Welcome to the September 2019 issue! It is good to see some familiar names among the contributors and also to welcome poets publishing in Allegro for the first time. I hope you enjoy reading their poems.
Sally Long
Poems
Fox At
Night
What is his purpose, dodging bright lights like a drunk
Man, hedging here and there, guilty as sin?
Walls and wire reinforce his lunatic determination
He’s a crack-head using the high for bravery, or he’s a
murderer
An insane lieutenant or a wife-beater,
A sower of bombs watching the clock, a cute-faced suicide
Or, to be generous, a loner cursed with insomnia looking
for
A twenty-four hour supermarket –
He gets away with it, the unspoken crime or violation
Or the brazen stroll among knife-children
Or angry wheels: he wants to drone missiles into weddings
But this is the limit, cruising for scraps, patrolling
Black bin-liners full of kiddy-shit, tampons and empty tins
The cruelty of that, the rage, the insult
The price on his head, the label of vermin -
Like thirst, a need to be numbered among the righteous.
Fred Johnston
The Shipping Forecast
She would listen to the shipping
forecast
Before she went to sleep, North
Utsire,
South Utsire, Fisher, German Bight
He had become accustomed to the low,
Tremulous names and imagined each
Of them on a map, some desolate
stretch
Of water that rose and melted away,
Rain furrowing the swell, hail, and
In the more northern reaches, snow
Cast across the wintry sea in vast
columns
Of light and dark. Cromarty,
Hebrides,
Bailey, Rockall, Shannon
And lying there he had become aware
Of some strange tide that was taking
Them both deeper out,
Out where the trawlers would not dare
to
Go even the in the hardest of
seasons,
Where bouys clanked ceaselessly
On their ropes. And he would
turn to her
And murmur in her ear, Sole,
Fitzroy,
Biscay, Trafalgar
But she would be gone and beyond all
Of his familiar frequencies.
Grant Watson
Grant Watson
My Mother's Ashes
Throwing up my mother's ashes
To the careless, indifferent, winds,
I watch them make their last adventure,
Fetching over the cliff.
Some deposit in fissures and cracks
Where the rock roses and samphire grow.
On this scorched powder they will thrive,
Fed by my dead mother's history.
Some prefer the wet froth of sea;
One final romp on crystal surf:
Their dryness slaked, they will compound
With that drowned antique sludge
All life are emerged from.
And yet others dance, refusing to land,
Intent on observing a holiday...
But one flake lodges in my eye
Just to remind me:
Of impermanence of steady vision,
Of my mum's fierce love for me
And, that there are many ways
To cry.
Clive Donovan
The Kite
Bamboo. Desire of engaging
the wind, skeletal but sturdy
as the morning. Cloudless sky,
paler than Japanese paper.
Bamboo. Desire of engaging
the wind, skeletal but sturdy
as the morning. Cloudless sky,
paler than Japanese paper.
Gluing my
intuition to what
might work, knife trimming
hard strips, scissor cutting
blues. I’m open as the field.
might work, knife trimming
hard strips, scissor cutting
blues. I’m open as the field.
I thread
and reach out, love’s
skein uncoiled. Trusting the
wind, weight in my hands.
It swerves left and right
skein uncoiled. Trusting the
wind, weight in my hands.
It swerves left and right
as it
rises. In time it stills.
I leave the taut line to feel
grasses on my back, to watch
with a blank mind till sunset.
I leave the taut line to feel
grasses on my back, to watch
with a blank mind till sunset.
Jonel Abellanosa
In the empty
woods
I walked my wakeful body
through the moor outside,
to some thicket’s edge.
My lantern of thoughts,
swung sideways by the wind,
by the mind, dimmed
against walls of thunders.
I looked above my rattles.
An axe for wood,
a word for death:
as my father’s hand
slipped from the last grasp,
what emptiness widened
between our two hands?
Did the Universe expand
or crack? What vein did he follow
in his aggregate of thoughts,
once seeds of early life?
The virtue of the dead tree
my winter muse.
I walked my wakeful body
through the moor outside,
to some thicket’s edge.
My lantern of thoughts,
swung sideways by the wind,
by the mind, dimmed
against walls of thunders.
I looked above my rattles.
An axe for wood,
a word for death:
as my father’s hand
slipped from the last grasp,
what emptiness widened
between our two hands?
Did the Universe expand
or crack? What vein did he follow
in his aggregate of thoughts,
once seeds of early life?
The virtue of the dead tree
my winter muse.
Federico Federici
Heron
A grey ghost ship glides
over the estuary sheen
parting the airwaves
with a slow
rhythmic wing beat.
Its hulk rises above
the water’s edge
haunting me
with a promise of passage
to the unnamed.
Hélène Demetriades
Arnside Knott
The lane disappoints. Last year,
cascades of blackberries
ripe for picking: today, most are
tight-fisted green,
the crop perhaps three weeks short of
its peak.
The road to the Knott yields only
scrawny fruit –
less than a pound in my box, against
last year’s six.
I climb to the top of the rock-strewn
slope, stopping at the trees
where we scattered ashes. Little time
for remembrance, though:
rain’s grey drapes are closing on
Morecambe Bay. I descend
a harebelled field, exchanging wary
looks with Highland cows –
this time, there’s no white bell
striking amid the blue.
The rail-fare’s been poor value as
far as blackberrying goes,
but there’ve been compensations: a
hedge’s mauve-hazed sloes,
peacocks on knapweed’s magenta tufts,
meadow browns
flittering between bushes on the
limestone screes,
robin’s pincushions burning amongst
barbs of rose.
We’re told a couple of hours
exercising each week
will keep us fit: this walk has been
better than going to a gym,
pedalling vigorously on a bike, and
getting nowhere fast.
Mantz Yorke
Though Arnside
Knott is a relatively small limestone hill (522 feet) it commands great views
all round, in particular over Morecambe Bay. My friend’s ashes were scattered
at the summit.
Jutai
for Scott Wallace
Scarlet macaws were a sign
that flécheiros
were near the river looking for
dugouts
from a tribe near Jutai where men
from
Leticia were clearing the forest.
You had
much to gain after you settled a
claim for
the Yagua scout who paddled down
Rio
Negro to the reservation
while gardía
patrolled the boundary, enforcing
contracts
between chiefs, preventing barter
sanctions
between territories while miners
in Belém
waited at the metal exchange for
news about
the price of gold. You are the
largest exporter
in Brazil, seeking global markets
for gems
mined by Indians who no longer
till soil—
or pray to gods for rain.
Clara B. Jones
January litter
like a broken umbrella
tossed in the trash
Christmas trees in driveways
Simone Tropea
They Turned to Me and Gave
the same fake smiles / laughter / conversations / disturb
the music / the melody of voices
in every coffee shop the same drinks / the same fake
smiles / laughter / conversations
in every coffee shop the same drinks / disturb the music
/ the melody of voices
tongues of fire / burning wings / children grown weary of
ruin / death & denial
this dreary century suffers from madness / tongues of
fire / burning wings
this dreary century suffers from madness / children grown
weary of ruin / death & denial
there’s a special on for lunch / wine /a bottle / they
don’t care what happens to the world
it’s for crazy people / the ones with gold / there’s a
special on for lunch / wine / a bottle
it’s for crazy people / the ones with gold / they don’t
care what happens to the world
Rodney Wood
Iphis Becomes
after Ovid, ‘Metamorphoses’, Book IX, ll. 666-797
The joy was the strange and terrifying,
when
I took the Temple steps and, fresh from prayer,
found my stride lengthening, my shoulders square,
a deepening in my jaw unknown till then.
I marked the earth more heavily. My skin
was scorched by loving breeze, exposed and free.
I feared the face I would show to Ianthe
at the altar, true as I’d ever been
and still undetonated, unconfessed;
feared bringing her into the sacred lie
that freed me of a learned monstrosity.
I breathed; praised Isis; overstepped and blessed
the ruined expectations of my world.
The man performs the promise of the girl.
Tim Kiely
Nostalgia
Self-pity disguised as love tiptoeing in with the plash, the smell of
rain, or a crosshatched ink sketch of a gaunt pier, or the sky’s famous late
fade from blue, regret resonating deep in the maw, hens scratching, a flagged
kitchen floor. Sounds prompt it; think foghorns, the knelling of distant
bells, listen to One Fine Day, or Satie’s lonely piano.
Love’s old dance induces it, too; those movies over the years with Ethan Hawke
and Julie Delpy ageing like once good ideas, and certain books, always.
Enter an attic’s dead air, or stare into firelight’s glimmer alone of a
winter’s evening.
School yearbooks, citations of success, stained letters, attract its
churn, the scent of lavender, birthday paper lanterns strung between pale birch
boughs. Solitude fertilises it; a friend’s caravan, the bliss of
footprints tracking a beach; expired passports, even quiz questions can draw
you towards its abyss. As for the dead’s origins, tread with care
venturing there. Journeying to rooms left behind invites it of course, so
linger on streets busy with strangers, ambushed by tears’ pricking, the past’s
fierce heat reduced. Within silences’ enclosures daydreams frolic and
frisk, time’s trips seductive, robbing you of here, right now, memory the
culprit, that faculty so dear.
Ian
C Smith
Cleopatra’s Siamese Cat
The moon’s louvered
clouds shutter
a Siamese cat’s
piano-lidded eyes.
If all nightwalkers
were accompanied
she might
then
be inclined
to cease
her invocations
to the spirit world -
but where,
pray tell,
would that leave
the Other?
Cleopatra’s cranial shell
would shatter
into a thousand and
one nights
at the very tinkle
of her collared bell.
George Beddow
Sentimental
after Giazotto (Adagio in G
Minor)
Today is the day that has always been,
I hear your voice in the wind.
Your face appears as it has always
been.
The silver needles of the rain
pierce the leaves, and in defeat
flat red hearts fall quietly to the
street.
There is so much I can’t explain—
why piano keys clink in the rain,
or how fragrant the rouge, always
there,
attends your laughter in the autumn
air.
I feel your breath warm on my cheek.
I hear your voice in the wind.
You are the letter that arrives each
day,
the day that has always been.
We walk along the bank of maple leaves.
You are the image I see and re-see,
There is so much to
explain—tonight—soon
will be the night of the poet’s moon,
and tomorrow you will be the letter
that arrives again, and will contain
the day that has always been. The
wind
and the rain, the leaves on the street
in the cold autumn air cannot explain
the day you have always been.
Michael Gessner
Pillage
I admire the intricate, formidable
architecture
Of spiders, but when I found a daunting
web
Erected between two pillars of my front
porch
Blocking passage to the steps, I hastened
To sweep it away with the stroke of a
broom
And in so sweeping I thought of the
ancient sackings
Of temples throughout the ages by
barbarians.
Louis Gallo
Commuting
Lungs and chest
and even
elbows heaving,
like an
almost-fit thing;
an
active/vigorous
human. A
feeling of
pushing.
Stretching.
Someone with a
regular history;
someone
with their
starched suit and
pocket tablet and
weekends
stowed away like
gemstones- out of
sight.
Someone with
expensive
baubles on an
inherited
sideboard and a
King
Charles spaniel
they walk
briskly on a
Sunday morning.
Gathering my
breath I realise
how far I have
come. From
the drinking day
and night,
and complete
depletion of
energy-and-will
times. The
loss of striving
and desire
and even
pleasantries
sometimes; sound
and
optics and
internal
chronometer
broken;
ostensibly beyond
repair. But
now, on a commuter
train to
Reading, I feel
free enough
to ask another
commuter -
‘Can I sit there
please?’
Thinking that I
deserve that
seat. That I
deserve to
occupy that place
as much
as that woman’s
raincoat
and banana. And
that life,
even in this
minuscule way,
has meaning and
value
again.
Claire Sexton
“Difference is the ionic bond of
marriage”
said my father, a chemist.
He would talk that way
about disagreements, anger,
the electrostatic attraction
of oppositely charged ions.
Mom belted out I don’t
wanna play in your yard
or fingered a delicate Moonlight
Sonata
while he couldn’t sing Happy
Birthday
except monotone. Deaf to music.
She died.
He conducted research in blood
clotting chemistry
so when his transient ischemic
attacks began
he understood perfectly.
Told no one.
After, I found lab notes,
self-observation
he’d jotted on a yellow pad with
shaky hand:
TIA # 4 Date: 09/09/75 Time: 17:45
Music: — / / ... / / — ... / / —
Near death came music
which he jotted as dashes and
slashes and dots.
Then no jotting for the fifth and
final attack
but that night as he died alone in
his bed
by moonlight surely she sang
Welcome, come play in my yard
and he heard.
Joe
Cottonwood
Lorca’s
Grave Cannot Be Found
Federico
Garcia Lorca is a lizard slipping
through clapping flamenco hands
trying to catch his duende by the tail
and his grave for the night
is a tiny hole inside a cactus
on the Sacromonte hill.
through clapping flamenco hands
trying to catch his duende by the tail
and his grave for the night
is a tiny hole inside a cactus
on the Sacromonte hill.
He is a
feral cat lapping up
fountain water in the Generalife
before domesticated cats
chase him out of paradise
and his grave for the night
is in the lap of a statue on the Gran Via.
fountain water in the Generalife
before domesticated cats
chase him out of paradise
and his grave for the night
is in the lap of a statue on the Gran Via.
He is a word
chopped quick al granadino
and served hot with fried anchovies
and his grave for the night
is the mouth of the young man he noticed
in the café rinconcillo.
and served hot with fried anchovies
and his grave for the night
is the mouth of the young man he noticed
in the café rinconcillo.
Historians
who seek out his grave
only have rumors,
eighty years of indigestible words.
only have rumors,
eighty years of indigestible words.
They do not
know graves in Granada
are held only as long
as the branch desires to hold the olive.
are held only as long
as the branch desires to hold the olive.
They search
behind stage curtains in the olive groves
and find only dead actors.
and find only dead actors.
Chris Pellizzari
Alabaster
When he got ill, she
took to carving things:
a fallen branch became
a Gothic saint,
black stone, a pair of
eagles. He could walk,
but slowly, from the
door to the front gate.
Sculpture was all
removal, hollowing out.
A carer came to take
him for a bath,
dress him and shadow
him around the house.
It was less
shaming. She began to sand
and polish alabaster,
first a form
like a Cycladic
goddess, then a bowl.
He had come home again
from hospital,
but not for long, they
said. The open shell,
fluted, transparent,
needed hours of work.
She sat beside him and
he fell asleep.
Ruth Valentine
Dressing Dolls
my mother married a sewing
machine
was pregnant with fabric
spewed it forth
gorgeous
by the yard
from paper patterns
pinned to lengths of cloth
she cut two daughters out.
the first she made
from fabric that would last
her stitching was uneven
the placket gaped
the buttons dragged
the seams unravelled
the hems came down
there remained
an inheritance
of skill and faults.
next she chose lighter stuff
thinking it easier to manipulate
pink and blue and yellow striped
she gathered it into narrow tucks
smocked it
stepped back
to gaze at it
gave a contented sigh
it pirouetted
curtseyed
paid homage to her feat
she didn’t see
that gauzy wings had grown
she glanced away
the doll was gone.
Judith Russell
The Greengrocery’s Dropped Tears
The greengrocery wreaks of pagan earth –
The greengrocery wreaks of pagan earth –
idolatrous grapes, heretical
dates, faithless plums –
fruits dropped upon the ground and
fruits dropped upon the ground and
plucked up again. In the shiny
moment before
decomposition, they are a
display of fallen tears –
fig sorrow, cherry hate, lemon envy.
fig sorrow, cherry hate, lemon envy.
In the greengrocery next door,
they offer
edited religious fruits – apple
pie
is the default selection.
is the default selection.
Jane R Rogers
An increase in bears
There has been a sharp increase in
bears
on our streets. There have been
sightings
near the station: bears hunkered on
steps,
grizzled and matted with rough sleep,
paper
cups dunked with change. Best to look
away;
it’s dangerous to stare. What use,
anyway,
can bears have for your coins? They
are not
even real bears. Button eyes that
don’t blink
and can’t cry. Footpads unstitched or
lost.
Most have a cirrus of stuffing torn
from joints,
but that is all put on you see, for
sympathy.
They were worn, no doubt, before they
took
to these streets, their balding fur
patched off
by small hands holding and holding.
How
could they let go? I, for one, take
care of
my bear. I expect they just took off
one day.
You never see them move; of course,
by night
it’s another tale. I never give
anything: doubtless
they operate in gangs, or are taking
something.
Alexandra Melville
Alexandra Melville
Loitering Above
The boom of the construction site
has become a soft din along the Charles
where my wife and I are strolling, flanked
by daffodils and blue bells and departed
friends loitering above the treetops or sailing
the river, dressed up in the most colorful
outfits, brasher than they ever were in this
life, bobbing calmly with the ducks
and the geese massing upon the waters,
my wife and I sadly with no bread to give.
The boom of the construction site
has become a soft din along the Charles
where my wife and I are strolling, flanked
by daffodils and blue bells and departed
friends loitering above the treetops or sailing
the river, dressed up in the most colorful
outfits, brasher than they ever were in this
life, bobbing calmly with the ducks
and the geese massing upon the waters,
my wife and I sadly with no bread to give.
Tim Suermondt
My Mother’s
Flashbacks
I saw your father last night
Two years have passed
since his demise shook me,
waves radiating from my epicentre.
In the aftershock, I whispered to her
of his slipping away, but she was lost
in a mass of tangles.
Aw - he looked so handsome
He wore a flat cap in winter
to warm his shiny pate.
Now, it rests at the back
of my reminiscence drawer
with her dragonfly brooch
and snapshots of their life.
Their wedding photo, eyes smile, lips
say Cheese. His dark waves intact, yes
he was handsome, her unending heartthrob.
I think he might take me back
When their marriage fractured, a tug of war
stretched me until I split into pieces.
Although middle-aged, I was a child.
He embraced a new wife for twelve years.
Even if his life had extended, he could not
- would not return to her empty arms.
He gave me a beautiful brooch
Her smile was wide -
unaware the broken dragonfly would
not settle on her breast again.
Eira Needham
Assisted Living
For my mother
You’ve found a rhythm, you tell me, a
way of parceling out the day,
measuring it in blocks of time: morning scripture, lunch, afternoon
measuring it in blocks of time: morning scripture, lunch, afternoon
walks to the mailbox. And now that spring is here, it’s the wrens
you love, their shallow ticking through the mulch outside
your window, opened again to the
world, winter already receding,
its crisp linen returned to the parlors underground. And the hymn
its crisp linen returned to the parlors underground. And the hymn
you play each night, lying in the
dark before sleep, imagining the lift
and fall of your hands, your day fastening in a ligature of sound.
and fall of your hands, your day fastening in a ligature of sound.
This pattern you tell me of waking
each morning to the same light.
And the birds at the feeder, you explain, rousing you with argument
And the birds at the feeder, you explain, rousing you with argument
and hunger.
Adam Chiles
small losses
I lately have begun a habit
of losing things
small objects of attachment
familiar to my body
an earring a necklace
my mother’s ring
this skill in losing
is not an expertise
I need
thoughts run unthreaded
beaded words fall from
their cat-gut string
it’s contagious –
but I’ve had time to practise
small things I can handle
my body buckles
at the thought
of losing more
I lately have begun a habit
of losing things
small objects of attachment
familiar to my body
an earring a necklace
my mother’s ring
this skill in losing
is not an expertise
I need
thoughts run unthreaded
beaded words fall from
their cat-gut string
it’s contagious –
but I’ve had time to practise
small things I can handle
my body buckles
at the thought
of losing more
Diana Cant
Contributors
Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, the Philippines. His
poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including New Verse News,
Poetry Kanto, The Lyric, The McNeese Review and Star*Line, nominated
for the Pushcart, Best of the Net and Dwarf Stars awards. His poetry
collections are, Meditations (Alien Buddha Press) Songs from My Mind’s Tree and Multiverse (Clare Songbirds Publishing House), 50 Acrostic Poems, (Cyberwit, India),
and his politically-progressive collection, In
the Donald’s Time (Poetic Justice
Books and Art). His first speculative poetry collection, Pan’s Saxophone, is forthcoming
from Weasel Press.
George Beddow’s debut collection Out Of Kilter was published in 2012 by Lapwing Press. The Bitter Lemons Of Nerval was
published in 2016 by Original Plus Chapbooks. He is working towards a new
collection.
Diana Cant is a child and adolescent psychotherapist,
currently a student on the MA in Poetry Writing from Newcastle University,
studying at the Poetry School in London. Her poems have been published the NHS Anthology, Humanagerie, and Eighty Four, and in Ink, Sweat and Tears and Nine
Muses.
Adam Chiles’ first collection of poems, Evening Land (Cinnamon Press) was nominated for the 2009 Gerald Lampert Memorial award for best debut collection in Canada. His work has been anthologized in Best New Poets 2006 (Samovar) and has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Cumberland River Review, Connotation Press, Cortland Review, The Moth (Ireland), Terrain.org and The Threepenny Review. He is professor of English and Creative Writing at Northern Virginia Community College.
Joe Cottonwood has built or repaired hundreds of houses
as carpenter/contractor in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest
book is Foggy Dog: Poems of the Pacific Coast. joecottonwood.com
Hélène Demetriades studied English at Leeds University,
went to drama school and worked as an actor. Later she trained as a
transpersonal psychotherapist. She has had poems published in Reach
Poetry, Sarasvati, The Dawntreader, Anima magazine, several anthologies and The Curlew, (September '19).Online in Clear Poetry, Ink Sweat and Tears, Eunoia Review and Allegro. She lives in South Devon with her family.
Clive Donovan devotes himself full-time to poetry
and has published in a wide variety of magazines, print and online, including
Allegro, The Journal, Agenda, Acumen, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prole, Stand and
The Transnational. He lives in the creative atmosphere of Totnes in Devon, U.K.
often walking along the River Dart for inspiration. He has yet to make a first
collection.
Federico Federici is a physicist, translator and writer. His works have appeared in Jahrbuch Der
Lyrik 2019, Raum, Sand, Trafika Europe, Magma and others. Among his books: Requiem auf einer Stele (2018); Liner notes for a Pithecanthropus Erectus
sketchbook (2018) with a foreword by SJ Fowler.
Louis Gallo’s poetry collections, Crash and Clearing
the Attic, will be published by Adelaide in the near future. A
third, Archaeology, will be published by Kelsay Books. His
work has appeared or will shortly appear in Wide Awake in the Pelican
State (LSU anthology), Rattle, Litro, New Orleans Review, Xavier
Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Missouri Review, Mississippi Review, Texas
Review, Baltimore Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Ledge,
storySouth, Houston Literary Review, Tampa Review, and many
others. He teaches at Radford University in Radford, Virginia.
Michael Gessner has authored 11 books of poetry and
prose. From the most recent, (Selected Poems, FutureCycle Press, 2016,)
The Poetry Foundation chose several for its online archives (2017). His latest
publications include those in The American Journal of Poetry, Innisfree
Poetry Journal, The Kenyon Review, New Oxford Review, North
American Review, (finalist for 2016 James Hearst Prize,) Verse
Daily, and he co-edits Verse-Virtual. His
reviews appear regularly, and he is a voting member of the National Book
Critics Circle. More information may be found atwww.michaelgessner.com
Fred Johnston’s recent work has appeared in The Spectator, The New
Statesman, and a poem from his latest collection, Rogue States, was Guardian Poem
of the Week a little while back. He was born in Belfast in 1951.
Clara B. Jones is a Knowledge Worker practicing in Silver Spring, MD, USA. Among other works, she is author of the poetry collection, /feminine nature/, published in 2017 by GaussPDF.
Tim Kiely is a barrister and poet from London. His poetry and criticism has appeared
in: Ariadne's Thread; Lunar Poetry; South Bank
Poetry; theMorning Star; and on the websites the Blue of
Noon and Spontaneous Poetics. Most recently he contributed
to the Emma Press anthology, Everything That Can Happen.
Alexandra Melville is a writer and educator living in
London. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rialto, The
Interpreter’s House, Lighthouse, Brittle Star, Mechanics’ Institute Review
Online, and Ink, Sweat and Tears, and featured in the
National Poetry Library’s Instagram Poetry exhibition. She has been long-listed
for the Poetry School’s Primers Prize and is currently an MA student in
Creative Writing and Education at Goldsmiths. She rarely tweets at
@ADotMelville.
Eira Needham is a
retired teacher living in Birmingham UK. Her poetry has been published in print
and online. Some of her recent publications are in Green Silk Journal and Lighten
Up Online. She has been Featured Writer in West Ward Quarterly and once came first in Inter Board Poetry
Contest.
Chris Pellizzari is a graduate of the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His work has appeared in numerous literary
magazines, including The Awakenings
Review, BoomerLitMag, Good Works Review, Counterclock, Amarillo Bay, The Literary Nest, Ink in Thirds, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Eunoia
Review, and Open: Journal of Arts
& Letters, and Misery Tourism
He is a member of The Society of Midland Authors and is assistant editor at The Awakenings Review.
Jane R Rogers is a member of Greenwich Poetry Workshop
and co-edited Magma Issue 65. Jane’s poems have appeared in Atrium, Prole, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Curlew, Long Exposure
Magazine, Tears in the Fence, Obsessed with Pipework, Tate Gallery Website
poetry anthology 2012 among others. Jane lives in London.
Judith Russell began writing poetry when she was
70. A retired English teacher, she wishes to leave a legacy of her poems to her
daughter and granddaughter.She has studied with Liz Berry and Helen Ivory
online with the National Centre for writing.She has not previously attempted
publication.
Claire Sexton is a fifty year old
librarian and writer, hailing from Wales, who has been published in magazines
such as Ink, Sweat and Tears, Amaryllis, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Foxglove
Journal, Amethyst Review, and Light: a Journal of Photography and Poetry. She
lives with a very regal cat called Queenie.
Ian C Smith’s work has appeared in, Amsterdam Quarterly, Australian Poetry Journal, Critical Survey, Live Encounters, Poetry New Zealand, Southerly, & Two-Thirds North. His seventh book iswonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island, Tasmania.
Tim Suermondt is the author of five full-length
collections of poems, the latest Josephine
Baker Swimming Pool from MadHat Press, 2019. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review,
Prairie Schooner, Stand Magazine, Galway Review, Bellevue Literary Review
and Plume, among many others. He
lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.
Simone
Tropea has a degree
in Creative Writing from London Metropolitan University, and lives in London.
She currently works in the bar of a Victorian music hall and has travelled
extensively. Her work has been published in Lowestoft Chronicle.
Ruth Valentine's recent publications are Downpour (Smokestack), Rubaiyat
for the Martyrs of Two Wars (Hercules) and A Grenfell
Alphabet (self-published in aid of the Grenfell fund). She
lives in Tottenham.
Grant Watson is a
playwright and screenwriter whose last play Perfect Blue was
awarded three international awards. He has written extensively
for television including Holby City, Family Affairs and Doctors.
Grant is also a singer-songwriter whose EP Figure in a Dark Landscape
is due for release later this year.
Rodney Wood’s poems have appeared recently in The High Window Press, Orbis, Magma and Envoi. His debut pamphlet, Dante Called You Beatrice, appeared
in 2017. He is joint MC of a monthly open mic and the Stanza Rep
for Woking.
Mantz Yorke lives in Manchester, England. His
poems have appeared in a number of print magazines, anthologies and e-magazines
in the UK, Ireland, Israel, Canada, the US, Australia and Hong Kong.
