Derek Walcott

‘I came up out of the subway and there were / people standing on the steps as if they knew / something I didn’t.’

Vénus Khoury-Ghata

‘The wells are kept for the use of the dead who splash the / walls with their silence.’

Issue 115

Sadaf Halai

‘It made the sound of / a small balloon dropping.’

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

‘the bell / was ringing from the chapel, they were there / expecting her.’

Issue 136

Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo

‘Haven’t you noticed people / are different since then?’

Issue 131

Kathryn Maris

‘this dream that might have been pleasant for an / 8-year-old could instead emerge as a nightmare for a woman / on the brink of menopause’

Megan Levad

‘Out of the Zeitgeist / and onto the party barge.’

Natalie Eilbert

‘I was thick dough when you ran us away. I never / knew you.’

Anne Carson

‘Funny to end up here you may think, in this line of work, did I back into it, well more or less.’

Issue 112

Hasina Gul

Issue 127

Ruth Ozeki

‘old poems, like polished stones, / tumbled words to break my teeth on.’

Matthew Rohrer

‘Even astronauts describe / our air as thick enough to slice / and spread on toast for breakfast.’

Maureen N. McLane & Rachael Allen

Granta’s poetry editor Rachael Allen talks to Maureen N. McLane about ecology, lyric authority, and balancing poetry with criticism.

Lorraine Mariner

‘The psychiatrist’s wife / has a dress the colour / of that bottle of claret / you shouldn’t have drunk / last night.’