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Sophia Argyris
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the poet
Sophia Argyris is of British-Greek origin. Her poems have appeared in numerous places, including 14 Magazine, Mslexia, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Poetry Ireland Review, The Winged Moon, The Interpreter's House and Poetry London. In 2025, she was commended in the Poetry Wales Award and Ware Poets Prize, as well as being shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. Author of the pamphlet Heronless, Sophia will publish her new pamphlet Blood Tundra with Broken Sleep Books in 2026.
the poems
You take mornings
too personally
Everything starts with stone and so
here’s a piece of garnet to store yourself inside.
Pry up the carpet at one corner, watch silverfish
scatter, mercury and old arguments.
Furl on the stairs in the poor pockets of night
suspended in your mother’s sleep. At least
you’re not alone. What did you imagine
an ebony box with no lock might hold?
Cutting up raw liver with a pair of scissors.
Solitary by nature. Bloody, and the gag reflex.
A thimble and a tape measure. A music box
but the high note in Silent Night never sounds.
Sing it like that now. Listen to the light crawl
up the wall, things it says about the future.
Measure yourself everywhere to find you don’t
fit anywhere. Use the thimble to make a rhythm
then take the penknife. Safety has been missing
a long time. Maybe forever, maybe for six days
returning, a wire snare round its neck, and the line
rubbed bald, never grows back the same.
Two Methods of Escape
grow sleep in the strange room
walls lean in the ceiling creeps 5am
the bed wet through moulds to your hips
a father’s absence scold and smoke
a mother’s death wish morning crackles
against bone and flint you lift out of skin
pirouette above your head propel your body
to dress and head for school where rules
are wrong and other children see
straight through to bad waters
show the teachers how your throat gets stuck
they say you look just fine to us
learn to kiss yourself away
be the needle that pops a heart a silence
like a blue shirt a crescent drift
Reflections on the Descent
A girl puts her finger to a bluebottle
dying against a window, propped open
to let the light out.
Her mother’s moods swim, slow carp.
Her mother’s blue scarf hangs from a hook.
The girl’s fingers curl round the handle
of the back door. She carries two deer,
sand in their joints. She turns their heads
on their plastic necks to look back
at the house. She can’t see her mother
from here. Anger, turned inwards,
vibrates with no sound. The etymology
connects to the Latin premere to press
down. Her voice is a leveret crouched
in the snare of her throat.
Publishing credits
All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb