Issue 108

James Schuyler

‘what did you think of, / how long did you wait’

Issue 124

Rachael Boast

Issue 126

Aracelis Girmay

‘Please stay with me as I / replay the last touch.’

Issue 115

Gillian Allnutt

‘We waited quietly for the Queen who wasn’t there’

Cortney Lamar Charleston

‘fibrous little trauma fruit, wan little wound-licker’

Danez Smith

‘the boy claps me between / his hands & i break apart like glitter’

Issue 31

Salman Rushdie

‘Let me tell you, boyo, bach: I love this place, where green hills shelter me from fear.’

Paul Farley

‘I’m holding out. / I’m blue in the face.’

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’

Fiona Benson

‘I head down the path hoping she’ll come / but when I look back she’s gone and my own voice / snags at her name like barbed wire on skin.’

Issue 120

Ben Lerner

‘My role in the slaughter doesn’t disqualify the beauty I find in all / forms of sheltered flame.’

Jane Yeh

‘Her / Secrets play on continuous loop, // Like a B-movie.’