Eloisa Griffiths and Caitlin Thomson

As part of our Between the Lines series, Caitlin Thomson analyses Eloisa Griffiths' touching poem 

Justin Tabbett and Ellie Rowe

Ellie Rowe's astute and nuanced analysis of Justin Tabbett's rich and moving poem ... 

Ellie Rowe and Justin Tabbett

Justin Tabbett gives us a sensitive reading of Ellie Rowe's poem, which is at once deeply personal and instantly familiar ... 

Caitlin Thomson

With the power of the cosmos flowing through each line, Caitlin introduces us to her powerful black magic woman who is familiar yet Delphic all at once.

Lydia Aldridge and Hannah Green

Hannah Green considers objects and memory in Lydia Aldridge's subtle and controlled poem in the second installment of our 'Between the Lines' series ...

Caitlin Thomson and Eloisa Griffiths

Eloisa Griffiths repsonds to Caitlin Thomson's poignant and evocative poem... 

Sarah Dalton

The second of Sarah Dalton's meditations on grief remembers and remaps loss: 
 

"Sometimes, I still dream of you.

Of the night I crawled beneath your cosmos"

Ellen Crofton

In 'Only Lines,' Ellen Crofton meditates on the topography of thought, stars, and the human condition.

Amelia Elsyon

In this untitled piece Amelia Elyson longs to break through the stagnant, waiting as each night unravels her further and further away from her isolated orbit.

Abi Reeves

In boundless free-verse Abi Reeves catalyses the never-ending cycle of the cosmos, seeing it all through starry eyes.

Holly Loach

"A transcendence of personal experience, of processing and recovering from trauma, into the moving trajectory of time and space."

Serafina Lee

A hot-house of movement through stasis, Serafina's 'The Orange House' evokes the humid air of a place elsewhere. 

Suzie Beckley

#3 In our Lockdown series. Suzie vividly delineates her growing displacement with the exterior as her existence gradually becomes interior, inside, inside of her brain.

Sarah Dalton

A poignant, elegiac imagining of grief at the end of time.

Hannah Green

#2 in our free-writing series. Hannah finds a stillness between all of nature's colour, a stillness she shares with the deer.

Ellen Crofton

The first in our lockdown journal entitled 'Freedom in Isolation' where we collate the free-writing of different contributors centred around their lockdown experience. Ellen journeys from day to night, finding solace in the solitary moon.

Eloisa Griffiths

In vivid free verse, Eloisa Griffiths explores the love between two sisters, cosmically intertwined.

Caitlin Thomson

two people lean toward each other

like lions circling 

tense hands reach

for hesitant fingertips 

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Marcus Smith

Marcus Smith ponders Eden, environmentalism and Thomas Hardy ...

Elsa Kenningham

A playful, image-rich translation of two of the Belgian singer's classics.

Joe Watt

A dive into technicolour, exploring hues in a fertile city, inviting us out to play.

Cecilia Hviding

On the conflict and codependence in nature.

Hannah Green

A meditation on movement and power in rural summer fields.

Lydia Aldridge

Lydia Aldridge details of a long journey back, to a place undefined, through salt-water and peat; a journey home.

Minnie Cunningham

Minnie Cunningham brings us this subtly personal piece, that expresses the distance of time, place and age kept together through ‘Minnie Mouse envelopes’; the race to catch up with someone so far ahead.

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Caitlin Thomson

I dream of a world...

Abi Reeves

Here we stand overlooking Eden

Where trees burn before our eyes...

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Ellen Crofton

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Two girls possibly two women,

two beers two white wines two nights...

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Ellen Crofton

And there's a white wall,

And I stare at the noise...

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Stewart Dickson

À la Angela Carter, Stewart Dickson's visceral twist on the classic fairy tale tells the story of a fight for survival.

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Hanna Hamida Hughes

A strangely prophetic poem inspired by Coleman Barks’ translations of Rumi; captivated by the mysticism, and finished in one feverish sitting.

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"[in] I puzzle how my name sounds, In your mouth, And wet in your lungs, Weightless, [out] measured, Like the clean-cut curve, Of a question mark, Bursting cider bubble vowels, In empty torchlight [in]"...

The fourth instalment of 'Between the Lines' features Mathilde Hirth's exploration of Henry Richmond's poem 'Dog'...

"Think of a summer that lasted forever, Immortalised now in heyday songs of the 80s.Coyote girls,We were his favoured disciples."...

"Soft is a word too small to describe you, Instead metallic taste like pennies or blood. Face stretched in a smile as you appear around the kitchen door, Lights up freckles and lines from the sun..."

By Hanna Hamida Hughes

"At the bottom of the well, I found your heart, In a box of tarnished silver, With a rusted lock"...

"You are radishes, In the spring, A blossom pink blushing buttermilk, A flotilla of, Muslin crumpled up and warmed in the sun, A breath a breeze, Sugared almonds on the tongue"

"We are gathered here tonight, on ivory floors, in the o-shaped hum of holy light

The bass is syrupy and dark, waking, stark grotesques on every wall"

"Both in this glass sphere, shardless.Unlike you, you won’t leave us this time. You, the wingless metamorphosising angel."

"You talk about the dark place you’ve been, Even as you laugh, And I don’t know how to say it but I want to, Touch you, hold you there, Kiss whatever ghosts of tears are left and set them free, Like moths to the moonlight.". 3 beautifully tender and intimate poems by Hannah Green...

"Marcus, We covered the screen, With the picture you drew, of you, Woody and Buzz, To hide the ridges that, Spiked every time you laughed"

"from beyond the river on the dreamscape riverbank -the fogged river- the watery river allusion". A collection of 8 poems by Euan Dawtrey...

Lydia Aldridge explores the technique of free-writing in Patti Smith's 'Devotion' 

"In the end I sleep with men who are not you,

And soon I won’t see your eyes in their faces.

I don’t get lonely ever now we’re through"

"You liked the winter. The rain slating my face and hair, The ice that dragged my mind down cleared yours"

"We saw a black and white film in the summer

‘What Peaches, What Penumbras’.

I ate sticky sweaty sweets

From an awkward sounding bag-

Crunching like glass shards against Doc Martins-

Your Doc Martins-"

"But I only feel the isolation of feeling like a useless weight on your shoulders. You tried to shake me off, but I clung like poison ivy to your lungs"

"There are rocks in my stomach, Glass in my throat, and glue on my tongue, black plastic winds around my lungs."

"It's strange how the sun will always lick the night away again, even when the pulp starts to taste more bitter, than it does sweet"

The second in a series in which poets swap work, analyse each other's efforts and share their thoughts. This instalment features Suzie Beckley's exploration of Euan Dawtrey's poem 'Monument'

"Smoulder no more and put your spirit out.

Suffocate the blaze, don’t give her fuel."

"Pitter patter up that long road,

First to nursery then to primary.

Orange evenings and golden dogs."

"I imagine you over breakfast, No longer pressing on my aching chest, or resting in this sacred nest. Instead, you are yawning the dawn in, fingertips sprawling like claws, that cracked the egg you were formed in". Three beautifully evocative poems by Maya Blackwell

The third in a series in which poets swap work, analyse each other's efforts and share their thoughts. This instalment features Fleur Adderley's exploration of Hannah Green's poem 'Homage to Queen Patti'

The first in a series in which poets swap work, analyse each other's efforts and share their thoughts. This instalment features Hannah Green's exploration of Suzie Beckley's poems 'Untitled', 'Red' and 'Love Bites'

"You say you’d be a skyseeker, If you weren’t so afraid to fall. So you listen from the earthly breezeTo the sparkling vapours’ call:"

"I was swimming in tepid light, cast down by that white sphere which moved parallel with me. It drew exquisite tapestries onto dusty walls, that moved past me like a shadow show, and the sunshine danced as the light does on the bottom of a pool in summer."

"I hadn’t seen a thicker mist. Mist clung to the rims of our farmhouse, Threatening a cliff edge or boundless, unbroken land"

"She is in her hooded woollen coat and black boots, her tote bag stained with ink and wine.
We are talking less than usual; the music is slow and dark, and we are beginning to bask in
eeriness, watching the muted landscape rush past"

"Touch is luminous
And I expand within myself, pink and
So sweet,
Unfurling from the delicate green of closed wanting -
Deflowering is less of that"

"I sit warm in the window to watch
The island boys, the Shetland boys,
Bringing the sheep across the waters"

"I was watching a video yesterday

About endangered caterpillars

Living in the Lake District

They feed on balsam.

'Touch-me-not'

Seeds"

"The moon cracks op’n her egg-white shell

Night breaks, and brother Day

Spills yolky morning sunrise all

Along horizon’s bounds"

"There used to be more stars in the sky.

I remember, when I was young, me and my sister and my dad would lay on a lilo in the back garden, with tin camping mugs of hot chocolate, and watch for the silvery streak of a meteor across the spilled-ink dark of the sky"

"Shouts of howay echo into the night,

my marras, dressed pretty sweet,

looking peng as owt, not a coat in sight,

ganning to toon for the neet!"

"The scent of damsons is sharp and sun-warmed in the lane. My grandmother drinks warm white wine in the garden and asks me the same questions again and again..."

"Sunken circus lion sorrow,

bleeds into the hairs on his brow,

in hating the clock on its shelf"