Peter J Donnelly lives in York where he works as a hospital secretary. He has a degree in English Literature and a MA in Creative Writing from the University of Wales Lampeter. His poetry has been published in various magazines and anthologies including Dreich, Southlight, One Hand Clapping, Obsessed with Pipework, Black Nore Review, High Window and Ink Sweat and Tears. He was a joint runner up in the Buzzwords open poetry competition in 2020 and won second prize in the Ripon Poetry Festival competition in 2021. His chapbook The Second of August is soon to be published by Alien Buddha Press.
Abeer Ameer’s poems have appeared widely in publications including: Acumen, Poetry Wales, Planet and The Rialto. She is a member of poetry performance group, The Spoke. Her debut poetry collection, Inhale/ Exile, in which she shares stories of her Iraqi heritage, was published by Seren in February 2021.
Macha is a warrior goddess in ancient Irish and Celtic Folklore, associated with land, fertility, war and horses. One tale tells of how, while pregnant, she raced the King’s horses, giving birth to truth and modesty as she won, and cursing the men of Ulster in her agony.
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R. M. Francis is a lecturer in Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Wolverhampton. He’s the author of novels, Bella and The Wrenna and poetry collection, Subsidence. He is poet in residence for the Black Country Geological society. His next book, The Chain Coral Chorus, is a series of poems and essays that track this work.
Jean Atkin’s recent publications are ‘Fan-peckled’ (Fair Acre Press) and ‘The Bicycles of Ice and Salt’ (Indigo Dreams). Recent work in Pennine Platform, Raceme, Anthropocene, Finished Creatures, One Hand Clapping and Acumen. She works as a poet in education and community.
Our featured publication for May and June is You’ll Never Be Anyone Else by Rachael Clyne, published by Seren.
You’ll Never Be Anyone Else offers a unique story of survival and empowerment told in spite of experiences of violence and prejudice – this from a poet who has spent a lifetime learning self-acceptance and as a psychotherapist helping others to do similar. Treating even dark subjects with playful wit and colourful imagery, Clyne is a distinctive new voice with a powerful message about self-acceptance.
‘Rich, cinematic and sensuous‘ Joelle Taylor
‘Take a front row seat in Clyne’s very particular theatre of life; witness the tale of a woman’s self-discovery and self-acceptance in a world where the odds are stacked against her. Meditations on history, culture, identity and mortality offer up a simultaneously witty, discomforting and uplifting read.’ Jacqueline Saphra
‘This is a touching and potent body of work where we see a girl grow into a woman through a series of masked and costumed performances, before finally having the courage to be herself.‘ Helen Ivory
‘These poems embrace the risky, sensuous and camp, holding up a bulb-lined mirror to the scripts the world tries to impose. Clyne’s work traces the prickle of overt and covert discrimination, whilst celebrating the self-liberation performance can offer, both on and beyond the page.‘ Caleb Parkin
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Girl Golem
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Previously published in Tears in the Fence
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You’ll never be anyone else
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Previously published in Obsessed With Pipework
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A Man Threw Knives at Me
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Previously published in London Grip
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Rachael Clyne from Glastonbury, is published in journals including: Atrium, Iamb, Ink Sweat & Tears, Lighthouse , Rialto, Shearsman and Tears in the Fence. Recent anthologies: #Metoo, Out on the Page, Rebeltalk. Rachael has been a professional actor and a psychotherapist. Her passions are eco-issues and identity. Her prizewinning collection, Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams), concerns our broken connection with nature. Her pamphlet, Girl Golem (4word.org) explores her Jewish migrant heritage and sense of otherness. Facebook: Rachael Clyne or Twitter: @RachaelClyne1 Blog: https://rachaelclyne.blogspot.com/
Copies of You’ll Never Be Anyone Else are available to purchase from the Seren website.
Ed Roffe has been published in Lighthouse and Dear Reader. He recently concluded his MA in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes, and continues to live and write in the city of dreaming spires while working at the city’s other university. Twitter: @roffeed
Leicestershire-based Tim Relf has had poems in The Spectator, Acumen, The Rialto and The Frogmore Papers. He is an alumnus of Faber’s Advanced Poetry Academy. His most recent novel, published by Penguin, has been translated into more than 20 languages. Find him on Twitter at @timrelf
Karan is an ex-English teacher and mum to three lively boys. She has been published by Ink Sweat & Tears, Winnow Magazine and is forthcoming in The Hyacinth Review and Sylvia Magazine. Twitter: @KaranJCChambers, Instagram: @KaranChambersPoetry
Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. His seventh collection, Tell Us How to Live, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.
Vicki Husband’s first collection of poetry, This Far Back Everything Shimmers, was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year 2016. A pamphlet-poem, Sykkel Saga, was published in 2019. Vicki lives in Glasgow and works for the NHS.
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