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Shiksha S Dheda back next the poet South African of Indian descent, Shiksha Dheda uses writing to express her rollercoaster ride of OCD and depression – but mostly, to avoid working on her Master's. Sometimes dabbling in photography, painting or the baking of lopsided layered cakes, Shiksha has had her writing featured in Brittle Paper , The Daily Drunk , Door is a Jar and Epoch Press . She's also The Pushcart Prize nominated author of Washed Away . the poems When I think about writing about flowers 00:00 / 01:32 The world is falling apart. Tearing itself into pieces. Then breaking those pieces into tinier pieces. It’s chewing itself up. Crunchingly. Crunch. Chew. Crunch. Chew. Spitting itself out. Vomiting. Convulsing. Should I be writing about flowers at this time? Should I be getting lost in a garden? In a beautiful world of growth and beauty when war rages around me? Should I write about flowers when the weeds of negativity, of malice, of suspicion, of anger, of desolation are fed by the never-faltering winds of my pessimism? Carried on the backs of minute ants – too small to comprehend that the salty sugar pieces that they carry will create a sculpture of paranoia – of nervous frustration – in some abandoned corner of my mind. Should I be writing about flowers when the anxious caterpillars of my obsessions burrow into my hands – eating them from the inside out, leaving behind beautiful wretched blood butterflies – bared, naked for all to see – to marvel, to mock: my insanity; a kaleidoscope of my helpless, vulnerable, aggressive, disappointing scars. Should I really be writing about flowers? Come, eat. Come, drink. 00:00 / 01:18 Come, eat. Come, drink. It’s my party – everyone’s invited. Eat this bread. Made daily – from the labours of my love – from the frustrations of my bored hours. Drink this punch. Perfected now – after months of trying different concoctions – after days of crying on the floor in defeat. Sit at my table. Worn out now – from days spent trying to be productive – from nights struggling to sleep, laughing at endless memes. Lay your hands next to mine. Cracked and raw now – from washing and washing, and washing – from waiting and waiting, and waiting. Speak. Let me hear your voice. I yearn for it now – after months of sobriety – after months of starvation, let your champagne voice flood my home, let your streamer hair flow across my table, let your confetti gaze lock eyes with my parched stare. Come, eat. Come, drink. It's my party – everyone’s invited. You’re invited. Martyr 00:00 / 01:21 I remember the war – intense, bloody – I fought for what I thought was right. Fought for what I thought would make a better country; a better home. For me. For all of us. For you. Wanting to be courageous, reluctantly so at points, wanting to carry you; even if I had to bear you upon my own weary back. I thought we had won the war. I thought it would be worth it at the end. Stumbling back home, I see the native flag. Torn. Battered. I see my home. Torn (apart). Divided. I see you. Embarrassed – by my wounds – – my scars – I cannot bear your silence – your reluctance – – your evading line of vision. Your disdain. Your shame. I yearn now for the sound of bullets, long for the uncertainty of spontaneous explosions, thirst for the imminent possibility of mangled death, – the opportunity to die a martyr. A celebrated hero. Not live as a burden. Fighting – daily – – embattled – – at war – within me. Against this civil society. Against you. Against myself. Publishing credits Come, eat. Come, drink.: Stanchion (Issue Seven) When I think about writing about flowers: Paranoid Tree (Vol. 8) Martyr: Washed Away (Alien Buddha Press) S h a r e

Rick Dove back next the poet Queer, mixed-race and neurodivergent, Rick Dove is a poet and activist from South London. His work explores themes of social justice, epistemology and identity – drawing on science-fiction, philosophy and mythology (with no small measure of mischief). Using a blend of traditional and free-verse styles to interrogate the liminal spaces that define common humanity, Rick was dubbed ‘one to watch’ by T S Eliot Prize winner Roger Robinson. Rick’s debut collection Tales from the Other Box appeared in 2020, and he was crowned Hammer & Tongue UK Poetry Slam Champion at the Royal Albert Hall the following year. the poems Blind Study / Test Subject 00:00 / 01:44 Traces of LSD can be found in the hair up to 90 days after ingestion. This is 180 times longer than it is detectable in the blood. It is days after, and still an orgy of detritus is clinging to my skin. The brush of my shorn crown is prickly. It is fresh in-patient released. A new-born fleeced. Triggering apocryphal memories of Electro Convulsive Therapy, the chair, and of not wanting to catch fire. Triggering memories of reading about the invention of Velcro, of George de Mestral and his dog, stubborn cockle burrs with their hooks in deep, clinging. Glowing with bandwidth restrictions, the elemental filaments are burning wires in my skin, standing to attention, still receiving the whispering, on an acrid stench, days after. This is why they shave the heads of those about to die: to stop them transmitting. To prevent the secondary transfer of dreaming. I will have to wait for my hair to grow back before I'm identifiable as a victim. In most cases, nuclear DNA is broken down to its building blocks. So if a hair lacks a root it will be impossible to extract a useful sample. It is days after, and I am home. Greeted by golden threads, they pull me anti-Theseus back into the labyrinth, trip wires attached to booby traps, her blonde invading berserkers. The poison metabolised before she left that morning, its debris will take a lifetime to clear. Detritus of dissociation sticking to the rubble like Velcro, it must be pulled away slowly. Earning the Title Diva June, 2016 00:00 / 02:21 Chess timer chastising his strategy, hanging boardroom clock louder than memory, facial tics, he had asked for five minutes, when she had them, but tensions tied, had stolen his tongue for two. Blank. Floodgates. Gambit onslaught, the explanation to HR, briefing reasons for the meeting. A cortisol taster, wafer and wine anxiety. How he had bonded with a writer from Florida over America is a Gun by Brian Bilston. How, although Florida is a big state, when he had tried to raise the writer, his message went unread. How this worry was eating him, he said. He did not need to be at home, had to stay busy. But it might be necessary for allowances to be made, later, if the situation changed. He stopped for breath. This is the edge, he said, and I am on it. A ledge with no one to talk us down. My hypervigilance had been activated at some point of no return on the District Line that morning, shaken up by rocking motions, the lullaby wheels recalling the feel of rumbling bass through my feet. I was back on Frith Street on May Day Bank Holiday weekend in ‘99, a Friday. Turning right into Old Compton. Meeting clouds from the west. This five minutes of programming in endless repeats of Mr Angry. This morning’s tube rhythms fading into the stampede as breaks made screams, until again I could taste masonry dust. Asking who knows first aid. Debris learning triage in the field. It is not 9am, and I need a whisky. And I am watching him omit this part of our explanation to HR, saying merely, he cannot trust himself to remain stoic in the office today. Especially in the face of its typical hypermasculine heteronormativity, with epithets like confetti. Especially in the wake of what just happened a world away. How they are too threatening in this new frame. Too threatening today. I used to do drag he says. These were my people. By implication, HR and the rest of the team are not. Back from the Admiral Duncan, tears are salting the dust in our rushing blood. The boardroom clock is lost, as we resynchronise our brainwaves to present. Together again, America is a Gun we say – you should read it. It might help explain. Later, the MD will call us Diva for the first time. Claim the events are unconnected. We stayed all day. Protest is Pride. The Chat 00:00 / 02:45 i heard it first at seven the day they called me gollywog and as the word passed these lips to meet Mum’s ear a tear and every time since then i am back there little boy lost there wondering when i will grow up praying and praying (like that was ever enough) that this world will too strange then that this was too my childhood’s very end there in an eighties living room as Mum and Dad and i have The Chat and my dad tells the tale regales again and again in his final days about his early years on this isle how only black in the village was actually a thing and how it was him and how on a summer’s day no more than eight a policeman at the gate came to tell his mum he couldn’t go to the corner shop alone again he hadn’t stolen anything but the shopkeeper (like so many back then) wasn't one for details except that simple single one that still holds us back so later that evening Granny and Grandad give my eight-year-old dad The Chat and i rehearse it with a girlfriend same night as our first tiff late on a date about twenty-oh-three (the year not the hour) as she suggests we hail a cab and her privilege hits me there hits me square hits me full force in the derriere i won’t be able to flag one here i SNAP snarky inferring maybe it should be you in the flooded gutter in your good shoes … and later that evening as i am cleaning her boots she and i have The Chat and this is how it's been for generations parents to their children star-crossed lovers in explanation in conversation after conversation spelling out how being black (though having some advantages) will get you treated as lesser by some or make you a target to some will put you in the crosshairs of some and this is something a quartet of Carl Lewis Linford Christie Usain Bolt and Jesse Owens can’t outrun it's a baton that we’re still passing and this is me to you my son for that is how i have to give it to my boy saying i hope this world will grow so you never truly know this feeling of being so conspicuous and yet so small of representing an entire skin tone all on your own alone because i know whenever you feel the weight of that it will crush you flat and you deserve to be on show only when you choose to be and now you are fully grown and in possession of our truth i know you will guard it well until it is due but i hope and pray (like that's ever been enough) that this ends with you and hopefully one day a black man merely standing on a stage or putting a pen to page will stop being a political act but until then we'll have The Chat Publishing credits Blind Study / Test Subject: Hair Raising Anthology (Nine Pens Press) Earning the Title Diva: Sometimes the Revolution is Small (Nymphs & Thugs) The Chat: Tales from the Other Box (Burning Eye Books) S h a r e

Mary Ford Neal back next the poet A writer and legal academic from Glasgow, Scotland, Mary Ford Neal is the author of poetry collections Dawning and Relativism , as well as an assistant editor of Nine Pens Press . Mary's poetry has appeared online and in print in a wide span of journals that includes Bad Lilies , After… , One Hand Clapping , The Interpreter’s House , Atrium , Long Poem Magazine , The Shore and Janus Literary . Her work has been nominated for both The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. the poems Mammina proves the existence of God 00:00 / 01:42 The day is on its hands and knees. Mammina basks on the balcony in great-grandmother dignity in all the quiet of a woman who has outlived her daughter, collarbones glistening, little cross flashing pink and gold among rivulets of August evening sweat as the sun finally loses its grip and goes down fighting, painting the duomo in eyeshadow colours. The whole horizon is made of churches. An ambulance squeals along an unseen street, not the smooth wail of the ambulances back home, but a desperate, discombobulated sound like the cry of a confused animal. Mammina makes the sign of the cross, lets loose a fast prayer. Her words are a string of small, round beads, tumbling one after the other. How can you be so sure anyone is listening? I ask in her bubbling tongue. My head is dusky with the sweetness the city gives off at the height of summer, and with all my days and nights at university. Mammina opens one eye, closes it, smiles back in her chair, takes a fat medjool date between leathery thumb and forefinger, squeezes it lightly, and says This perfect thing does not exist by accident. O California After Danez Smith 00:00 / 01:18 California’s an empty page, but scented like a candle so you have to write over someone’s idea of loveliness. No matter how delicate the fragrance, I could write a fist. I could write a swollen eye. I could write a lie. Perhaps a little blasphemy is okay. Bruises are not okay in California. Perhaps I bother about bruises but don’t even notice my snapped neck. Whatever you do, don’t move me. I’m resting on the lip of an ocean, and I want the ocean badly, but not this one. This one spits cold. I need the one so vast its edges are always gentle. I’ve told them that by evening I’ll be on a plane. I know if I could get to California it would sand me smooth. I know if I could get to California I could die big, die pacific, melt into the horizon like a god. We all fell silent except for the men 00:00 / 01:03 their solemn mahogany baritones closing around a keening гармошка, deepening, swelling, snaking between us, causing our skins to shed, winding around the hissing braziers, and it was as though all the longing in the earth’s bones sprouted, serpentine, charmed from sleep by Russian chords, and I decided just to dissolve into this longing, this sinuous lament, this отравление, uncoil myself from the hold of home, of language, of all my loves, and from now on my home would be this poison-apple moment, my language a dirge rich with consonants, and my only loves would be милый, любимый, Ангел мой. гармошка: a Russian accordion отравление: intoxication or poisoning милый: darling любимый: beloved Ангел мой: my angel Publishing credits Mammina proves the existence of God: Amethyst Review O California: The Shore (Issue 15) We all fell silent except for the men: Dust Poetry Magazine (Issue 7: Connection ) S h a r e

Charlotte Ansell back next the poet Charlotte Ansell left Yorkshire via the North Sea to moor up on the Medway. Her third collection Deluge was a 2019 Poetry Book Society Winter Recommendation, and she’s had poetry in Poetry Review, Mslexia, Now Then, Butcher’s Dog, Prole, Algebra of Owls and various anthologies – most recently These Are The Hands: Poems from the Heart of the NHS . Charlotte received a Royal Society of Literature Literature Matters Award in 2020, and is a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen . the poems My child buys a They/Them badge After Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 00:00 / 01:52 Because you made an announcement, does it make it so? Forgive me, I don’t see boy not yet, just the you you’ve always been, somewhere in between, yes, halfway through a door I have no key to, a warren I cannot tumble down. I am far too old to shape-shift now, despite your insistence it can be done. Please allow me time to grieve, the you that shrunk and slipped away. The only place your given name exists is in passwords on my phone, all other traces scrunched up, crossed out, erased, sunk or burnt. Your new pronouns cram my mouth, get lodged behind my tongue. I don’t expect the binders to always hold off the surgeon’s knife but forever is a long stretch when you’re fifteen; this is not like a decision to tattoo the word regret on your arm. I watch your carpet get worn with your white rabbit circles, it feels like your absolute conviction is the hook you needed to hang your pain on, with only me wondering why this one. They are already painting the roses, a whole court clamouring for my head but they don’t know you, my love, you can be anything you want and I will always be your mum. I want you to keep one more Drink me just in case, I want you to leave yourself an if . Published with the consent and blessing of my child Mockingbird Based on the traditional song, and after Terence Hayes’ A Golden Shovel 00:00 / 01:08 Your gasp prompts a finger to her lips – Hush. Ever the mimic, kingfisher shade this time, no longer little all grown as blue dye blush seeps her shoulders, your baby gone. Hugs are tolerated but far more nopes and don’t Mum , with rolled eyes, more words less say in her life; no beak grasping yet still a claw outstretched, please a familiar word, she only says Mama’ s - oftly when she wants something, all you cradled gonna fly, no more fluffed wings piled in your lap, you can’t buy back those years, mouth tight to a thumb. You love her still as fierce as a swan but she is restless, gobby, mockingbird. Credo for the clinic at the girls’ school 00:00 / 02:16 Don’t take this home even if this heaviness is not a shoulder bag of textbooks you can shrug off, it will settle in your bones, behind your eyes when your 9am cries for the mum who was either drunk or not there, says she isn’t bothered that she has a room now with an actual bed, where no one shouts she misses hugs, the unpredictability. Keep your tone neutral, if tears threaten, hold them back your empathy must be muted. Don’t bring home here, In these corridors, this tiny room you cannot be mum. When your 10am says she doesn’t know Why she feels so sad, after a year in which her half-brother saw his dad murdered, a stubbed cigarette life caring for her disabled mum before she reached fifteen do not say you understand. Do not make suggestions that are plainly stupid, there are those who recommend pinging a rubber band instead of taking a razor to a wrist but this is akin to gritted teeth in an avalanche. Resist. Never say it will be OK, you are here to sit with them in the tremors and not flinch. Hold still, no one feels listened to by a fidget. Never check your watch. Try to focus through your 10.55’s elaborate lies It’s not your job to believe her, nor judge or call her out. Your 12.15 doesn’t come, which considering, is no surprise. Don’t for one minute think you can rescue any of them – you are not God. At lunch, escape to the park for a proper latte from the mobile van. Head back. When your 2pm says she doesn’t feel seen, one of ten kids, beneath the hijab she has no faith in and tells you life is pointless, do not contradict. When the bell goes, do not take this home. Do not try this at home. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb S h a r e

Lynn Valentine back next the poet Black Isle-based poet Lynn Valentine remains attached to both her hometown of Arbroath and her adopted city of Glasgow. After winning The Hedgehog Poetry Press' Local People – Dialect Pamphlet Competition, Lynn's Scots language pamphlet A Glimmer o Stars appeared in 2021. Her debut poetry collection, Life’s Stink and Honey , which had won the Cinnamon Press Literature Award in 2020, was published two years later. Lynn's poetry has been featured widely in journals ranging from Gutter and Under the Radar to Northwords Now and New Writing Scotland . She's currently at work on her second full-length collection, which she'll be publishing with Cinnamon Press in 2026. the poems Thi Leid o Hame (The Language of Home) After Roger Robinson 00:00 / 00:56 A hae cairriet this hansel withoot kennin, (I have carried this gift without knowing,) this thrapple that thraws oot thi rrrs. (this throat that throws out the rrrs.) Fir years a thocht tae smoor it doon, (For years I thought to smother it,) as teachers wid, eyewis thi correktions, (as teachers would, always the corrections,) thi head instead o heid, thi dead instead (the head instead of heid, the dead instead) o deid. Ma faither gied it tae me, (o deid, My father gave it to me,) ma granny tae—aa those who draggit (my granny too—all those who dragged) oan tae land at ma hame toon—fish (on to land at my home town—fish) who grew hurdies an settilt there. (who grew haunches and settled there.) A unpack thi bag—it sings sangs o hame (I unpack the bag—it sings songs of home) an faimily an athin o thi sea—thi reek (and family and everything of the sea—the smell) o Smokies that still maks ma veggie moo (of smoked haddock that still makes my veggie mouth) slabber, thi lang cauld wind wheechin in (slaver, the long cold wind driving in) fae thi Flairs, thi reid o thi cliffs bricht (from Carlingheugh Bay, the red of the cliffs bright) at ony time o year. A will tak this hansel (at any time of year. I will take this gift) an pass it oan, scrieve ma wurds, sing ma sangs. (and pass it on, write my words, sing my songs.) A Flourish of Sun 00:00 / 01:04 Midsummer a surprise to those who have handled the weight of winter, they flop in shorts sold at The Factory Shop for a fiver, milk-pretty legs thin in this world of burning and cups of pale rum. Heat peels roofs back, shifts into rooms where snow used to drift. Dogs circle unsatisfactory trees, mongrels mad with lack of shade, long grass pulped to dust. All night, light syrups in at the windows. Bees can’t hold a waggle dance, are confused, too slow. Blue roses swoon, futile in remembrance of rain. You ask – Did you forget to take your pills again? I am awake every hour, the bright orange fizz in my brain. I am light as a wren. I wonder if I’ll return to winter – to a seam of frost, to the half-shut moon, fat lap of dark. All That is Needed 00:00 / 01:17 When I am alone I will turn eastwards to live in a brown house at the edge of the sea. I will inherit storm-cracked apple trees and the wild goats that crop their meals close to the shore where the green boat sleeps. I will eat cheese as fat as the cheeks of the moon and pare the good red apples as thin as fingernails with no one to complain. I will drink sour wine saved from a communion years ago, and wash it down with water drawn from somewhere secret. I will not cook and no one will ask me to. I will buy bread from the grocer’s van once a week along with tins that open easily. I will leave the fish alone, unbothered by a hook, and if someone visits accidentally I will ask that intruder to go. I will watch my face grow pursed and thin in the mirror of the stream while my hair grows thick as brambles. I will turn pebbles to find precious little. I will stuff my mouth with sun when it’s hot, and on cold mornings I will ask the tide for answers. Publishing credits Thi Leid o Hame: A Glimmer o Stars (The Hedgehog Poetry Press) A Flourish of Sun / All That is Needed: Life’s Stink and Honey (Cinnamon Press) S h a r e

Kerry Darbishire back next the poet Living in the English Lake District and writing most days, Kerry Darbishire is inspired by her wild surroundings. Her poems have won – and been placed in – many competitions, and her work has appeared widely in anthologies and magazines. Kerry's three poetry collections are A Lift of Wings , Distance Sweet on my Tongue and Jardiniѐre . There are also her pamphlets A Window of Passing Light , Glory Days (in collaboration with Kelly Davis) and River Talk . the poems River Talk After Raymond Carver 00:00 / 01:21 I’d slip across mossy rocks to catch your intonations clear as glass splintering morning air, accents you taught me before the scent of pine lifted from your tongue, before blackbirds and traffic spilled over the bridge. Come autumn you’d growl open-mouthed through the woods towards me louder than a stream, faster than a beck, bold as a heron, I’d wait on the brim. Sometimes a rush of hungry dippers murmured through marigold edges like angels, but I didn’t need saving. I learned to measure the highs and lows of your voice even in winter when your lips barely moved, and you held me like a mother in a perfume of breathy lullabies sinking deep into my pillow and I clung as if I was your child to every word you whispered, like fog shifting from your skin. All night I’d lie awake listening to the sound the water made until I was fluent. Jardinière 00:00 / 01:43 When I lift the lid, I let go the ghosts of kings and queens tombed in their paper-dry beds – buds and petals still clothed in the palest dawn, bonfire-grey, evening-sky-pink, thunder-cloud-yellow, honesty’s sheen like rainstorms that often sent us back inside with the smell of drenched earth in our hair. When I lift the lid, I could turn a field into a garden, work all day, become Vita Sackville-West or Gertrude Jekyll using her painterly approach to colour. Season after planted season I grew, cut and gathered aquiligea, rosa rugosa, alchemilla, poppies, larkspur; honoured their brief blooms in vases until they threw themselves down like confetti. When I lift the lid, forty summers rise and wake from slumber: lapsang souchong and cake, birdsong, afternoons fading in deck chairs, slow-scented evenings folded in the wings of moths; my daughter’s tenth birthday, the spring she broke her arm, the autumn she left home and my mother fell ill. It is a thing to leave your soil. When I go I’ll take my garden with me. Song of the Fell 00:00 / 01:40 When you say fellside a woodpecker drums spring into the ghyll, curlews turn their tune inland on salt clouds scudding west to east fast as a fox crossing high slopes where runnels of earth slip from lairs and whins begin to yellow the air. When you say fellside an evening in summer swims out of my children’s eyes as they race to the beck where lizards soak up warmth from boulders, foxgloves guard sheep trods, firm as stone, where reeds lean in like old friends and distance spreads a blue cloth. When you say fellside owls haunt low light, the first frost snaps at hedges of hazel and thorn, snow steals boundaries without a second thought from high intakes at rest, hollow nests, berries shrivel and all evidence of life before is squirrelled under white. When you say fellside celandines must be opening, a half-moon floating in a lake-blue sky lifting sun, swallows and flights of geese over Whinfell; our bright steps climbing a new path to find water-mint, frog spawn, primroses waiting for rain. Publishing credits River Talk: Flights (Issue Five) Jardiniere: Jardiniere (The Hedgehog Poetry Press) Song of the Fell: Finished Creatures (Issue 5, 'Surface') S h a r e

wave fourteen summer 2023 Alice Stainer Aysegul Yildirim Dave Garbutt Deborah Finding Devjani Bodepudi Ed Garvey Long Hannah Linden Ian McMillan J L M Morton Jamie Woods Jerm Curtin May Chong Ramona Herdman Valerie Bence Victoria Punch

Maxine Rose Munro back next the poet Maxine Rose Munro is a Shetlander adrift on the outskirts of Glasgow. Her poetry has been published widely, exhibited at the Stanza Poetry Festival, shortlisted for the SMHAFF Awards, and nominated for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Maxine runs the First Steps in Poetry feedback programme, which offers beginner poets free feedback and support. the poems Finnman 00:00 / 01:12 My land is a constant, stripped by inconstant seas and I should know better: allure soon abandons all promise and beauty lies like an oily film on your surface. I have no use for fortune-tellers spinning gaudy futures – tall, dark strangers on narrow, isolated islands can't be true, but are surely puzzle and paradox. False, false man there is as much plastic in your offer as silver fishes in the sea. Now you tell me of your sunken treasures and hidden depths, but never your shifting, treacherous nature. I dream of your sea rising to enfold me, cover my mouth and stop my breath. I am lost and will go with you. But first come close, closer, let me see if, like waves meeting land, you break against me. The Finnman is a legend of the Northern Isles. Sometimes he can be benevolent, others he seeks to entice women down to his undersea world, only to turn them into his slaves. Let me sing a song of love 00:00 / 01:11 though we both know I'm not romantic. Though it could end in embarrassed mumbling and staring at our feet. I know I take time to get going, and often head off in a confusing direction, but just sit, and I'll do my best. Let my voice crack, wander between dialects like it does when I'm worried I'm an idiot putting myself forward for a kicking, a puppy wanting to pee all over the floor, shivery with terror, anticipating horror. I've written the words and rehearsed them a dozen different ways but none of them were as right as I wanted. It's funny how so very hard it is to do this, but let me try. Let me stand up before you, not quite look at you, let me sing the words I wrote you, edited over and over and over again. Let me sing this song – I love you. I'm glad I found you and no one else. Let's live all our lives together. There. I have sung my song. I hope you don't think I got it wrong. I hope you feel the same. Mother Tongue 00:00 / 01:04 If I were to speak with my mother's tongue my words would reach up out of the land, rooted deep in the language she learned sat at the knees of Viking descendants – the soil pressed against her bare skin: möld , a word that grew in her fertile mouth. To be dirty rich was möld -rich. To be nearly buried by the drink, möld -drocht. Her word for the Earth: Aert . Spoken with an ai , a rolling r , and a tih . Compact. Solid. And if she were to say 'from all the earths', well, this was her way of saying 'everywhere'. Stuck and grounded, both aert -fast. And that was how she looked to me, a woman who couldn't work with abstracts, their gush, their drift from the source. But my father, ah now, my father, he was one who was soothed by this. His words were dreams of the sea. Publishing credits Finnman / Let me sing a song of love: exclusive first publication by iamb Mother Tongue: Acumen S h a r e

Charles G Lauder Jr © Julian Lauder-Mander back next the poet Charles G Lauder Jr was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Having lived on both coasts of America and graduated from Boston University, he moved to Leicestershire in the UK where he lives with his wife and two children. His poems have been published widely – in print, and online. From 2014 to 2018, he was Assistant Editor for The Interpreter’s House; and for over twenty years, he's copyedited academic books on literature, history, medicine and science. Charles' two pamphlets are Bleeds and Camouflaged Beasts . His debut collection is The Aesthetics of Breath . the poems The Color of Mourning 00:00 / 01:21 The colour of morning in a San Diego autumn: you displaced here twelve years note sunlight’s silent taint and fade trees stained not with the blood of a slain midsummer god but with the knick of his finger. Dressed in the hues of fallen leaves you fill kitchen corners with apples and acorns corn husks and pine cones brew cauldrons of thick chowder and beer dropping hints that August has outstayed its welcome. This is the time of spiders gossamer-veiled doorways thresholds scorched by the shadow of scarred tattooed pumpkins eyes spooned out in grief over summer’s supposed passing. From here you scry distant clouds of smoke: seasonal wildfires fuelled by desert sage and dried brush that will touch many hands before put out like the sparklers once waved around a bonfire as if casting a spell lights danced off your fingers before extinguishing. The Pissing Contest 00:00 / 02:24 Little boys with their penises in hand gathered about a porcelain trough, the drain a silver dome, when all they know of politics is what they overhear their parents declare, so though they know nothing of Watergate and eighteen minutes of missing tape, nor of Ehrlichman and Hunt, Mitchell and Dean, they know ‘Nixon’, with its hard ‘ks’ lump, and Congressional hearings, the long, droning table of men in a dark wooden-panelled room and the high smack of a gavel, broadcast on all three TV channels, stealing away afternoon cartoons and Mother’s soaps for weeks on end, they stand there, penises grasped in little hands, following the biggest boy’s lead and aim their streams at the silver dome drain: Look at me! I’m peeing on the Capitol! Only a few of the arched golden flows have the strength to splatter against the dome, burst through its holes like a water cannon against windows, offices and corridors flood with desks and sofas floating away in the foam, interns and PAs swim to get clear. It doesn’t matter if they really meant the White House, or Congress, or Washington in general, this is for Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and, if their mothers were here, The Guiding Light and As the World Turns , little boys peeing until penises run dry and the pee drains away, leaving a stink and a stain, the little boys are proud of their new game, as penises are waved and shook, then tucked away. This before the days of separate urinals, like older brothers and fathers already use, where they’ll stand, distracted by size, and brag to one another that the water is cold , and the biggest boy will reply, And deep too . The Guest 00:00 / 01:25 Bellying up to the night in neighborhoods as dark as the street corners of my mind I meet him fully for the first time, lucid, bug-eyed manic but not ugly, his frightened grasp handcuffed to my wrist as he circles, circles about me like wagons on the open, empty plains. What folk birthed and nurtured him, caged him, then set him free with few words in the ear as guidance? Like a cousin, or brother, last seen as a child —he’s not a stranger, but he is. Back home, thieves have broken in and he breathes their air, the money they stole, the television they broke, the window they crawled through, the colorful oxygen of their skin. Like a dead grandfather or drunk uncle at Christmas he collapses on the sofa mumbling like a ventriloquist, lending me his tremulous voice, his pinched nose and clouded sight. Rubbish spilling from his pockets is quickly brushed under the carpet. Publishing credits The Color of Mourning: The Aesthetics of Breath (V. Press) The Pissing Contest: Atrium The Guest: Dreich (Season 4, No. 2) S h a r e

Sue Finch back next the poet Sue Finch's first published poem appeared in A New Manchester Alphabet in 2015 while she was studying with Manchester Metropolitan University for her Masters. Her work has since appeared in a number of magazines including The Interpreter’s House , Ink, Sweat & Tears , Dear Reader , One Hand Clapping and IceFloe Press . Sue's debut collection, Magnifying Glass , was published in 2020. She lives with her wife in North Wales. the poems Flamingo After Liz Berry 00:00 / 01:47 The night she bent my elbows to fit the candy floss cardigan for the twenty-third time, my limbs turned to wings. She wished me to be a pink girl. My neck grew and grew, elongating, extending, black eyes shrunk in the pink like submerged pea shingle. Light in my fan of feathers, I was lifted like a balloon puffed with helium. Body and wings held stately, magically anchored by one leg, miniature rough patellas marked my hinges. When the scent entered half-moon holes in my new beak I could have salivated at the raw rip of scaled flesh but my juices would not run – I was gizzard now. I couldn’t bear the confinement of the flock, but flight had me fearful. Passing through flamingo phase I fattened, darkened. A birch broom in a fit, I shook my thick cheeks side to side became a dodo with a waddle in my walk that slowed. She sent my father then. He came alone with gun and incongruent grin and shot me dead. Skewered me above his heaped fire under moonlight, turned me slowly round and round. When he turned for the sauce I dropped; charcoaled feathers, beak tinged with soot, burning in the blaze. I laughed as I rose higher and higher; a golden bird from the fire. I Can't Send You Back, Can I? 00:00 / 01:56 I I can’t send you back, can I? she said. What if I wanted to go? To have her voice filtered through skin and fat. Those words, those questions, that curious consoling babble. What if I wanted to be enclosed again? To be unseen, hidden. What if I wanted to keep her expectant? To have us halted in anticipation. II Last time I led with my head; tunnelling though grip after grip of concentric circles. A hot salted mucus sealed my squashed nose denying me her scent. Air on my hairless head shocked me as my face squashed tighter for my slow unscrewing. The throb of heartbeats confused me with her; fast and faster in my ears, my chest, my head. Longing to cry, my lungs had me impatient. A metallic tang hung in shivers of cold as at last my body slung out behind. I was landed. III This time I would be her contortionist daughter – her womb my lockable box. I would have to go backwards, lead with my feet, point my toes. Contoured contractions would twist my legs into a rope their powerful vacuum cramping, pulling, spiralling me upwards until the smooth, curled width of my hips pushes her pelvis, demanding to come in. My left shoulder would force her wide just before that warmth grabs my neck. Her stretch for the sharp shock of my head would finally close my eyes. Jars 00:00 / 01:27 It was a surprise so I kept my eyes closed all the way to the garden. My empty stomach was a theatre of kaleidoscoping gems. She stopped me walking, invited me to open my eyes. Slowly I began to see. An enormous glass jar had been delivered to our lawn. Above it, swinging from a crane was a lid. Do you like it ? she asked. It’s huge , I managed. I am going to exhibit you , she said excitedly. You like things in jars . I did. That was the truth. A collection of smurfs, smartie lids, miniature carved owls, that figure of Dick Tracy. I liked looking at them, it made dusting easier, they could be handed to someone with ease, for scrutiny. I wasn’t sure this was right for me. I ordered an extra large one , she was saying. She seemed to be making a speech, a declaration of love. I was supposed to be grateful now, touched, overwhelmed. Two men were smiling at me asking her if I was ready. then I was on a platform being lowered in. I smiled like a good exhibit should as the lid was lowered on. It fitted firmly. Did she know I would make condensation spoil the whole effect? Publishing credits Flamingo: won second prize in the Cheltenham Poetry Festival Competition 2020 I Can’t Send You Back Can I?: Interpreter’s House (Issue 69) Jars: One Hand Clapping Magazine S h a r e

Samuel Tongue back next the poet Winner of a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust, and former poetry editor at The Glasgow Review of Books, Samuel Tongue is a widely published poet with a debut collection, Sacrifice Zones , and two pamphlets – Stitch and Hauling-Out (Eyewear Aviator, 2016). His recent work has appeared in Finished Creatures, Butcher’s Dog, The Scores, and One Hand Clapping. A selection of Samuel's poems is to be published in Ukrainian translation by KROK in 2021. the poems Emergent Properties 00:00 / 02:01 a church is enveloped by a forest and the forest is the creator and redeemer of the church. the hermits who can disappear into the trees, are trees. every time a tree moves it is a brustling prayer. susurration as supplication. the habit of the tree is its dwelling in the world. yes, Heidegger was wrong. no, the stone is not worldless; no, the animal is not poor-in-the-world; no, man is not only world-forming. the stone can be ground and underground – a negative capability – and the animals are adept at dwelling. neahgebur – they who dwell nearby. try not to think that clearing the forest is a clearing for thought. leave it dark for all the neighbours who are essential. My life and death are in my neighbour and a church is enveloped by a city and the city is the creator and redeemer of the church. the anchorites who can disappear into their cells, are cells. every time the bus doors hiss open, it is a shushed prayer. pneumatic pneuma. the habit of a tower-block is its dwelling in the world. yes, Le Corbusier was wrong. no, the house is not a machine for living in; no, the streets do not belong to the automobile; no, ornamentation is not a religion of beautiful materials. the tower-block can be forest and bewilderment – a negative capability – and the streets can be recovered. différance – that iterative, unrepeatable stranger. try not to think that deciding on anything will stop more emergence. leave it dark for all the strangers who are essential. My life and death are in each stranger and Fish Counter Fish that have a pebble in their heads; fish that hide in winter; fish that feel the influence of stars; extraordinary prices paid for certain fish. The Natural History Pliny 00:00 / 01:08 Cod that have been skinned. Cod that have a pebble of dill butter in their heads. Cod breaded. Cod battered: tempura or traditional. Smoked haddock. Dyed haddock. Wise lumps of raw tuna. Scaled, pin-boned pollock, de-scented: There are olfactory limits. Bake in the bag; no mess. 'This piece of halibut is good enough for Jehovah'. Fishsticks pink as lads’ mags. Skirts and wet fillets of sole. Fish fingers mashed from fragments of once-fish. Hake three-ways. Extraordinary prices paid for certain fish. Monkfish defrocked, gurnards gurning, fish so ugly you must eat them blindfold. Choose before the ice melts. Farm Boy 00:00 / 01:01 We rattle through the lanes in his ancient Austin Metro, footwells filled with welly boots and dried mud, clutches of sparrows bouncing around the high hedges. We pull off-road into gateways, warm dens of hawthorn; with a wink, he tightens his dog collar, disappears into a field, then returns with cauliflowers cradled baptismal under his arm, or broccoli blooms green as heaven. The Lord giveth and I taketh away , he laughs. One farmer gives us a brace of rabbits, still warm, leg-lashed with pink bailer-twine, and I hold them like newborns in my lap, soft as gloves. His theology is rich stews and a full belly before the Lord, Bible verses broadcast like seedcake on dry ground. I love him without understanding. In the evening, he holds me close and his prayers buzz sweetly in my ear. My pillow is a honeyed God. Publishing credits Emergent Properties: Finished Creatures (Issue 4) Fish Counter: Gutter (No. 17) Farm Boy: exclusive first publication by iamb S h a r e

Samantha DeFlitch back next the poet Sam DeFlitch, author of Confluence , is a National Poetry Series finalist. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review , Colorado Review , Iron Horse Literary Review , Appalachian Review and in On the Seawall , among others. Sam has received awards and fellowships from the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, The Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and the University of New Hampshire, where she completed her MFA. the poems Confessional 00:00 / 01:39 This is what happened: I found the wren frozen stuck to the ground and I kept on moving. The onion snow came too late this year; the hard freeze took out the plums. Some farmer kept the coal barrels burning through the night. Another lit half his land on fire to save the grapes. Some theologians think God gave us grapes— but not wine—so we, too, could find joy in creation. See: we make bread to be torn apart, hot. Hot and full of yanked-up wheatsheaf. We love the dog even though we know, we know— be it love or oats, we know it when we plant it— most things don't make it out alive. This is just to say: I'm not a theologian, or a farmer, or even the woman who scooped up the wren's body, tucked it in a plastic bag, and kept it in her freezer between the berries and winter greens, waiting patiently for the final thaw to bury it in soft earth. I'm just a girl with an emergent deer in her cupped palms; a girl saying: Look! This is what I have created with my grief. This is what love has made out of me. Garbage Night 00:00 / 01:54 It is Thursday night. It is garbage night. The trash is my old clothes and my old clothes are slipping through my hands. My hands are a box full of flies. The flies are taking off with my hair – look! I am bald. I am my mother’s truck engine. I am the space the deer left sleeping in the ferns. I am 7:52 in the evening. See, the sun has already set and the dog is crying to go out. Am I her, too? Her nose raised, twitching, into the evening air? My parents are getting old. I don’t like to say that out loud, but it’s true. The dog is old, too. I am rubbing the dog’s legs. I am a car full of empty coffee cups – see, I can’t bring myself to dump them. They remind me of yesterday. I am all the days that the sky has broken clear and cold, spilling oranges across the dawn-line. I am the Ohio line. I am West Side Road after all the tourists have left for the day I am laying myself down on the asphalt to watch the stars come out in real soaring spires above my head until the dog begins her howling. I am waking all the days. I am the ferns, and I keep space for you, for the coffee cups. I am peeling my long body off asphalt, and gone round back to feed the chickens. Final Thaw of Soft Earth 00:00 / 01:29 Something's not right with my river, my mother says. And it is Truth: each night the beavers pull apart saplings, pull them apart fresh and at the edge. The river gets blocked. The water stops and at night I hear howling in the east. In the year of the year of the plague — this the age I restring my mother's mother's Miraculous Medal and hang it from my dash — the days are long as a year. Ticks fall like spring melt from branches and cling to the legs of the moose calves. A great fir tree falls on a man as he sleeps. The mountain is angry, my mother says, and it is Truth. In the days after this, another surgeon would open me. There is never any good explanation for my pain, which is real. I must have it. Night after night, this racket in the woods; the re- building of the thaw-rushed dam which, this time around, might make a good home. This remarkable rumpus chirping hope. Publishing credits Confessional: Barren Magazine (Issue 19) Garbage Night: On the Seawall Final Thaw of Soft Earth: Moist Poetry Journal S h a r e

Laura Theis back next the poet Writing in her second language, Laura Theis has work in POETRY , Oxford Poetry , Magma , Rattle and elsewhere. As well as being nominated for a Forward Prize, she's been the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize , the Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize and the Hammond House International Literary Award. In addition, Laura's collection, A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things , won the Live Canon Collection Prize. She has two new volumes of poetry due out in 2025: a collection with Broken Sleep Books, and her debut children’s poetry book with The Emma Press, Poems From A Witch’s Pocket . the poems in my mother tongue the name for grand piano is wing 00:00 / 01:00 in my mother tongue words can be feathered which turns them into old jokes or proverbs owning a bird in my mother tongue is sign of great madness: you can accuse someone with an outrageous opinion of cheeping and chirping if you want to convey that you are flabbergasted or awed in my mother tongue you might say: my dear swan which is what I think when I first hear you play as your fingers move over the keys I wonder what gets lost in translation between music and birdsong whether both soar above our need to shift between words then I remember in my mother tongue the name for grand piano is wing Medusae 00:00 / 00:59 Do not lose faith on the day you wake up with spiders instead of hair. Do not cry as you look in the mirror. Remember: They may stay. They may not. They are here for now. If you must, take pains to cover your head. Hide their crawling under your most elegant hat lest people recoil from you in the streets. Or don’t. Remember Medusa and her snakes. She’d turn anyone to stone if they looked at her frightened. She was a monster and proud. All hiss, curse and scorn: danger. And yet to think someone must have loved her enough to name half of all jellyfish those moon-glowing blooms of floating fluorescent umbrellas and bells after her. miðnæturblár 00:00 / 00:47 we have to look up when we search for our dead even though we buried them in the ground but the dead like to call to us from the moon they try to spell out their wildering words in clouds or meteors they try to wave at us through murmurations and other such avian patterns in significant moments they do this to teach us to make lifting up our eyes a habit remember they say once every day for a couple of minutes the entire sky turns your favourite colour: the very darkest shade of blue Publishing credits in my mother tongue the name for grand piano is wing: won first prize in the Poets & Players Poetry Competition 2023 Medusae: how to extricate yourself (Dempsey & Windle) winner of the Brian Dempsey Memorial Pamphlet Prize miðnæturblár: POETRY Magazine (April 2022 'Exophony') S h a r e

J-T Kelly back next the poet J-T Kelly is an innkeeper in Indianapolis who lives in a brick house with his wife, their six children and his two parents. His poetry has appeared in Bad Lilies , Vita Brevis , Amethyst Review , Agape Review , Neologism Poetry Journal and elsewhere. J-T's debut chapbook is titled, Like Now . the poems Sousveillance 00:00 / 00:56 God has bugged the human heart. There are things in there God wants to hear. I imagine most of it is noise. Maybe God has something set up like a bobber on a fishing line. Talk to a friend about how you need a new toaster, and … Wait. That might be Facebook. God is the one who tells you that Santa can’t give you what you asked for. Behind a series of decorated wooden screens, God is moving, moving always. And muttering. But what is God saying? The language around God is all baffles: mystery this and can-you-catch-Leviathan-with-a-fishhook that. Well here’s the big secret: The listening device works both ways. You can hear God speaking whenever you want. Like now. Like now. Art History 00:00 / 01:42 I don’t know what you know about painting— house painting, I mean—but there’s an art to it. House painters are known to be drunks. So, of course, are painters of art. Caravaggio used models who were drunks and murderers. It takes one to know one. It may be that the mystery is not in the art but in the drunkenness. To be a drunk you don’t even have to paint anything. To paint a house you have to show up every day. You have to outlast the guy who caught the dropcloth on fire with his cigarette, the guy who fell off the roof because he found the safety harness restricting, the guy who cursed and threatened the homeowner in the homeowner’s own home. You have to show up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and on your birthday. You have to show up on the Feast Day of Saint Catherine of Bologna, patron saint of painters. You have to show up on the Feast Day of Saint Matthias the Apostle, patron saint of drunks. Matthias is the one who, when Judas Iscariot didn’t last, was chosen by lots. It seems to be up to chance who turns out to be a drunk, although, if you’re a painter, the chances do seem to be higher. Who makes it out of drunkenness alive sometimes feels like chance, sometimes like something more personal. There is a mystery. There is an art. My Wife Says Loving the Fall is Short-sighted 00:00 / 00:23 The racing clouds of autumn make my heart race, as if life had no bottom, no top, just space and time to love what is, one thing by one, without this wintry business of being done forever. Publishing credits Sousveillance / Art History: Like Now (CCCP Chapbooks) My Wife Says Loving the Fall is Short-sighted: exclusive first publication by iamb S h a r e

Michele Grieve back next the poet Michele Grieve was Poet in Residence for The Urban Tree Festival 2022/23, and a recipient of funds from Arts Council England's Developing Your Creative Practice. She graduated from the Faber Academy Advanced Poetry Course in 2023, and has had work published by WildFire Words , Obsessed With Pipework and Anthropocene . Currently collating her first poetry pamphlet, Michele can be found hugging trees, her five cats and her family in Hertfordshire, where she's also undertaking Bardic training. the poems Sunday Roast with My Family 00:00 / 00:57 At our faux Chippendale dining table, Marie Antoinette stabs her wig-mice with scarlet talons if they try for a morsel of her stuffing. Her head lolls to one side, we’re midway through my revolution. It wasn’t a clean strike. Plasma and cells sprint to flavour the gravy. To her right the shadow-man loiters, his wispy nervous edges flicker like the memory of remorse, unsure where they should end. He slices off each finger because he can. He cannot remember the last time he saw his own face. The brother who denies his blood lurks under the table, eating dog fur off the Axminster, trying to angle a view up my skirt. No one stops him. I say nothing. The cosplay mother calls me by my dog’s name then feeds him her breast. ACT TWO: 'THE TWENTY-YEAR SCRIPT' 00:00 / 02:20 GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR CHARACTERS: MOTHER (54) SWAN-NECKED, HER SPINE CLINGS TO A MEMORY OF DIGNITY BUT NOW HAS CLOSED RANKS AROUND HER HEART. AN ECHO CAN BE HEARD OF A 'WELL-PUT-TOGETHER' WOMAN, YET BLOTCHY FOUNDATION REVEALS YESTERDAY’S FACE. THE ONCE 'ELIZABETH TAYLOR' HAIR NOW MATTED WITH ELNET, BATTLING TO RETAIN ORDER. DAUGHTER (20) A WEIGHTY PHYSIQUE OF A BODY WEARING ITS SHAME. BAREFACED, HER HAIR IS MID-LENGTH-LANKY WITH PREMATURE WHISPERS OF GREY. DESPITE THE CIMMERIAN SHADE, HER EYES HAVE A GLINT OF ÉLAN VITAL. NO ONE KNOWS HOW THIS IS POSSIBLE. SETTING: 1930s house, stands alone, held captive by two villages, each a mile away, both too far to seek help at 4am. The untamed garden to the front has a semicircular drive, allowing no one to ever truly arrive, or leave. A maternal willow tree reaches roots under the house, raising concrete and concern. The living room is coated with nicotine and anger. Everywhere is busy. Every room is loud. Faded school photographs offer a nostalgia for obedience. The red velour sofa is draped with lace antimacassars; once delicate and white, now tired and soiled. An anxious Axminister lay buried under decades of dander and despair. Sofa reclined; the mother catches up with friends on Coronation Street . An ashtray erupts beside her whisky, both work in unison to flavour the air. The daughter smokes her dummy. Mother: (peeling her eyes off the screen) Prefer your fringe to the side, it’s far more slimming. (Daughter drags on her fag to cauterize her wound. Mother sips whisky to anesthetize her everything.) Mother: (eyes glued back on the screen) I’ll make you a mango Slimfast for tea. The scene repeats ad infinitum without intermission. Gen P 00:00 / 00:44 We stay awake, just in case, like those 'poorly nights' when they were a babe, except so very not. The universe felled, they schooled themselves to swallow fear, breathing broken glass, no memory of air. 2020 liquified my children’s insides, and pain cannot leave without a name. I know of a woman who found her son hanging in his room. He used his school tie. So, we stay awake, just in case, longing for those 'poorly nights' when they could scream and cry. Publishing credits Sunday Roast with My Family / ACT TWO: 'THE TWENTY-YEAR SCRIPT': exclusive first publication by iamb Gen P: Obsessed With Pipework (No. 107) S h a r e