Changeling
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Lapsed parachutist Laura Fyfe suffers from a chronic low boredom threshold. Her pamphlet ‘The Truth Lies’ is available from Red Squirrel Press. She lives in river deep, mountain high Stirlingshire and is the Stirling Makar.
Our featured publication for July and August is Walrussey by Bex Hainsworth, published by Black Cat Poetry Press.
‘This brilliantly-titled collection describes an abundance of sea and shore creatures, capturing them in a visionary net of language. Here are poems bearing witness to the stoic innocence and the survival skills of jellyfish and manatee, ancient blind shark and sunfish. Meticulous and lyrical attention to detail is evident throughout; the poems are inventive, compassionate; they convey the fragility of life and the long planetary history we share with our fellow creatures. Each creature is given resonant personhood. I have greatly enjoyed submerging myself in the wonders and the timely warnings of this collection.‘ Penelope Shuttle
‘In Bex Hainsworth’s Walrussey we take a dive into the poetry of witness to these “unusual shells”. Here are odes to the creatures of the sea, an “ocean in miniature”. Hainsworth’s poems develop our empathy for her sea creations, from the glorious cathedral of a whale to an early morning manatee. This connection to a fragile environment enables us, like the Octopus in her opening poem, to see the beauty in the fragile.‘ Jessica Mookherjee
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Walrussey
Previously published on Atrium
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An Octopus Picks Litter at the End of the World
Previously published in Typehouse Magazine, nominated for a Pushcart Prize
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Consider the Selkie
Previously published in Visual Verse
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Blue Lobster
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Bex Hainsworth is a poet and teacher who was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and is currently based in Leicester, UK. She won the Collection HQ Prize as part of the East Riding Festival of Words and has been shortlisted in the Welsh Poetry Competition, Waltham Forest Poetry Competition, and the AUB International Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Atrium, Ink Sweat & Tears, Honest Ulsterman, bath magg, and One Hand Clapping. Walrussey, her debut pamphlet of ecopoetry, is published by The Black Cat Poetry Press. Twitter: @PoetBex Instagram: @poet.bex Bluesky: @poetbex.bsky.social
Copies of Walrussey are available to purchase from the Black Cat Poetry Press website here.
I think about the wrongs
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Tristan Moss has had many poems published in online and paper magazines, such as Magma, Ink Sweat & Tears, Tentacular Magazine, Obsessed with Pipework, Snakeskin & London Grip. He has recently had two pamphlets published: ‘The Cold War’ (Lapwing Publications) and ‘Ligaments’ (The Red Ceilings Press).
Swansong
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From ‘A Pill of Light’, a sequence in memory of Sister Dora, a nurse who lived and worked in industrial Walsall, West Midlands from 1865 to 1878
Laura Stanley is a poet from the West Midlands. She completed her Creative Writing MA at the University of Birmingham. Her heresy has been published in bath magg, Magma, The Interpreter’s House, Blackbox Manifold, Anthropocene and by the Young Poets Network, amongst other platforms.
No protocols can save me now
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Deborah Harvey is co-director of The Leaping Word poetry consultancy, providing advice and counselling support for writers exploring the personal in their work. Her sixth poetry collection, Love the Albatross, will be published by Indigo Dreams in autumn 2024.
Sympathy for Jack
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Mark Czanik was born in the sweet borderlands of Herefordshire. His most recent work has appeared, or is due to appear, in Ink Sweat and Tears, Pennine Platform, CommonLit, The Forge, The Waxed Lemon, and Dreamcatcher. He lives in Bath.
The Cyber Man
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Will Snelling is a writer and musician from Hastings. His work has featured in Ink Sweat and Tears and New Critique.
Crime de Passion
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Benedicta’s poetry explores themes relating to identity, self-worth, family, nationality and body politics. After her MA in Creative Writing, she became a freelance editor. Her debut, Terrible Mother, is forthcoming in late 2024 with Black Cat Poetry Press.
On writing Witch
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Jenny Hope is a writer, poet and presenter living in wildish Worcestershire. Her website is www.jennyhope.co.uk
Return to Jack’s Rake
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Julian Dobson’s work has been published in print and online journals and anthologies, most recently in Stand, Acumen and London Grip. He lives in Sheffield.
