Callum Holgate, a third-year English student, has built an audience on social media, following the footsteps of digitally savvy poets such as Rupi Kaur and Brian Bilston. Holgate’s new poetry collection, Boys Will Be Boys, is the product of three years worth of writing, from poems about toxic masculinity and identity, to rats in Southampton […]Read More
Appearance is an attribute which can welcome a number of different pre-conceptions of a person, whether that be their history, interests or racial origin. Often embellishments of the body from clothing to tattoos can provide a welcome means of expressing personal identity. The body we are born with, can, on the other hand, infer conceptions […]Read More
HAVING A COKE WITH YOU is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonneor being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelonapartly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastianpartly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for […]Read More
i carry your heart with me (i carry it inmy heart) i am never without it (anywherei go you go, my dear; and whatever is doneby only me is your doing, my darling) i fearno fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i wantno world (Read More
Are you ready to order?No there is nothing to orderNo I’m unable to orderNo I’m a long way from orderAnd while there is everything,And nothing, to order,Order remains a tall orderAnd disorder feeds on the belly of orderAnd order requires the blood of disorderAnd ‘freedom’ and ordure and other disorduresNeed the odour of order to […]Read More
If you can see the sepia in the sunShades of grey in fading streetsThe radiating bloodshot in a child’s eyeThe dark stains on her linen sheets If you can see oil separate on waterThe turquoise of leaves on treesThe reddened flush of your lover’s cheeksThe violet peace of calmed seas If you can see the […]Read More
Stephanie Burt’s interpretation of the surviving fragments of Callimachus’s poems is a phenomenal feat, remaining true to the diverse and lively voice of the Alexandrian scholar’s original texts. In applying her demonstrable command of language, she is able to draw meaning from the original poems, many of which survive only in small fragments, ensuring their […]Read More
“I’m sure Somebody died while We made love. Some- Body killed somebody Black. I thought then Of holding you As a political act. I May as well have Held myself.” (‘Stand’ in The Tradition by Jericho Brown) The Tradition by Jericho Brown won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry – and rightly so. It is […]Read More
“For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.” — Audre Lorde In recent years, poetry has […]Read More
Around this time last year, I was writing a Christmas list and looking for something a bit more imaginative to put on it (something that gets harder with each year). I decided I would ask for a subscription to a renowned literary journal. As you do. Granta is a long standing and widely read literary […]Read More
Poetry is an art form of the highest order, in my opinion. There is an insurmountable number of images, ideas, thoughts and dreams can be created, suggested, revealed or hidden through stanza, couplet and line. Poetry is up there, as an art form, with painting or sculpture in terms of how culturally important it has […]Read More
The Munich Mannequins was published as part of Plath’s acclaimed Ariel collection in 1965. Featuring characteristically strong imagery, the speaker suggests that models are little more than mannequins because they forsake their fertility in order to preserve their figures. Plath critiques the fashion industry and society as a whole for glorifying a destructive physical ideal […]Read More
This week, we have chosen to look at ‘Paper People’ by Harry Baker, a spoken-word poet and UK Poetry Slam Champion in 2015. WhatsOnStage described his collection as an “adventure of poems, puns and pole-dancing, German raps and gangsta maths”. The content of his work is certainly varied and eclectic. ‘Paper People’ is one of Baker’s […]Read More
Title: Graffiti (and other poems) Author: Savannah Brown What I Think So Far: I am personally a great fan of the slam poetry genre in general and Savannah Brown in particular speaks volumes to me. I first discovered her on her YouTube channel, reciting her poems. and was gripped. I knew when I learned of […]Read More
‘Geoffrey Hill was, in poetry, a saint and a warrior who never gave an inch in his crusade to reach poetic truth’, so said Carol Ann Duffy. And it is in this fittingly poetic vein that people have been mourning the news that Sir Geoffrey Hill – who was often described as the greatest living poet […]Read More
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