Issue 128

Andrew Motion

‘What am I doing here more than looking – / which I would stop / only to help things through their vanishing’

Jynne Martin

‘The hunter pushes a bullet beneath his tongue to fix his aim, / or is it to stave off his thirst?

Togara Muzanenhamo

‘He will not understand her fascination / for rain, these summer months of water / that somehow keep the money coming in.’

Ange Mlinko

‘I rediscovered the efficacy of meter (or the ‘contrast between fixity and flux’) when I was stuck in a shark tunnel with my kids and was afraid I was coming down with a panic attack.’

Issue 100

Jamie McKendrick

‘greener / for an alien crop of hogweed higher / than us’

Ángel González Muñiz

‘The cockroaches in my house complain because I read at night’.

Momtaza Mehri

‘salmaan the second son & his mama’s seventh seal by way of underwater & underemployment’

Issue 120

James Lasdun

‘I thought I’d do it while I still could.’

John Kinsella

‘They are superbly and viscerally unreal / and I feel their living drive’

Issue 119

Jamie McKendrick

Maureen N. McLane

‘They party in the woods / as if they were meant for pleasure / not timber.’

Ben Okri

‘On a night when my soul was damp / I found in the street a dark lamp. / The moon was cold and green, / The sky had a sinister sheen’

Chelsey Minnis

‘It’s dangerous like a very powerful doorbell. / Or a portrait covered with a blanket.’

Vivek Narayanan

‘he’s done something / he can’t take back’