Between the Lines: Concert in Utero
Eloisa Griffiths and Caitlin Thomson
As part of our Between the Lines series, Caitlin Thomson analyses Eloisa Griffiths' touching poem
Between the Lines: paper and wood
Justin Tabbett and Ellie Rowe
Ellie Rowe's astute and nuanced analysis of Justin Tabbett's rich and moving poem ...
Between the Lines: Can I Tell You Something?
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 ...
Black Magic Woman
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.
Between the Lines: Boxing Hares
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 ...
Between the Lines: Sunset at Avon Gorge
Caitlin Thomson and Eloisa Griffiths
Eloisa Griffiths repsonds to Caitlin Thomson's poignant and evocative poem...
For Quinn
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"
Only Lines
Ellen Crofton
In 'Only Lines,' Ellen Crofton meditates on the topography of thought, stars, and the human condition.
Untitled
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.
Something Matters
Abi Reeves
In boundless free-verse Abi Reeves catalyses the never-ending cycle of the cosmos, seeing it all through starry eyes.
A Passing Meteor
Holly Loach
"A transcendence of personal experience, of processing and recovering from trauma, into the moving trajectory of time and space."
The Orange House
Serafina Lee
A hot-house of movement through stasis, Serafina's 'The Orange House' evokes the humid air of a place elsewhere.
Inside, Inside of My Brain
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.
The World's Last Night
Sarah Dalton
A poignant, elegiac imagining of grief at the end of time.
Deer Through Trees
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.
Eyes Unpeeled
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.
Twenty-two Moons
Eloisa Griffiths
In vivid free verse, Eloisa Griffiths explores the love between two sisters, cosmically intertwined.
Beautiful Vulnerabilities
Caitlin Thomson
two people lean toward each other
like lions circling
tense hands reach
for hesitant fingertips
'This is no Eden'
Marcus Smith
Marcus Smith ponders Eden, environmentalism and Thomas Hardy ...
Found in Translation: Jacques Brel
Elsa Kenningham
A playful, image-rich translation of two of the Belgian singer's classics.
CIty in Bloom
Joe Watt
A dive into technicolour, exploring hues in a fertile city, inviting us out to play.
Harmony
Cecilia Hviding
On the conflict and codependence in nature.
Watching Bjøg work with the horses
Hannah Green
A meditation on movement and power in rural summer fields.
Worfe
Lydia Aldridge
Lydia Aldridge details of a long journey back, to a place undefined, through salt-water and peat; a journey home.
Minnie Mouse
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.
Dreaming
Caitlin Thomson
I dream of a world...
Can You See?
Abi Reeves
Here we stand overlooking Eden
Where trees burn before our eyes...
Two out of Two
Ellen Crofton
Two girls possibly two women,
two beers two white wines two nights...
White Noise
Ellen Crofton
And there's a white wall,
And I stare at the noise...
The Big Bad
Stewart Dickson
À la Angela Carter, Stewart Dickson's visceral twist on the classic fairy tale tells the story of a fight for survival.
Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home
Hanna Hamida Hughes
A strangely prophetic poem inspired by Coleman Barks’ translations of Rumi; captivated by the mysticism, and finished in one feverish sitting.
"[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..."
"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."