After taking a course to cure my arachnophobia
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Becki Hawkes lives in London (United Kingdom) where she enjoys looking for moths and butterflies and being outside. Her pamphlet The Naming of Wings was a winner of the 2021 James Tate Poetry Prize. A Best of the Net nominee, she has had poems published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Shore, Stone Circle Review and The Madrigal, among others.
Instagram: @beckih_butterflies
Our featured publication for July and August is The Way the Water Held Me by Catherine Redford, published by The Emma Press.
While newly married, with the couple expecting their first child, Catherine Redford’s wife was tragically diagnosed with a terminal illness. The Way the Water Held Me is a mesmeric plunge into the caring, grief, loss and love experienced by a young widow. Across poems of heartbreak and honesty, memory and mourning – and through unlikely companionship with a widowed Mary Shelley – Catherine Redford’s debut collection is visceral, profound and alive with what it is to be human, to have lost and to find ways to continue to love.
‘A beautiful, heartbreaking book that charts deepest grief and deepest love. Catherine Redford is a luminous writer and her poems will touch your heart.’ Liz Berry
‘Part elegy, part seance, part scream, this is a gorgeous wound and wonder of a book. Spiked with dark humour and the gothic shades of Mary Shelley, luminous with metaphor and experiment, The Way the Water Held Me bears witness to dark tides of grief and the irretrievable grammar of shared love. It is essential, transformative reading.’ Fiona Benson
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Circles
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Performance
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Mary Shelley and I hold a séance
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Not Our Bed
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Catherine Redford started writing poetry after being widowed at the age of 35. Her writing has appeared widely in journals and anthologies, including Magma (as Selected Poet), Under the Radar, New Welsh Reader, Propel, Lighthouse, and Atrium. She is an editor at Dust Poetry, a Writing West Midlands Room 204 writer, and a Nine Arches Press Dynamo Poet. The Way the Water Held Me is her debut collection.
The Way the Water Held Me is available to purchase from The Emma Press website, here.
Word comes up the Lane
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Annie Kissack is from the Isle of Man. In 2018 she became the Fifth Manx Bard. Her two poetry collections Mona Sings (2022) and A Suggestion of Wrens (2025) engage with the stories, landscapes and languages of her native island.
Pickle
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Emma Dandy’s writing explores the fragmentation of identity after trauma. Publication of her debut pamphlet – I Laid Out Knives, Guns and Razors – is forthcoming with Hedgehog Poetry Press. She is a Creative Writing PhD student at the University of Birmingham. Insta: @emmadandypoetry
Low dive remembered
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Judith Taylor lives in Aberdeen, where she co-organises the monthly Poetry at Books and Beans events. Her latest collection, Across Your Careful Garden, is published by Red Squirrel Press. She is one of the Editors of Poetry Scotland. Website: http://sometimesjudy.co.uk/ Publisher: https://www.redsquirrelpress.com/poetry?Author=Judith%20Taylor
Something Seriously Not Right
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Graham Clifford is the author of five collections of poetry. His work has been translated into Romanian and German, can be found on the Poetry Archive, and is anthologised by publishers including Faber, Against the Grain and Broken Sleep Books. Most recently, his work has been included in the Manchester Review, Iamb, BerlinLit, The Madrid Review, and Finished Creatures. Graham is co-editor of Edition, a London-based poetry magazine and event night. Insta @editionpoetryperformance
Bored of My Little Ponies,
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Jeanette Burton is a poet from Belper in Derbyshire. Her poetry has previously appeared in Mslexia, Poetry Wales, The North, The Friday Poem, Dust, Atrium, IS&T and Dreich. She has been placed in several competitions, winning first prize in McLellan (2021), Ware (2022) and Poets, Prattlers and Pandemonialists (2023). Her debut pamphlet, Ostriches: Ten Poems about My Dad, is published by Candlestick Press. https://www.candlestickpress.co.uk/pamphlet/ostriches-ten-poems-about-my-dad/
Ghost Singer
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Catherine Graham’s the author of ten books. Her poems have appeared in Best Canadian Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Daily, Gutter Magazine and on CBC Radio. Moon Writing is her latest book. A collection inspired by Remedios Varo is forthcoming. www.catherinegraham.com @catgrahampoet
Balcony women
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Note: More female suicides in Turkey are now reported as being balcony killings – less easy to detect – as many as one in four hidden femicides disguised as suicides. The Guardian 31.1.26
Alison Campbell, from Aberdeen, lives in London and has poetry published in various publications including London Grip, Culture Matters, Indigo Dreams. She was highly commended in the Ware poetry competition, 2024 and won the South Downs poetry competition in 2023.
Fuck/ this hair
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Lynn Valentine lives in the Black Isle. Her second poetry collection, Devil’s Piece, was published by Cinnamon Press in 2026. Lynn’s debut poetry collection, Life’s Stink and Honey, was published by Cinnamon Press in 2022 after winning their literature award.
atriumpoetry.com 