Freedom
Editor's Comments
As the various COVID lockdowns and the more recent invasion of Ukraine have taught us, freedom is something that many of us take for granted until it is threatened or taken away from us. The large number of submissions to Allegro 29 tackled the theme of 'Freedom' in a variety of ways. It was hard work reading through them and selecting the best. I hope you enjoy reading them.
Sally Long
Poems
birds come home from
paradise and
sing songs
the
silence recedes
***
the fields
what's
lurking out there
nothing
It's been a
month of war
***
what the tear
hides
spring is
playing hide and seek
а winter feeling creeps into my heart
а tear freezes and doesn't dry up
inside the
child the wizard dies
and becomes
an adult
Mykyta
Ryzhykh
On The Famine Way
My feet
started aching just before dark
while evening
flattened the shadows into blades
that stabbed
the fading day in the back.
By the road
lay a tiny pair of shoes;
old, dusty
and worn. No one else was there,
so I went on
towards the setting sun,
squinting in
the glare of discovery,
till
something made me turn around and see
a girl of
eight or nine, thin and dressed in rags,
step into the
shoes. She looked where I was headed –
on to
Abbeyshrule, Clondra and Strokestown –
then walked
the other way towards Longwood,
Maynooth,
Dublin and the ocean called Hope,
leaving no
trace, no name, no regrets.
S.C. Flynn
Museum
I had spent
all morning arranging
stones
stolen from the garden,
imagined
treasures from another world.
Polished
brightly, mirrors of bedroom light,
I laid them
out, neatly spaced, display-cards
painstakingly
written in gold, exotic names.
To the left
was my silver jubilee coin, cased
in plastic,
tin foil metal on soft velvet green.
No visible
scratches, I wrote it was the
lost crown
jewel. To the right, wild flowers,
garlands
worn by fairies, tamed by princes,
picked from
the secret side alley
that I was
scared to walk down after dark.
And then my
mother’s forgotten books,
their yellow
paper smelt of old churches
and the
weekend jumble sale where rows
of creased
spines huddled together in
cardboard
beds waiting for new owners.
Who knew
what hands had worn thin
those pages?
Whose minds had built adventures,
mystery and
deceit, old castles now forgotten?
What nodding
heads? Child-eyes radiant-green
at night?
All was set for the incoming crowd:
neighbours
with smiles and cheap nylon clothes;
visitors
flocking from the end of the road, still hot
from the
late May sun; perhaps strangers bused
in from
afar, who, somehow, somewhere, had
heard of my
great show. No one came, of course,
but I sat
long into the afternoon where
the silence
was magic, and outside the heat
cooled and
the clouds of distant adult laughter
were
elephants, thick-legged, roaring through the sky.
Marcello
Giovanelli
The
young women’s Poisoning Club
A
knock at the door, and here she is.
Nervous,
gloved, her voice a whisper-
I
hear you have a perfume for my husband.
The
room, cool as a glade.
A
shelf of tiny jars gleam in a drift of sunlight,
shades
of water, tied with silk.
Nothing
to see but a clarity.
The
essence of rain, the scent of barely there,
the
faintest of breaths, a whispered promise.
A
tiny vial, I hold it in my palm.
Enough
to ease his sleep. A few drops,
the
lightest of touches, and he will be gone.
He
isn’t kind you see.
The
woman shows me the bruises.
I
tell her,
first
he will lose his voice, his eyes will start,
his
mouth will dry, he will lose his waters,
he
will become as parched as paper,
then
convulsions, fever, finally death.
Make
sure you shut the door between the worlds,
afterwards
you must weep, I will teach you the steps.
Louise Warren
Giulia Tofana was
an Italian professional poisoner who lived in Rome. She invented a perfume,
containing arsenic, lead and belladonna, known as Aqua Tofana. It was slow
acting, thus untraceable. She sold it mainly to women who wanted to get rid of
their abusive husbands. She was caught, tortured, and died in 1659. Belladonna:
also known as deadly nightshade. The berries are highly poisonous. Symptoms
include: Loss of voice, loss of movement in the hands and fingers, dilated pupils.
Victims become excitable, paranoid and delusional. Eventually fever,
convulsions and death.
F107
This
steep ramp
Meant supposedly
Unwittingly for
My wheelchair
Is
not freedom.
One
lad sees
That I am struggling,
Pushes me up the ramp-hill
Into the pub,
For brew and smiles.
Marc Isaac Potter
Every
Twenty Years
in America, it seems,
Pride
in
ourselves
as African people
w/African culture
escapes
from the steel
cage
Oppression
forged for it
& flees
@ large
from state
to state
And
it should. We've made for Freedom
like
our tribal
royal
forebears were.
After
all,
we
carry
traces of
the Motherland
in our
blood
& decolonised minds—
Dee
Allen
Paper
Snowflakes
We
enter the pod and peer, unmasked,
through
its Perspex window, tap
the
microphone - testing, one two, one two.
We
wait like prison visitors, hands clenched
and
rollercoaster stomachs. A faux tree
twinkles
through the division, struggling
to
create a festive ambiance. Your distant hum
approaches
- the door clunks open, you
amble
in with your key worker.
Disbelief
stiffens your face; it has been
nine
months, locked down with no walks,
music
therapy or Sunday dinners at home.
Dad
and I chit chat, trying to quell the silence,
your
thoughts unspoken, wondering
why
we don’t whisk you away home.
The
carer joins in, recalls how Bohemian
Rapsody
always captures you, the Halloween
lights
that still swirl on your bedroom ceiling and
the
last minute scramble to snip hippie locks.
We
all relax when you sit, face
slackening
into a smile, your fingers
attempt
to mirror mine through the screen.
Too
soon it’s - Goodbye love, I promise
we’ll
see you very soon, New Year’s day.
We
leave reception, masks on, clutching
a
card of you, giggling in a Santa hat
and
covered with your scribbled kisses.
Knowing
we’ll miss seeing you rip
open
our sack of presents, reindeer
leaping
across your shirt, our Boxing Day
stroll
together in Perry Hall Park
and
your avalanche of paper snowflakes,
I
feel a blizzard inside me -
-
and can’t forget
how
you turned to shuffle out,
my
high five left hanging at the screen.
Eira Needham
Memory and I
The trouble with this elusive element lies in its
capture.
Not there, kaput, empty, blank. Its disappearance
is euphoric.
Has the sensory recording equipment collapsed,
failed, packed
up or just stopped? No response, data recovery failure,
nothing.
Yet survival in the world is necessary. Imagine a
world with no
backup, re-play or fast-forward. That’s a tough
call for survival.
Luckily, some grooves in the equipment run deep —
family,
friends, physical location and mundane details keep
me running.
Other data seem hugely irrelevant to store in
personal
Consciousness as all is stored on the iMac!
The memory bank rejoices and in merriment tosses
deposits
from its vault into thin air.
With nothing to protect and defend, security
defects and departs.
The newfound freedom is exhilarating.
The Teacher’s commands ring true. No hefty
withdrawals in the past.
No promising gains in the future.
Cheques are drawn in the present. With full
attention riveted
in the Now. The freedom tasted is delirious.
The record lies smashed. Yet the music must play,
set to different lyrics.
Reinventing, adjusting, tuning, to on-the-spot
wavelengths.
New, fresh, funny and immediate.
Rupa
Anand
What
Remains
Digging another trench for my blighted potatoes
I
found a skeleton. Until now I had never believed
the
grim tale of a previous tenant
whose
wife had clubbed him to death with his own spade.
There seemed to be no other explanation
for
my discovery. Tired of her man’s foul temper,
his
drinking, the frequent beatings,
she
had split his skull cleanly like an uprooted clod.
No one commented on his sudden absence,
since
farmers, tired of their drudgery and shamed
by
their failure to maintain a living,
often
disappeared south to the mines or the sea.
It
seemed to be an excellent starting point
for
a true crime novel, charting the rotation
of
their marriage, its vengeful harvest,
the
one sod lifted and buried beneath another.
Local
histories had revealed no records
of
the episode. I assumed she must have found
the
new furrows he had ploughed
with
his petulance, and let him sow angry seeds.
If
there were descendants, their estates
would
be grass and sunflowers, their regular crop
the
tin can, the plastic bottle,
their
neat lawns admitting no ancestry but weeds.
I dropped the bruised spade. Gazing silently
at
the ribcage that had run aground on the soil,
I
called the police. The vegetable patch
sprouted
tape, a tent and a swarm of white grubs.
Later
an archaeologist said the skeleton
was
probably mediaeval. Soon it was removed.
I
was content. There would be no drama
in
my cottage garden, no novel, and no potatoes.
Jeff
Gallagher
And
breathe…
If you
Happen
To be suspended
In the north-east Pacific
Spiriting yourself around
In the amniotic half-light
Helpless and exhilarated
A blue whale swimming
At cruising speed
Takes fifteen
Seconds
To pass you
Bearing her precious calf
And her thirteen ancient songs
Steve
Lang
Judith
And Holofernes
For
years, he cored pears
as a penance for autos-da-fé,
performed on unwitting children
in poor weather, but his head
shackled with greed
made its way to a plate,
and his Judith looked more beautiful
even than Klimt’s.
Cole
Henry Forster
The Oban Ferry
The harbour wall, the spray, the stall
piled deep in sea food’s silver,
and from the port, MacBraynes’ big ferries
cross to the islands. There are rucksacks,
iPads, surfers, sandwiches,
as tourism plumps and settles in the lounge,
but around and above them, swirling,
are centuries of island crofters’ lives,
the swathes of seagulls and their generations
which swoop and shrill possession’s joy,
in a sky which shivers with bright day,
which shudders in an oceanic grey.
Robert Nisbet
Budapest
(1990,
after the fall of Communism)
the
men from the van are busy
with
red buckets and green shovels
packing
away snow
into
corners of the Citadel
the
city
didn't
keep up the payments on the American ploughs
the
Danube
crackles
and catches gulls on the hop
an
old Comrade walks across the river
with
a hunting gun and a bucket of grit
colossal
statues of the undefeated worker
punch
holes in the sky
in
cold water flats
the
unemployed are passing around a cigarette
building
a hard nostalgia
for
the old days
Gareth Writer-Davies
The
Field
The first field
I ever saw,
where that sense of freedom grew.
It became a simple playground
for each childhood season,
as I roamed
along its living face.
A place of early discovery
where at night before sleep
I listened to it breathe;
dreaming softly of the day’s
innocent blades of green,
those modest flowers,
with miraculous birds which wheeled
across the unspoilt
memory of its unique space.
Byron Beynon
Grateful for the Arrival of Weather
It travels mute from the east,
slants
its opaque sheets of bitterness
to cuff cheeks, numb lips,
tug coats and steals small feet.
Tree tops lean over to whisper the obvious;
crows make a gusty argument of it.
Your gloved fist a tight grip
as blue sky is shovelled into gutter-grey.
Words pegged in iced air hang
beside weeks frozen in shocked truth.
Your silent disbelief shifted from window,
door to inconsolable. Today
we are trees in the garden
as I pray to the heavens for a miracle.
Your eyes, fixed on a promise,
see them first: one, two, three
then harum-scarum,
criss-crossing, linking, spinning
in white abandon to earth.
A surprise to eyes and lashes
they insist on blessing skin. You watch
as I hold out my tongue, take each star in.
Muffled inside your wariness, at last you
loosen your grip, let free a jump and skip.
Eve Jackson
But it ain’t exactly there
My neighbor talks about freedom as if he could touch it.
As if it might arrive in the delivery truck
after being ordered by email
and paid for with a credit card.
As if it spoke English.
The coyote
who comes down from the mountain after dark
to look for water and stays for hours
after sunrise
knows that freedom has something to do
with going where you don’t belong
and not caring about being stared at.
Then there’s a version
for people who write rules that fit only themselves
and say they are for everyone.
Freedom comes along the street whistling
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
but it’s more like the line in Leonard Cohen’s Democracy
that says “it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.”
Listen to the mountain howl
at sundown when
it’s time to wander. When boundaries
soften and
the pond shines brightly back
at a full moon.
David Chorlton
Summery
Warm front reaches our shore
on a breeze from the Canary Islands.
My favourite bench for morning coffee
is free, the weathered, wooden one,
the plaque to Justin ‘Glider’ Daniels,
whose life ended at twenty-one.
He would be twice that age now,
a young man to me,
more than seven times nine.
Glider, the bay is lively with red and yellow kayaks
skimming through calm waters at high tide.
The Stena ferry sails for Scotland,
a pied wagtail lands by your bench
to peck at my traybake crumbs.
And for a few moments, Glider,
I sit here and am free
from the future and the past.
Tim Dwyer
This beautiful dissolve
We have learned there are particles
continually passing through
us
as though we are
a shadow
in the vastness of their
space.
We do not fully
understand
their movements,
wrapped
as they are in the mystery
of their own minuteness.
Oh let them snag on the
shadow
of all I am as they pass on
through.
Not in a way that hinders
or even slows their
journey,
but in a way that
takes
fragments of me with them,
out into the vastness
of this beautiful dissolve.
Jon Plunkett
Fence
(remembering John Clare)
Oh, look! A brand
new fence is going up;
they’re
bringing cows to the hay meadow,
ending twenty
years of open access,
restricting
us, and our dogs, to the old path.
Summer grasses
blow in the breeze
- cocksfoot,
timothy, wild oat and rye.
Bees, and
butterflies in pairs, dance
from daisy to
buttercup to clover.
We’d grown
used to roaming the field
where an
ancient spring
gives
unfailingly to fox, deer and badger,
even in the
driest summer.
The farmer’s
wife agrees it’s a shame,
but times
change, and grazing is valuable.
He says there’s dog shit all over the place
and that it’s
his right to fence us out.
Funny how she
smiles and explains
while he
postures and asserts his authority.
I want to
argue the toss, but I ignore him,
smile back at
her, nod and move on.
Philip Dunkerley
Land
of the Free
Homicide, suicide, what’s it to me?
We all carry guns in the Land of the Free.
Free to be Christians and free to be whites -
The rest ain’t included in our Bill of Rights.
The rest want to come here (or blow us sky high),
They get smuggled in, so they cheat, steal and lie.
Servants and slaves since the US begun:
Tell ’em: Sit! and shut up! and don’t carry no gun!
Robin Helweg-Larsen
Double helix
Standing in the shower,
glass water veins, spiralling
down my arm,
I think about genetics and have
a eureka moment,
thirty six years late.
My parents are not
physically related!
Having always thought of them
as one, like an ocean merged into a sea,
I could never fathom how to part them.
But here I stand, a modern Moses,
reflecting on the quicksilver walls
rippling either side of me. Finally
free, I dare to dip a finger into each
parent’s trembling body of water, only
to feel – too late,
their cold, heavy brine,
surging up each arm. Filling me
with a darker revelation. I
am the place where they meet.
The vessel they made to pour their love into.
Their dream of becoming
one, made real.
Throwing my head back for air,
I’m forced to watch as my parents flood
out my mouth and fill the room,
swallowing me in their complete abyss.
The brief dream of the self, suspended,
gossamer thin and empty
as a canal shopping bag.
A ghostly carrier,
no longer needed,
drifting in their gene pool.
Paul Fenn
Steel magnolia
In drops of May dew, shakes the head
a blue decoration of the garden,
It is the Lithuanian magnolia,
look, it seems to scold or want to pardon.
She is growing up, was once small,
fought her way through the others,
magnolia studied well, worked hard, and became tall.
Time passed, and magnolia the leader of the garden,
which brings freedom and beauty,
leaves are fresh, strong, and can harden.
She interceded for other flowers,
which fought with wild plants,
Lithuanian magnolia had strong dignity,
as the clock has the power of hours.
The magnolia showed off in blue colors,
magnolia skillfully conveyed the position,
she will not be deceived, neither magicians nor shufflers.
Lithuanian magnolia is a miracle in nature,
find her, searcher!
Vyacheslav Konoval
Sacrifices
They never come, quick from ritual,
dripping peat marsh or tarn water,
the cord still round their throats,
mouths grimacing at the depths.
Nor – hoared by frost, hands bound –
descend the snow-capped peaks alone,
blood thawing on their broken brows.
They don’t scoop their gutted selves
off altars to spill from blades again,
nor – blistered, black-legged –
choke forth from the flames’ truss
for what time’s distraction forgot –
those gods who haunt each oblation,
demanding What of us? What of us?
Craig Dobson
Narcissus Poeticus- the Pheasant’s Eye
Tiny flaming hearts nod
in the wind
off the sea, their frail
petals light
as snow. A sweet and
fragile scent
drifts along the path as
if sent
as a greeting on the cold
north wind.
Miners tramped home in dimming
light
at day’s-end, eyes
growing used to light
after the dark tunnels.
This scent
came to them back then on
the wind.
Come spring, wind was scented with light.
Rebecca
Gethin
Perdita
For years I red-circled your due day
in calendars of dark planets and ice moons.
You'd be thirty now. Like a distant star,
unnamed, you grew in silence alongside
your older siblings. I'm waking from a dream
where you say you're looking after us,
the way I couldn’t help you, and you
tell me to stop rerunning the past,
trying to change a fact when it's the feelings
we're left with that need to transform.
How hard to accept love doesn't judge, but wants
only to forgive and be free, when parts of me
like the back and sides of my tongue
can taste only bitterness, sourness, tears.
Mary Mulholland
Free
After she tasted fresh air
Her mother made her favourite tenga,
Called everyone home
And mixed her salty tears with all things
beautiful.
Even her little postcards, crayon etchings about
birds and freedom
Were served for the guests.
She remained quiet through it all.
Occasionally, there were jokes and pickles passed
around
Overall, a solemn affair
Till she broke the air’s silence
With a song that bellowed from her stomach
The pit of her cell, the ground outside, her
verandah,
The blue air, friends in college, her neighbours
Birds on branches, and even that radio sputtering
from childhood.
When she finished her mother asked
If she would like a little more.
Amlanjyoti Goswami
Cats and mice
A shadow, she's nimble, smart in
practical shoes.
Her mum approves but doesn't know they
power
her marches. At the train station she
is invisible
to the watcher police. Knows all about
their lists.
She considers the buffet, then baulks
thinking of pals
incarcerated in Perth Prison,
force-fed, released,
re-arrested. Isolated, they're tied,
tubes thrust in throats,
noses, rectums. Liquid dripped into
stomachs and lungs.
Coughing, choking, arms, legs gripped.
Steel gags
screwed tight opening mouths wide,
wider. Windpipes
torn and still No! Still the cause,
the Hunger Strike.
Tough decisions, such sacrifices for
future freedoms.
Goes over the plan - the gathering,
the King's arrival.
She clenches her fists, wishes for the
company of ravens.
Yes, they will win the vote, they will
gain independence.
Finola Scott
Immigrants
The ground here’s
sliced open
by the sea, revealing
its bones drywalled
together
by stack on stack on
stack
of ancient seashells.
Sun lights
the chalk like a
migraine,
almost too bright to
bear.
Painted ladies landfall
onto the turf furring
the rock.
These butterflies have
crossed
from the Magreb, via
France,
orange dots escaping
from a pointillist
painting
into Whistler’s blue
and silver nocturne.
One
year
they skittered the
whole way north,
chasing me to Skye,
falling
like autumn leaves
as I carried my
toddler
through cotton grass
specked
with their
polychromatic wings.
This year, their
ambition is less sweeping.
They will fringe
England’s southeast edges
as the land retreats
each year,
shrinking back
from these African
travellers, folding
in on itself.
Fiona
Cartwright
Contributors
Dee Allen is an African-Italian
performance poet based in Oakland, California U.S.A. Author of 7 books--Boneyard,
Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black, Elohi Unitsi and his 2
newest, Rusty Gallows and Plans--and 56 anthology
appearances.
Rupa Anand is a spiritual seeker and started writing in 2008. A cancer diagnosis in 2020 encouraged her to take up poetry more seriously. Rupa has a BA (Hons) in English Literature from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi. Her poems have been published in Indian spiritual journals. Her interests include gardening, birding, photography, travel and animals. She lives in New Delhi, India with her husband, daughter and numerous cats.
Byron Beynon coordinated Wales's
contribution to the anthology Fifty Strong (Heinemann). His poems and essays
have featured in several publications including Agenda, The London Magazine,
Wasafiri, Poetry Wales, Cyphers, Wild Court and the human rights anthology In
Protest (University of London and Keats House Poets). Collections include The
Echoing Coastline (Agenda) and Where Shadows Stir (The Seventh Quarry
Press). He lives in Wales.
Fiona
Cartwright is a poet,
mother and conservation scientist who lives near London. Her poems have
appeared in various journals including Butcher’s
Dog, Atrium, Magma, Mslexia, Interpreter’s House and Ink, Sweat & Tears. Her debut pamphlet, Whalelight, was published by Dempsey & Windle in 2019 and she
tweets @sciencegirl73.
David Chorlton is a transplanted
European, happy to be living close to the desert. His poems reflect his
affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects
of human behavior. He has several poetry collections, the newest of
which is Unmapped Worlds from FutureCycle.
Craig Dobson's been published in Acumen, Agenda, Allegro, Antiphon, Butcher’s Dog, Crannóg, The Frogmore Papers, Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Interpreter’s House, The London Magazine, Magma, Neon, New Welsh Review, The North, Orbis, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prole, Stand, The Poetry Village, The Rialto, Southword and Under The Radar.
Philip
Dunkerley is active in
the poetry scene of South Lincolnshire, where he lives. He runs poetry groups,
reads at open-mics and is a reviewer for Orbis. His work has
appeared in journals, webzines and anthologies, such as Poetry Salzburg
Review, Magma, IS&T, and Poems for
Peace.
Tim Dwyer’s
poems appear regularly in UK and Irish journals, recently in Allegro, Orbis, and The
Stony Thursday Book. His chapbook is Smithy Of Our Longings (Lapwing).
He grew up in Brooklyn and now lives in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
Paul Fenn's poems have been longlisted in the National Poetry Competition and The
Plough poetry prize and he has most recently had poems published in Ink,
Sweat and Tears, The Frogmore Papers, One Hand Clapping, Dreich
magazine and Obsessed with pipework.
S.C. Flynn was born in Australia of Irish origin
and now lives in Dublin. His poetry has been published in many countries,
including Bangladesh, Nepal, Spain and Italy, and most recently in Madrigal,
ZiN Daily, Obsessed With Pipework, Mercurius and Trasna.
Cole Henry Forster
is a poet living and writing in Montreal, QC. His work has appeared in
publications in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Jeff Gallagher is from Sussex, UK. His poems
have featured in publications such as Rialto, Shooter, Dreich, Littoral and The
Journal. He has had numerous plays for children performed nationwide. He was
the winner of the Carr Webber Prize 2021. He has been a teacher of English and
Latin. He also appeared in an Oscar-winning movie. He has no handles.
Rebecca
Gethin has written
5 poetry publications. She was a Hawthornden Fellow and a Poetry School
tutor. Vanishings was published by Palewell Press in
2020. She was a winner in the first Coast to Coast to Coast pamphlet
competition with Messages. She blogs sporadically at www.rebeccagethin.wordpress.com.
Marcello
Giovanelli is a writer and academic from Leicestershire, UK. He has had work
published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Green Ink Poetry, The
Poetry Village and Poetry Plus. He tweets @mmgiovanelli
Amlanjyoti Goswami's new book of poetry, Vital Signs (Poetrywala) follows his widely reviewed collection, River Wedding (Poetrywala). Published in journals and anthologies across the world, including Poetry, The Poetry Review, Penguin Vintage, Rattle and Sahitya Akademi, he is also a Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. His work has appeared on street walls of Christchurch, buses in Philadelphia, exhibitions in Johannesburg and an e-gallery in Brighton. He has reviewed poetry for Modern Poetry in Translation and has read at various places, including New York, Boston and Delhi. He grew up in Guwahati, Assam and lives in Delhi.
Robin
Helweg-Larsen has been
published in the Alabama Literary Review, Allegro, Ambit, Amsterdam
Quarterly and other international journals. He is Series Editor for Sampson
Low's 'Potcake Chapbooks - Form in Formless Times', and blogs at http://formalverse.com from his hometown of Governor's Harbour in the Bahamas.
Eve Jackson’s work has been published in a wide
range of journals, magazines and anthologies. Winner of the Frogmore Poetry
Prize and this years Brian Dempsey Memorial prize in the single poem category,
also a past runner up in the Manchester Cathedral Poetry competition.
Vyacheslav Konoval is a Ukrainian poet whose work is
focused on the most pressing social problems. His poetry was published in
more than 14 literary journals and translated into Polish and French. Konoval
is a member of the Geer Poetry Group and the Federation of Writers in Scotland.
Steve Lang,
though from Scotland originally, has travelled widely, especially in Africa,
and currently lives in El Salvador with his family, Steve’s second poetry
book, Cuarentena, a collection of 40 poems written during the
Covid lockdown, has just recently been published by Resource Publications.
Mary
Mulholland’s poems have been published
in journals, anthologies and won or been placed in competitions. in the UK and
US. Former psychotherapist and journalist, she lives in London. Her
debut pamphlet, what the sheep taught me, was published in July 2022 by
Live Canon. @marymulhol www.marymulholland.co.uk
Eira Needham is a retired teacher, living in
Birmingham UK. Her poetry has been published in print and online. Some recent
publications are Poppy Road Review, Green Silk Journal and Autumn Sky
Poetry. She has been ‘Featured Writer’ in West Ward Quarterly where
she is regularly published and once came first in Inter Board Poetry Contest.
Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet whose work has appeared widely in Britain and the USA. He won the Prole Pamphlet Competition in 2017 with Robeson, Fitzgerald and Other Heroes. In the USA he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times in the last three years.
Jon Plunkett was born among the granite and drumlins of Northern Ireland. He now lives and writes in Scotland. He is a widely published poet and poetry slam winner as well as a keen collaborator, often working with musicians and artists to present poetry in new ways. Jon is founder of The Corbenic Poetry Path. His collection A Melody of Sorts was published with Red Squirrel Press.
Marc Isaac
Potter (they/them) … is a differently-abled writer living in
the SF Bay Area. Marc’s interests include blogging by email and Zen.
They have been published in Fiery Scribe Review, Feral A Journal
of Poetry and Art, Poetic Sun Poetry, and Provenance
Journal. Twitter is @marcisaacpotter.
Mykyta
Ryzhykh from Ukraine (Nova Kakhovka Citу) has been published in the journals Dzvin, Ring A, Polutona,
Rechport, Topos, Articulation, Formaslov, Colon, Literature Factory, Literary
Chernihiv, on the portals Literary Center and Soloneba, in the
Ukrainian literary newspaper.
Finola Scott's poems scatter on the wind, on tapestries and magazines - The High Window, New Writing Scotland, I,S&T and Lighthouse. Red Squirrel Press publish Much left unsaid. Dreich publish Count the ways, Tapsalterrie publish Modren Makars: Yin. Visit Finola Scott Poems on FB. Finola enjoys treating grandchildren and blue-tits.
Louise
Warren’s first
collection A Child’s Last Picture Book of the Zoo won the Cinnamon Press
Debut Prize (2012). In the scullery with John Keats also published by
Cinnamon Press (2016.) John Dust V.Press (2019). Sometime,
in a Churchyard will be published by Paekakariki Press August 2022.
Gareth
Writer-Davies was shortlisted Bridport Prize (2014 and 2017),
commended Prole Laureate Competition (2015 & 2021) Prole Laureate
(2017). Commended Welsh Poetry Competition (2015) Highly Commended
(2017). His publications: Bodies (2015) Cry Baby (2017) Indigo
Dreams. The Lover's Pinch (2018) The End (2019) Arenig
Press
