Author: Claire Walker

I'm a poet based in Worcestershire, UK. My poetry has appeared in print and online magazines including The Interpreter's House, Prole, Ink Sweat and Tears, And Other Poems, Clear Poetry, and Amaryllis, and in anthologies such as The Chronicles of Eve (Paper Swans Press). My first pamphlet, The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile, is published by V. Press. I'm a Poetry Reader for Three Drops Press, and Co-Editor of Atrium poetry webzine.

A Mark at Sainsbury’s – Carl Alexandersson

~ Claire Walker ~ Leave a comment

A Mark at Sainsbury’s

it was by the bananas
and then again
reaching for a loaf of bread
that we were told to step apart.
covid guidelines, of course,
but the straight couples
could shop away—

there are times I forget
that our lives will progress
like this:
glass doors shutting between us
at every other building.

I am tired, Mark.
you made me remember
just how much.

…

Carl Alexandersson (he/him) is a queer spoken word poet and writer, based in Edinburgh. He was selected for the BBC Words First programme in 2021 and his work has been published in Ink Sweat & Tears, Capsule Stories, Impossible Archetype, and more. Twitter: CarlAlex97 Instagram: caarlalexandersson

The Sisters – Maurice Devitt

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

The Sisters

After the other guests leave, you are alone
with them, and, in the minutes it takes
for absence to settle, you plump up the cushions
on the settee, stoke the fire – seeking refuge
in the crackle of sparks – and wonder
what direction this might take. Neighbours
and friends for years, there was
that gnawing silence the last time you met,
a silence you just couldn’t explain.
Yet, when you invited them around,
they were quick to accept. Now,
turned towards the fire, you sense their eyes
on you – the burr of a cleared throat signalling
a conversation that could go either way.

…

Maurice Devitt: Curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site, he published his debut collection, ‘Growing Up in Colour’, with Doire Press in 2018.  His Pushcart-nominated poem, ‘The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work’, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015. 

Dank – Rachael Clyne

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

Dank

One word can hold
everything you need to know
about the stare of sheep
from sodden fields

about the cronk
of raven through fog
a dog straining its leash
the mud-brown coat
of its owner

about luminous moss
down the middle of a lane
the sepia mash of leaf
that plasters its edges

about bleached sedge
that echoes with
toot of coot
chitter of wren
a dead branch
that arches and dips
into a ditch

…

Rachael Clyne’s collection, Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams), concerns our relationship with nature. Her pamphlet, Girl Golem (www.4word.org) explores her migrant heritage and sense of otherness. She is currently expanding this work into a collection.


Ungovernable – Abigail Flint

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

Ungovernable

…

Abigail Flint is a heritage researcher from Sheffield. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in a range of magazines including Under the Radar, Ink Sweat and Tears, Reliquiae, Popshot Quarterly, About Larkin, 192 magazine, and research project anthologies.

Mars – Fiona Cartwright

~ Claire Walker ~ 3 Comments

Mars

We walk on water-swelled soil
studded with earthstars, skins

pierced by rain, spores already erupted,
and I tell my mother

Now is the closest Mars will be until 2035
and she says

This Halloween moon’s a blue one.
The sky’s been deleted

by the sun, so when dark comes
I try to remember to look

for Mars’ orange seed briefly fruited
into a tangerine, clinging close

to a mistletoe ball of a moon
and I try, and fail to remember

the feel of my mother’s
small bent body in my arms.

…

Fiona Cartwright (Twitter @sciencegirl73) is a poet and conservation scientist. Her poems have appeared in various magazines, including Magma, Mslexia, Under the Radar, Interpreter’s House and Atrium. Her debut pamphlet, Whalelight, was published by Dempsey and Windle in 2019 (Fiona Cartwright).

Beluga at Mystic Aquarium – Bex Hainsworth

~ Claire Walker ~ Leave a comment

Beluga at Mystic Aquarium

For Juno

You hang like a stalactite
in the blue, a carved bone,
walrus tusk. Creature of cold,
ethereal, angelic, with the white
curves of a Renaissance maid.
Goddess, I envy your confidence
as you sway towards the glass.
Pale hips, hints of knee joints
sunk into your tail, blubber
in all the right places. No wonder
sailors wrote songs about sirens.
Your milky dome wobbles with the tilt
of your head as you ponder our echoes,
our symphonies. Mercurial, messenger
from a deeper realm, silent as an iceberg,
heavy with cow-like docility. It is mirrored
wonder when your beaked lips form
a gentle bubble in greeting, peering
at us like a child in front of
a television screen.

…

Bex Hainsworth currently teaches in Leicester. She won the Collection HQ Prize as part of the East Riding Festival of Words and her poetry has been published following commendations in the Welsh Poetry, Ware Poets, Beaver Trust, and AUB Poetry competitions. 

Uncle Reg – Sarah Wimbush

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

Uncle Reg

had two Gloucester Old Spots named Reggie and Violet,
bantams in the kitchen, three fingers on one hand,
and an earth closet you could see all the poo and wee in.

He loved my grandmother even though he’d just been the lodger,
and for years after I’d receive a £1 Premium Bond on my birthday,
all of which I still have, but none of the millions hoped for.

At teatime, I’d watch him scurry about like Alice’s rabbit,
then later, drowsing in the collapsing chair, he’d rest the metal
of his pocket watch against those two unlucky stumps.

…

Sarah Wimbush has published two pamphlets: Bloodlines (Seren, 2020) and The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster (Smith|Doorstop, 2021). Her first collection Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands will be published by Bloodaxe in 2022. 

Bumper-Stickers – Sue Spiers

~ Claire Walker ~ Leave a comment

Bumper-Stickers

It was the day after my second miscarriage.
We stood in a queue for fish and chips.
I didn’t feel like cooking.
I didn’t feel like doing anything.

Two women ahead of us were deep in conversation:
‘She’s getting a cot from my sister, clothes from Jane’,
‘What a chubby little boy…’ his weight, his date, his toes.
How friends rally to a birth.

I thought, how easy for some to drop a sprog,
of all our preparations, discussions of names,
trips to Mothercare. All that excitement turned
into silence and I-don’t-know-what-to-say looks.

Outside we walked between parked cars
loathing the Baby on Board bumper-stickers.

…

Sue Spiers lives in Hampshire and works with Winchester Poetry Festival and the Open University Poetry Society. Her poems have been published in 14, Acumen, Fenland Poetry Journal and Stand, and on-line at Ink, Sweat & Tears. Sue tweets @spiropoetry.

Zest and Other inhibitions – Zoë Ranson

~ Claire Walker ~ 2 Comments

Zest and Other inhibitions

It’s Tuesday. The big match
The Whirlpool engineer glazes over
For dinner, something pre-made, easy to heat through
rips in the centre of the soup plate

You really gotta try the raspberry volcanic
from the nonlinear past where food is presented on the laziest Susan
Shirt tail/syntax/unbreakable chain

The Vegas quadrant in Morecambe Bay an opulent public space
Back in the nineties, this whole area was a theme park
with a theme of an unsightly Red-eyed
Hamburglar or a Funny Fry friend from a frieze

Rides have astral/fairyland names
like Vespertine and Nebula
You remember how Olaf had a star named for him once

…

You know who else was here? Elsie. Elsie was here
in a brick red shade of lipstick
the ghost of her kiss blotted on tissue

…

Zoë Ranson is a writer and performer from Hackney, via Walton-on-the-Naze. She makes work from micro to epic, sometimes for the stage. @zooeyr @tentative_line