the neck hole of my thin cigarette body. Once you’ve released all that hot air, take a peek, you’ll see there’s not much there: no gold elements, no dial tone of great intellect, just a feeling, as if staring down a deep ravine. There seems as if there’s no end to it, until you throw something down and a sound calls back from the bottom. There are versions of us in alternate universes 00:00 / 01:37 One where we’re partners on a buddy cop show who stand back-to-back with our guns raised as our theme tune swells to a crescendo and the screen detonates, our names exploding out of picture. Another where we bloom on trees like bright fruit and our lives are spent waiting for the great fall. Then there’s the one where I am your father and you are my son, and you are crying because you’re hungry and I am crying because I can’t get the car seat to bloody fit, but we stop, for a few seconds, each of us near silent when we catch the eyes of the other. One where we are giant glass shards reflecting. Another where we are bank robbers, our ears pressed against a safe door like expectant fathers listening for a heartbeat. Another where we wait in a long line for the entrance to Hell and both complain about how long it’s taking. And even though I know there are worse universes than ours, I can’t shake the one in which each night you tell me all the unextraordinary words you know like spam , hardcopy and telemarketer, then right before you leave, say a couple of extraordinary ones, which are only so because of how rarely I’ve heard you utter them in this world. No requests 00:00 / 01:55 I’m working on my vanishing act, an homage to my father. To learn more I attend a show where the magician starts by sawing a ladle in half. To further subvert the genre he pulls a hat out of a rabbit, places the rabbit on his head like a toupee and shaves it into oblivion with a set of clippers, leaving the cue ball of his bald head shining. Do the one where the father disappears and you bring him back on stage! I heckle, but he doesn’t do requests. Next he does a card trick entirely with birthday cards, which, in a feat of anti-gravity, levitates the heart in my chest. With love , one reads, then his signature, a single kiss. Impressed, I shout, do the one where you bring back the father! But he still doesn’t do requests. Next he stretches a ten pence piece leaving the Queen’s face visibly frustrated. Then he solves a Rubik’s cube by throwing it behind his back; it is so convincing and easy, I hope a policeman might hand him a murder case. I rise from my seat, plead, please do the one where you bring back the father! He gestures off-stage theatrically, magics up security and I’m escorted out through a plain grey door. No traps. No secret panels. I never got to see the big finish, whether he did the trick, but I waited anyway, checking every face that left the auditorium, hopeful he had pulled it off. Publishing credits Look Inside: exclusive first publication by iamb There Are versions of Us in Alternate Universes: Poetry Wales (Vol. 56, No. 2) No Requests: Poetry London (Issue 97)

Hear poet Wren Wood read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Wren Wood wave 22 summer 2025 back next the poet Wren Wood, a mother, poet and nature educator/connection specialist from London, writes imagistic and constrained poetry to document life’s small, often overlooked moments. She also loves reworking old myths in contemporary settings. Having studied for her BA in Creative Writing at Roehampton University, Wren is now undertaking Bardic training. She's had work published by the Land Workers Alliance, as well as in several titles from Black Bough Poetry. After years of scribbling poems in snatched moments, Wren is now going through her piles of poetry to pick out the best for her debut pamphlet and collection. the poems Couplet 00:00 / 00:31 Held by spider-silk to the thin-twigged edges of the redbark cherry, a couplet of nests sit snow-cloaked and silent, on this, our shortest day – awaiting the return of the lengthening light, of pink blossom riots, the renewal of leaves, and with it all, their goldfinch charm. Lutein 00:00 / 00:17 My son’s tousled hair echoes the lutein gold strands of pollen-heavy catkins in the hazel copse, gleaming in winter sunlight. A Summation of Wonder 00:00 / 04:35 If it is claimed by those around – or within – you, that you are too much or at times, not yet enough; in your retreat to smallness Dear Heart, please re-call that the iron in your blood, in nettles that burn, the core of this blessed Earth, forged in a collapsing star. As you unravel, re-know how your skin was once carbon held in the sprawling roots of ancient pines that flourished after the ice. As panic threatens to swell and wash away all, your sweat works to cool and calm, and retreats to the streams of vapour stored as clouds. While you perspire droplets born of the oceans, they rise to join the transpired outbreaths of pink hawthorns, and violet heartsease, blown across the skies to mountains to fall as snow. And there, your worry – and mine – is tended until the weight of itself shakes free. I note your nails are worn short through teeth and wrought-thoughts. One day, when we are long done, this keratin you gift with spit – puh! – back to the land, will form a rhino’s horn, the fur of wolves, feathers of iridescence, turtle-shells, and the scales of adders that bask in the sun. Friend, the calcium and phosphorus in your bones were once bound in chalk: cliffs of creatures of the seas. Who before they sank into the pale sediment, kept company with the small exhalations of algae, and reptile giants, who became the birds you now marvel at as we shelter from the rain and watch in awe-fear as they twist across the sky, teasing the storm clouds to charge and s t r i k e ! Streaks of lightning split the atmosphere on repeat; the protons beneath your feet calling to the ground vivid electricity. Clouds we gazed into forms that fine day in July, do you remember? Now invoking air’s atoms to white-heat incandescence. And calls nitrogen into blue luminescence. That then falls, torn from within, clutched by a current of rain forcing you to flinch as it thuds against the soil merging with the work of microbes smaller than we can perceive so plants may feast, then die to nourish you and so tend to your thriving. Delivering that nitrogen, once of the stars then sky then soil to scaffold your DNA. And in the quiet of this night, we look for her, – dear Grandmother Moon – who herself cannot be full without her retreat into the deep dark. And in her new-born weeks, she gazes upon the tide of distant starlight that made her. We too. And speak of being loved in imperfect manners by those hearts who have forgotten their own magnitude, while we search out past-stars; exploded into fractions of themselves. Yet their light still edges near; longing to wise-look upon their young descendants: drifting, lingering in an illuminated brilliance of limerence at the thought of All: human, and more-than-we in multiple, ongoing forms. My friend, please re-call in your retreat to smallness: you’re Light’s memory – a fingerprint of the stars. A summation of wonder. * * * * * Publishing credits Couplet: Christmas & Winter Edition Vol. 3 (Black Bough Poetry) Lutein: Christmas & Winter Edition Vol. 2 (Black Bough Poetry) A Summation of Wonder: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Leeanne Quinn read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Leeanne Quinn wave 8 winter 2021 back next the poet Leeanne Quinn's poems have been widely anthologised, appearing in The Forward Book of Poetry 2013 , Windharp: Poems of Ireland Since 1916 , and elsewhere. Her debut collection, Before You , was published by Dedalus Press and highly commended in the Forward Prize for Poetry 2013. Her second collection, Some Lives , was also published by Dedalus Press, and was noted as a 2020 Book of the Year by The Irish Times and The Irish Independent . Originally from Ireland, Leanne now lives in Munich, Germany. the poems Interference 00:00 / 01:15 Try not to listen, avoid admission. Electrical currents emit perceptible sounds. Don’t power down appliances, let sound carry. Try not to think in terms of the body, the racket of the blood is not your concern. Learn the habit of distraction, above all don’t personify, don’t permit, this is not a human voice. Electrical currents do emit perceptible sounds. The trick is not to listen. Avoid admission. The racket of the blood is not your concern. Don’t power down. Learn the habit of distraction. Don’t think in terms of the body. Electrical currents do emit. The racket of the blood. Above all, try not to listen. Don’t personify, learn the habit. Let them carry perceptible sounds. This is not a human voice. Accidents (An excerpt from a poem of the same title) 00:00 / 00:59 Winter has culled the city, edging all colour out. Salt covers ice, stark and stubborn, on the pavements below. You walk with your thoughts elsewhere, think of the different worlds you have known. There is little here to love—this is a place where loneliness grows, where memories wake you like a gun going off in the night —a night that takes care of what you have done or not done, of who you have loved or not loved, of those you have saved, or forgotten. You walk the winter streets, hoping to catch the last of the light, as it fades where the snow falls. On a Flat Earth 00:00 / 01:07 What colour is the sky? Why does a ship’s hull disappear before the mast? What is the true distance of the Sun from the Earth? Explain the cause of tides. What is the dip sector? What causes the Sun to rise? Explain lunar and solar eclipses. Account for daylight. Explain winter and summer. Account for loss of time when sailing. Explain the deflection of falling bodies. Elaborate on experiment three. Account for the moon’s phases. Discuss the planet Neptune. Elaborate on experiment six. Explain the stages of the Earth. Give Earth’s true position in the Universe. Account for formation. Account for destruction by fire. Publishing credits Interference / On a Flat Earth: Some Lives (Dedalus Press) Excerpt from Accidents: Before You (Dedalus Press)

Hear poet Zannah Kearns read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Zannah Kearns wave 12 winter 2022 back next the poet Freelance writer Zannah Kearns has had her poems featured in Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal , The Dark Horse , Finished Creatures , Under the Radar , Ink, Sweat & Tears and Atrium . A members’ winner in a summer 2021 competition run by The Poetry Society, Zannah co-runs the Poets’ Café – a monthly open mic in Reading, Berkshire. the poems High Tide in the Morning 00:00 / 01:13 It strikes me the moon controls more than our tides just as these children surge into my room, my bed crash into my heart, flood me with chatter, their energies zingy as sea spray. Lockdown: the house is awash with unfinished projects, dirty socks scrunched-up sheets of abandoned drawings. I’m scrolling news that’s rolling in story upon story too many names, too many splashes. I can lose hours gazing at friends’ pictures their perfect reflections mirrored in lakes but we’ve all of us blown far out to sea, swung on each wave at the whim of the moon. Under sunlit windswept skies we cast off into this day its dip and swell into its lull helming as best as we can. Love as a Mutt 00:00 / 01:25 We run — our laughter bouncing against bricks and the fence we threw mud at last Wednesday. We run with faces turned for a moment to the sun, feeling its glow as a kiss on our skin, held for all memory. The Earth has halted her turning to say our names. Then, coats flapping with busted zips we’re away again — hair unbrushed, fingers raw, some nails bitten to bloody quicks, but none of it matters because now snow falls! Gentle flakes spiral through air stilled. Skin bright, breath visible, our small hearts are as hot as baked potatoes. We spread our hands while the sky pegs out her grimy sheets. Near some dustbins, a mangy dog cowers, all ribs and bald patches. Some throw stones, but Jamie tosses her coat, scoops the mutt — ears cut off, bones a collection of loose rods she can hardly keep in her arms. I’ll call him Princess. Bet you can’t keep him. But Jamie, smiling, doesn’t hear. On Holding On and Being Held 00:00 / 01:31 In Aviemore, I climbed a wall of ice glittering in the winter sun — an edifice of glass. I led the route, kicking crampons to make shelves, reaching up with yellow-handled axes, chipping holds; scaling a ladder, right then left like Jack climbing his beanstalk through the cloud, snowflakes falling so thick they looked furred. And my heart full. It’s the first time I’d ever winter-climbed. Everywhere, white was all I saw so, even though I was several storeys high with nothing much to hold me if I fell, something about the surrounding cloud, the mountain’s bowl like a cupped hand, felt substantial. I, who am often consumed by fear, had none. Sometimes now, far out on one of life’s edges, I like to remember that day on the mountain when the tips of my toes were hooked in its snow, how the flat of each boot rested on air. Publishing credits High Tide in the Morning: Locked Down | Poems, Diaries and Art from the 2020 Pandemic (Poetry Space) Love as a Mutt: Under the Radar (Issue 25) On Holding On and Being Held: The Dark Horse (Issue 43)

Hear poet Mark McGuinness read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Mark McGuinness wave 9 spring 2022 back next the poet Bristol-based Mark McGuinness has had poems in Ambit , Anthropocene , Brittle Star , Magma , Oxford Poetry , The Rialto and Stand . He was awarded third prize in The Stephen Spender Prize 2016, and commended in the Ambit Poetry Competition in 2021. Mark hosts the poetry podcast A Mouthful of Air , where he invites poets to read a single poem and discuss the inspiration and process behind it – as well as reading classic poems and talking about what makes these work. Mark also collaborates on concrete poetry projects with the sculptor Sheena Devitt. the poems The Opening Lines of Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer Translated by the poet from the Middle English 00:00 / 03:38 Before we part I want to speak about Prince Troilus, son of Priam King of Troy, And how his destiny in love played out In double sorrow: from misery to joy Then out of bliss once more. Lend me your voice, Tisiphone – help me to compose These woeful lines, that weep as my ink flows. To you I call, you goddess of sharp torment, You cruel Fury, eternally in pain: Help me, who am the sorrowful instrument That helps all lovers, voicing their complaint; Because it suits, to speak the matter plain, A wretched man to have a gloomy fellow, And a tragic tale, a face that’s full of sorrow. For I, who serve the servants of the Lord Of Love, daren’t pray to Love for my success On pain of death; I have so many flaws And languish so far from His help in darkness. But nonetheless, if this may bring some gladness To any lover, and advance his courtship, Give him the thanks and leave me with the hardship. But all you lovers bathing now in gladness, If any drop of pity be in you, Remind yourselves of any former sadness That you have felt, and also of the woe Of other folk; recall the times you too Felt Love affronted you with misery Or that you won Him far too easily. And pray for those caught in the same condition As Troilus, more of which you’ll shortly hear, That Love will bring them heavenly salvation; And also pray for me to God so dear, That I shall have the skill to make it clear Through Troilus’ own unfortunate adventure What pain and sadness all Love’s folk endure. And also pray for those left in despair Of love, with no chance of recovery, And all those lovers, whether him or her, Whom wicked tongues have done great injury. Pray thus to God, from his great charity To grant them passage from this earthly place Who lose all hope of Love’s redeeming grace. And also pray for those who are at ease That God will grant their love shall long endure And give them all the gift to please their ladies According to Love’s honour and His pleasure. For so I hope to make my soul more pure: To pray for those who wear Love’s livery, And write their woe, and live in charity, And feel for each of them the same compassion As though I were their own devoted brother. Now listen to me with your full attention For now I will go straight to my main matter In which you’ll hear the double sorrow suffered By Troilus when he loved the fair Criseyde And how she left her love before she died. Lockdown 00:00 / 01:22 We’re cooped up with ourselves. Alone together for weeks or months until it’s safe to breathe. The virus crosses continents like weather. For now we’re stuck here, wondering when or whether we’ll get back to our everyday routine. We’re cooped up with ourselves, alone together, the death toll rising, falling, like a feather at the mercy of an idle breeze. The virus crosses continents like weather. As days drift by we find new ways to weather boredom, frustration, solitude and grief. We’re cooped up with ourselves, alone together, and some of us are at the end of our tether, and some of us are sinking week by week. The virus crosses continents like weather. Has life as normal vanished altogether? Once locked up, can we ever be set free? We’re cooped up with ourselves. Alone together. The virus crosses continents like weather. The Illusionist 00:00 / 03:57 The theatre’s gilded like a music box. The lights go dim and someone takes the stage. ‘Good evening everyone, I’m Arthur Fox.’ We know he’s not. The real one’s still backstage. The lights go dim and someone takes the stage. He looks the part; we gingerly applaud. We know he’s not. The real one’s still backstage. ‘And here’s the man you’ve all been waiting for!’ He looks the part; we gingerly applaud. The curtains part. The curtains close again. ‘And here’s the man you’ve all been waiting for!’ ‘Thank you all for waiting in the rain.’ The curtains part. The curtains close again. We troop back slowly to our starting spots. ‘Thank you all for waiting in the rain – ’ ‘Sorry Arthur – the pillar blocked the shot.’ We troop back slowly to our starting spots. The cameraman walks sideways through the crowd. ‘Sorry Arthur – the pillar blocked the shot.’ ‘I know. It feels a bit disjointed now.’ The cameraman walks sideways through the crowd; we part and close behind him like the sea. ‘I know it feels a bit disjointed now. The whole thing will look seamless on TV.’ We part and close behind him like the sea. He reappears behind the left-hand door. ‘The whole thing will look seamless on TV. I know the repetition’s such a bore.’ He reappears behind the left-hand door. His eyes are covered; both hands firmly tied. ‘I know the repetition’s such a bore. Please take your time, examine every side.’ His eyes are covered; both hands firmly tied. The dazzling spotlights keep us in the dark. ‘Please take your time, examine every side and let the camera see it, clearly marked.’ The dazzling spotlights keep us in the dark. The volunteer does everything he’s told. ‘And let the camera see it, clearly marked. That’s right. Just there. Now cut along the fold.’ The volunteer does everything he’s told. We half expect to see him levitate. ‘That’s right. Just there. Now cut along the fold. The time has come. Let’s hope it’s worth the wait ... ’ We half expect to see him levitate. A moment’s pause that seems to take an age. ‘The time has come. Let’s hope it’s worth the wait ... and look whose name is written on that page!’ A moment’s pause that seems to take an age. He takes the sheet and holds it up as proof. ‘And look whose name is written on that page! I’d like to ask you all to raise the roof!’ He takes the sheet and holds it up as proof, although the mechanism isn’t clear. ‘I’d like to ask you all to raise the roof: please give a big hand to our volunteer!’ Although the mechanism isn’t clear, we’re still transfixed by what we’ve all just seen. ‘Please give a big hand to our volunteer! Just wait until you see yourself on screen!’ We’re still transfixed by what we’ve all just seen: a show that never actually took place. ‘Just wait until you see yourself on screen. The stops and starts will vanish without trace.’ A show that never actually took place will be assembled in the cutting room. ‘The stops and starts will vanish without trace. When Charlie gives the signal we’ll resume.’ We’ll be assembled in the cutting room. ‘Good evening everyone, I’m Arthur Fox. When Charlie gives the signal we’ll resume.’ The theatre’s gilded like a music box. Publishing credits The Opening Lines of Troilus and Criseyde: placed third in The Stephen Spender Prize 2016 Lockdown: first appeared on author's SoundCloud The Illusionist: The Rialto (No. 80)

Hear poet Elizabeth M Castillo read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Elizabeth M Castillo wave 10 summer 2022 back next the poet British-Mauritian poet Elizabeth M Castillo is a writer, indie press promoter, and two-time nominee for The Pushcart Prize. Her writing reflects the various countries and cultures she grew up in and with – exploring themes of race, ethnicity, woman/motherhood, language, love, loss and grief (often with a dash of magical realism). Published widely in the UK, USA, Australia, Mexico and the Middle East, Elizabeth has bilingual debut collection Cajoncito: Poems on Love, Loss, y Otras Locuras to her name. She'll add debut chapbook Not Quite an Ocean in December 2022. the poems Ghosts 00:00 / 00:45 I tell my children there are no ghosts in this house. I press a kiss into their cheeks and foreheads and leave them to the peaceable mercy of sleep. No ghosts, I say. Except the one that lives in the stain on the bathroom floor. The lady that swirls around the bottom of your mother’s teacup, in amongst the sediment. The ones you plastered into the walls. No ghosts, except the one that lies in bed between us. The one hidden beneath the flowers in the garden. The two I folded between the pages of my passport. The one that stares back at me from the bathroom mirror when I brush my teeth at night. Zot dir, or a short history of Mauritius 00:00 / 01:47 Ou koné ki zot dir? So many things mon tann zot dir they say / they say the dutchman came / he ate the dodo / curious bird / stupid bird / zot dir independence will be won by the wits of the indian / papi inn dir / nu bizin alé / nu bizin get out / zot dir Le Père de la Nation has the ear of the queen / they say / things are better in Australia / In UK / In SA they don’t say créole zot dir coloured / Mo matante inn allé last year / 65 / before the riots start / labas tou prop / she said / labas seulman ena bon dimoun / nice people / they say / zot inn met bann lekor / under the mountain / enba la ter / they say / Mauritius is still the star of the indian ocean / they say parti socialis pu sauv nu zile / zot dir / ten thousand rupees / c’est rien / they say / sorti la! / sorti la! / kifer Kaya pann res trankil ? / they say / the hungry tourist / come down / devoured our coastline / the south / the east / is all we have left / Ramgoolam / they say / has lined his own pockets / they say it once / they say / look to the horizon / thick and black / we blame Japan / zot dir / the island is retracting / inwards / they say / nu zil pé vinn bien gran / no more beaches / no fish / ban pecheur / zot disan / has pooled down by the river’s mouth / Jugnauth / zot dir / his hands live under the table / so bann kamrad / their coffers are full / faratha from six / to 25 rupees / they say / we have no language / they say if bis don’t kill you / hopital will / they say / pa kozé / stop saying all the things we saying / res trankil / dernié fwa kiken in kozé / so disan / his blood / it runs beneath the mountains / out beyond the reef / into the sea / that you left behind / The Other Woman 00:00 / 02:16 The sun has set, and at this hour, shadows hang between the daylight and the trees. There, the sudden scent of blood, scent of man , carries to me on the breeze, the wind howling through, falls silent at my feet: 'good hunting, milady,' it whispers, then retreats. There is a darkness in this forest, an end that rivals death itself, in the mist about my ankles. Even lizards know they would do well to hide inside their hovels, and underground. Dirt crunches beneath. Treacherous soil! Leaves plunge downwards, to be eaten by the earth. The naked trees testify: this forest is deadly, and will swallow you whole. I hear footsteps racing, running, in thundering lockstep. Flash of black. Flash of teeth. There are dangerous games afoot! Surely it’s time to turn back. Surely it’s time to go home. I am well beyond my borders now. She can’t catch me, she can’t catch me, here, where I lurk and linger on the periphery just out of sight, just beyond her mind’s eye. She knows I am here, her veins course with rage, and vengeance. But she does not know where. She is death. She is danger. But the line has been crossed, the threat prowls within her marked territory. She may think I have lost, but this no longer bears any resemblance to a fair fight. No, now two legs, not enough. I drop down onto four, draw strength from the thousand invisible heartbeats, the lifeblood, the microbiome of the forest floor. There is fear, and some fury, encrusted under each hungry claw. The hunt smells of my father, champion long before I had ever heard of this sport, and I wonder: would he be proud? There is sweat at my temples, and my wrists are bound to stop them from trembling. I step, crabways, low and feral, without shadow or sound. Your ears twitch and you shudder, your neck craning to see what you and I must learn the hard way: the deadliest thing in here is me. Publishing credits Ghosts / Zot dir, or a short history of Mauritius: exclusive first publication by iamb The Other Woman: Glean & Graft / Descent (Fresher Publishing) Shortlisted for the 2021 Bournemouth Writing Poetry Prize