Tap into Poetry is a non-profit magazine established in 2022. Through the sharing of poetry, we strive to be an exposition both for aspiring poets broadening their portfolios, and for literature enthusiasts looking to stumble across contemporary masterpieces. We aim to help authors in the advertising of their newly published work, alongside up-and-coming releases – for more information on advertising please contact us via our email tapintopoetry@gmail.com. Each featured poet retains full credit for their work, Tap into Poetry does not claim the rights to any of the poems featured in our magazine. Please refer to the end of the magazine for more information on sourcing. If you are interested in being featured in an upcoming edition, please see our submissions page for more information.
Thank you for tuning into the fourth edition of our magazine Tap into Poetry. To begin with I’d like to show you a gift I received from one of our regular customers at work. His name is Chris Sanders, a retired Christian who spends his time creating photography and woodwork which he gifts to the community. He always brightens our day – we love you, Chris!
In Stephen Allen’s poem Brink, he explores the way that ‘human psychology is influenced by active engagement with nature and the elements.’ Allen’s work relates deeply to Naturalism and Transcendentalism, delving into both the way humans and the environment converse, and impact upon one another – we as individuals are inherently good, however society is seen as corrupting us and nature serves as a place for soul cleansing purification.
Brink, by Stephen Allen
A shadowed man in greyscale hue
Plodded skyward with intent
The cliffs of Golden Cap to view
A rim-track skimmed along the drop
Leaning to its edging blocks
That framed that fascinating void
Where optic pulls come from the fog
And thin and piping siren-sounds
Advocate the quickest way
He stood before the solving deep
Until a blackbird’s saving-song
Kindled a fleeting beauty-flame
That stopped the sequence of his thoughts
And led the lonely walker to reflect
Upon the purpose of the place
He chose upon that autumn day
To match the growing darkness
Stony-etched into his face
The brink conveyed a pensive gift
Of time to think beyond the call
And take the longer harder path
To enter with grace the shadow-mist
Defying the crow-black demon’s wrath
And wait until the light returns
Because, this was not the time to fall
Stanza two is my favourite part, when the ‘blackbird’s saving-song / Kindled a fleeting beauty-flame / That stopped the sequence of his thoughts.’ The way that the soothing melody of the blackbird brings the protagonist back from the brink is inspiring. It is simplistic, but it proposes that people who are struggling with mental health issues can find a tranquillity in nature, which allows for lowered blood pressure and hence lowered stress levels – it doesn’t work for everyone, and it’s definitely not a quick fix for depression, anxiety, or any other mental health diagnosis. Nature is good. Nature is kind. Nature is innocent. Humans may be actively destroying the planet, but nature knows exactly what itself and we as a species need; she provides a space for us to reflect and revitalise ourselves, so we can be reborn.
Peter Donnelly (Twitter: @pj_donnelly) is a Yorkshire poet with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature, and a master’s degree in Creative Writing. He has been previously published in a variety of magazines and anthologies such as Dreich, Obsessed with Pipework, Lothlorien, High Window, Ink Sweat and Tears, One Hand Clapping, Black Nore Review, Fragmented Voices and Southlight. His debut chapbook, The Second of August, was recently published earlier this year by Alien Buddha Press – as always, the link will be available down below. The poem he submitted to us, Two Deaths, follows the death of Jean, a former school friend of his who was also a fervent royalist, who passed away not long before Queen Elizabeth II.
Two Deaths, by Peter Donnelly
I often wondered where I would be
when the news reached me,
if it reached me at all. At the table
one evening, clearing the dishes,
preparing to watch TV as in fact
I was last Sunday when I checked
my Facebook feed. In days gone by
I’d have got a call from your daughter
or son who may not even have needed
to look in your address book
for my phone number or ring
Directory Enquiries to give them
my details which I always wrote
on the back of the envelope.
My letters, if you kept them,
they probably did not
when they emptied your house
after you moved into the care home.
They may not have known who I was.
Now that you’ve gone I’m not sure
what to say except for the things
I would have written – that I’d been to
the Proms, finally succumbed to COVID,
what do you think of the new
prime minister? The family are all well,
I hope yours are too. I wish I could
tell them now that I’m sorry for their loss.
I wonder how you would feel Jean
to know you’d been outlived
by twelve days by the Queen.
Donnelly explores the depth of a life shared with a beloved friend, someone who has been with you since the beginning, and is there till the end. He delves into the fragility of life through his describing of the moments they have missed sharing with one another, such as his trip to the Proms, catching coronavirus, and the acquisition of our new prime minister, Rishi Sunak. Donnelly and Jean were clearly quite close, with their letters serving as a reminder of the tokens of love and friendship cherished between friends. I could only dream to have had a friendship as raw as theirs, and I am truly sorry for his loss.
Hanna Abi Akl (Twitter: @HannaAbiAkl, Instagram: @hannaabiakl8) is a French poet who has also completed formal education in science and engineering, with him being a Professor at the French Data ScienceTech Institute. I love to show poet profiles like Abi Akl’s, because it helps show that poetry doesn’t always have to come from people whose career is solely from an English Literature or English Language based subject – poetry can and does come from all walks of life. His most recent solo collection, Correspondence (2021) will be available below. In his submission, final fugue, he explores the protagonist’s reflection on the existentialism felt whilst listening to a rendition of Mozart’s Requiem.
final fugue, by Hanna Abi Akl
listening to mozart’s
requiem by a quartet
of violinists
unrolls life
in a series of frames
like a strange premonition
or a prelude
mirrors unfolding ⸺
when i am young and
unadulterated by
life’s misgivings and mistakes
and old and weak
and degenerating
and ready to give
myself back to
the earth
music puts me in touch
with life’s energy
and death still hanging
like an old crow
on the vines of my mind
at last seems
like a distant shadow.
I really enjoy the way that Abi Akl structures his poem, the short line lengths relate to the context of age progression through the structure directly relating to the image of a vintage film reel; the still images of the different stages of someone’s life coming together to show it in its entirety as one long film. If we unfold the film of someone’s life out in front of us, it creates a picture of them as a person – their likes, dislikes, their loved ones, where they’ve been. In both youth, and old age, the protagonist highlights the vulnerability and shortness of life.
Hiram Larew (Twitter: @HiramGLarew) is an American poet based in Maryland who has been nominated for a Pushcart prize numerous times for his work. He was once the director of operations at the Centre for International Programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture; Larew then went on to be a sustainable agriculture adviser to the United Nations (Riggs, 2019). Hunger prevention is something Larew is deeply passionate about, and in 2017 he founded Poetry X Hunger, an initiative which brought his two interests of poetry and hunger prevention together – he encouraged poets to write about hunger to touch the hearts of the wider public. His latest poetry collection, Patchy Ways (2023) was published by CyberWit Press and will be available down below.
Tucked Inside has been previously published in Long Island Sound Anthology 2023. Larew’s work is interesting as he uses indentation to create a tight structure to his poem. Indentation, or an irregular line break, is often used for a number of different reasons, such as to embed a quote, or to highlight a specific feature or image. I feel that Larew’s use of indentation is successful as it emphasizes the image from the beginning of the poem of the chimney smoke; the white space of the poem creates the image of a smoke cloud billowing. The poem gives us as an audience a warm, and homely feel, which is furthered by the image of grandfathers and chattering false teeth.
Sonja Berry (Twitter: @SonjaRBerry1) is a student enrolled in a writing certificate program at the University of California, Los Angeles, she describes herself as aspiring to pursue a career within the writing field upon her completion of 26 years of the military service. She recently published her first publication in Sunflowers at Midnight literary magazine (Twitter: @SAM_LitMag), with her next publication being this month in the magazine Raw Lit (Twitter: @rawlitmag). In her poem, Wind Song, she dedicates her work to her grandmother and the signature scent of her perfume.
In Berry’s poem, we see that the image of the wind takes on the structure of the poem, allowing for the perfume to come across as light, and fluffy, the sweet perfume becomes a cloud. It is soft and delicate, the protagonist succumbs to the cloud, with it being ‘like the fluffy powder puff / that kissed my face / and tickled my nose.’ The image is so wholesome and homely, it’s warm and comforting, as it allows us to imagine how the scent spurs the vivid images of her grandmother’s jewellery and makeup, alongside the tokens of wartime stories and memories – the tenderness of the threads of their patchwork quilt being the golden threads of their marriage and lifetime of love spent together. Wind Song reminds me of when I was younger. Angel, by Mugler is one of the key scents from my childhood. It’s a sweet yet glamorous perfume, which my mother owned in the 2000s. I once sprayed almost a whole bottle of it and filled our house with a cloud of Angel (I only found out upon researching that a bottle costs around £60-90, and I am so so sorry to my mother for me as a child being an idiot). I love this poem, and the down to earth images of family it creates.
The next submission is a piece of collaborative poetry from poets Christina Chin and Uchechukwu Onyedikam. Christina Chin is a Malaysian painter and poet, she has been published in a number of literary journals and anthologies, including Japan’s Haikukai Magazine. She has also won 1st prize at the 34th Annual Cherry Blossom Sakura Festival 2020 Haiku Contest, and 1st prize winner in the 8th Setouchi Matsuyama 2019 Photohaiku Contest. Uchechukwu Onyedikam is a Nigerian artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. He has been previously published in Amsterdam Quarterly, Brittle Paper, Poetic Africa, Hood Communists and in print anthologies. Together, they have created poetry which takes on the form of Tan-renga, two untitled poems to be read together which take on a half and half author style.
Untitled tan-renga, by Christina Chin and Uchechukwu Onyedikam.
1
bushmen voices
across the veld
the restless toil
life with its burden
of tomorrow
2
primitive
survivalist
in a place
inside the world
bracing catastrophe
Italics: Christina Chin
Non-italics: Uchechukwu Onyedikam
Tan-renga (originally ‘renga’, with the inclusion of ‘tan’ meaning ‘short’) is a genre of traditional Japanese linked verse poetry by which two poets write alternating sections of a shared poem. It began as an early form of Japanese poetry where two poets would write a single poem with a 5-7-5 haiku structure (Britannica, 2016). It is interesting as it is a form of traditional poetry in Japanese culture, but this isn’t a form the western world is familiar with. The variation of the forms of poetry seen to be ‘traditional’ relate to the literary canon of western society, and it is refreshing to view poetry from a different nonconventional historical perspective. These two authors have worked together previously when they co-published Pouring Light on the Hills (2022). I hope, when my copy arrives, I will be as pleasantly surprised by their collection as I have been with their untitled poems.
Wandering Biku (Twitter: @bikuwandering) is a poet from the United Kingdom, he often writes poetry on themes of addiction, mental health/illness, dissatisfaction, and spirituality. He has been published in a number of anthologies across 2021/2022, alongside having been commissioned to create a piece for October 2021’s Recovery Month, on behalf of an addiction charity. In his poem, They, he explores the way the way we use the pronouns they/them to describe those who give the general public orders and advice, without always giving a name to the ‘they’ – the faceless, nameless elite.
They, by Wandering Biku
Who are ‘They’? You know,
the ones who said it would rain
today. Are they the same ‘They’
that claim a glass of red wine
a day is good for you? Or are
they the ‘They’ that decided
quinoa, blueberries and chia
seeds needed a superlative?
‘They’ said the pandemic would
change everything, ‘They’
promised a new normal. But
then again, ‘They’ promised
to be carbon neutral by 2030.
‘They’ say mental illness is on
the rise yet ‘They’ are spending
fewer resources each year.
Which ‘They’ is it who are
petitioning for Peace?
The ‘They’ that call for ceasefires?
Surely not the same ‘They’ that are
profiting from arms sales to
rich warlords and using
hateful speech on ‘Their’ platforms?
These are the ‘They’ who hide
behind a pronoun when
delivering news of death, poverty,
corruption and failure. The same
‘They’ who suddenly personify
when plaudits, praise and
popularity are the order of the day.
Is it time that ‘They’ took a back seat
and ‘We’ became more responsible?
But who are ‘We’, if not only not ‘They’?
Whether we ignore it or not, there is a thread
which connects each ‘I’ to each other ‘I’.
There’s no unity in ‘We’ and ‘They’.
Realise your ‘I’ in someone else’s ‘I’
and maybe we can start to reconcile.
Biku highlights how the use of the collective pronoun diminishes the responsibility of the government, by shifting the blame onto others. In the first stanza we see the poet drift between the images of people such as weathermen and doctors – people who advise us, the general public, on the goings on in the world and how to live our lives to the fullest potential. In stanzas two and three, we see the way the larger picture comes into play through the introduction of the larger government body controlling money and resource distribution. His poem is successful in the way he asks the audience to question the intentions of those in a position of authority.
Our next piece is from Heather Ann Pulido (Twitter: @heather_tries), an indigenous writer from the Philippines who began writing poetry around the age of 13. She describes her early work as being about ‘anger and boys’, whereas nowadays her poems are about ‘quieter feelings like longing and appreciation as well as quieter people like my grandmother. But I still write about anger and boys.’ In her poem to change we see a narrator who cherishes her emotional maturity, recognising the red flags of a previous relationship and the toll it took on her.
to change, by Heather Ann Pulido
for our 98th date,
i wore a red blouse with
frilled sleeves and a
silver pencil skirt. you were
waiting outside my room.
you gave me one look
and told me to change
into something comfortable,
not too formal. i think “basic”
was the word you used.
i changed
into a shirt. i paired it with white
shorts studded with tiny pink stars;
they were one size too big.
when i emerged, you nodded
and led me out the front door.
you never went back to my house
after that.
now, you have a girlfriend
who wears tight sweaters and
sleeveless tops. now, i have
a boyfriend who changes
into a pale blue dress shirt when
he sees me in a lavender dress.
Pulido described to me how her poem was inspired by the breakup between her and her ex-boyfriend of five years, he broke up with her via letter during one of the most difficult times of her life – to me, that’s absolutely unforgivable. I cannot begin to imagine the extent of your pain. Your strength and determination to pick yourself back up is admirable, and I hope others who experience something similar can bounce back with your vigour. Pulido describes her poem as being about the ‘bright red flags [she] ignored in the early stages of [their] relationship’, which we see in the narrator being trapped within a controlling relationship where he controls her both aesthetically and physically, through his refusal to let her leave unless she meets his expectations. The poem ends with a lighter tone, her boyfriend in present day chooses to change himself to match her, showing his support and encouraging her to express herself however she may choose. With his support, she can continue to bloom like the lavender she is dressed in.
Our next poet, Bernard Pearson (Twitter: @BernardPearso19), is published in around 100 literary journals and magazines including Aesthetica Magazine, The Edinburgh Review, and The York Literary Review – and we are proud to be included in his list.In 2017 he published a selection of poetry titled In Free Fall with LeafbyLeaf Press, but he also writes prose as he has also published two novels.
Return to the Adventure, by Bernard Pearson
O let’s go to Versailles my dear
And walk through the mirrored hall
And see all that was on display my dear
And to imagine how it might enthral.
For you and I, I think my dear,
Spend too much time with books,
We need to see the world my dear,
One only finds when one looks.
We’ll take the Baedeker my dear
As our guide to keep us straight.
And stroll in the garden my dear
And recall the poor Queen’s fate
This place is distinctly odd my dear
Everything seems out of place.
And did you see that man my dear
The one with the pock marked face.
And the boy with those eyes my dear
Who offered to show us the way
And the girl with the fair hair my dear
In a dress straight out of a play
So you didn’t see the girl my dear
Who was sketching the pretty scene
I think if I’m not mistaken my dear
She may once have been their queen
So we both saw ghosts my dear
Spirits perhaps from the royal past
We must write them down my dear
As our memories may not last.
Why do you look that way my dear?
Our story is one that should be told
As ladies from academia my dear
We really both should be bold.
I cannot believe it at all my dear
That they doubt our record is true
if we were let us say, men my dear
there wouldn’t be such a to do
We are in a new century my dear
It’s nineteen hundred and one
Will they finally believe us women?
When the next hundred years have begun.
Pearson’s poem has a very rigid structure, consisting only of quatrains with two sets of rhyme schemes that flow throughout. Lines one and three always end in dear, whilst lines two and four rhyme. It is commonly known as an alternate rhyme scheme, but it is very close to following the structure of a ballad in both the rhyming and flow of the poem, instead of ABAB CDCD it follows a ABAB ACAC rhyme scheme. The repetition of ‘dear’ shows a personal touch of intimacy that highlights the soft images of the Palace of Versailles.
West Ambrose (Twitter: @westofcanon) is a writer and grad student who identifies as trans, queer and chronically ill/disabled. They are fascinated by the works of Herman Melville, the author of classic American novels such as Moby Dick (1851), and often find enjoyment in finding vintage teapots in addition to creating granola bars that are both vegan and duck friendly (I definitely approve, my family are duck crazy!). You can access more of their creative works via their website (westofcanon.com).
Ambrose’s poem uses the white space of the page to its advantage, allowing for the structure of the poem to take the shape of a drifting motion across the page which links to the idea of the narrator having wings that allows them to fly amongst the clouds above the sea. There is a definite link between the strength and purity of nature, and the inner spirituality of the narrator; the innate raw compulsion they feel towards their connection with the natural world overwhelms them into following primal urges.
Nicholas Barnes (Twitter: @ColesWordsPoet) is a poet from Portland, Oregon who has a bachelor’s degree in English from Southern Oregon University and currently works as an editor. His poetry has been printed in numerous publications such as Quibble, NonBinary Review, and Bullshit Lit. He writes poetry as it helps him discover and understand things about himself and the world that he hadn’t previously known. In his poem joan of arc & michelangelo, we see him explore the relationship between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe.
joan of arc & Michelangelo, by Nicholas Barnes
a bioluminescent thespian aura emanated out of them. two star-crossed romeo and juliet outlaws. they were monday’s children. his eyes were like a conquistador’s bygone, sunken emeralds. and she would religiously repeat her mantra, we’ll be born again, from the depths of her groovy vinyl river. he’s been gone since ’89, yet she still cries. the lady soldier-bard took his poplar urn from a memorial park in queens, and pressed him into her own shepherd diamond. one last work of art, one more beauty, formed in the afterlife. every day, it’s her burning question: will i have to sail through the same storm twice? but then the kelly green spring days come to mind. the timeworn polaroids, sugar-white camisoles, hermosa beach knockouts, and inspired microphone yawping. and then it’s will i get to? that’s what she’ll ask by the time she reaches the final deckled page.
Both Smith and Mapplethorpe are very famous American figures; Smith is a singer-songwriter whose debut album Horses was inducted into the Grammy’s Hall of Fame in 2021, she has also worked with the likes of Bruce Springsteen. Mapplethorpe was an American photographer best known for his black and white photography, his more mainstream work included celebrity portraits and nude stills – but his more controversial work looked to analyse the gay BDSM culture of New York. The pair dated from 1967-1972, having a 5-year intense romantic relationship in the heart of Manhattan where they struggled with severe poverty, alongside the questioning of Mapplethorpe’s sexuality. After their split they remained lifelong friends until his death in 1989 due to complications with HIV/AIDS. Barnes’ poem is beautiful in the way it captures the incredulity of their relationship right from the beginning. The title naming Joan of Arc and Michelangelo represents the pair being figures that are strong and protective, authentic and transcendent. They are both raw in their human experiences – and Barnes’ poem reflects this magnificently in his sensory images.
Allison Walters Luther (Twitter: @AllisonLuther) is a poet who lives in Seattle with her husband, three children and a grouchy parrot. She grew up in Southern Indiana but has since lived in a variety of locations such as England, Florida, California, and Washington. She has been a writer since the age of seven years old, describing herself as ‘having more brain dragons rather than plot bunnies’ as her creative ideas would battle each other intensely. She describes her writing of poetry as intending to ‘create a visceral reaction in the reader, a feeling that can be both illuminating and unsettling’ – without further ado, Faces.
Faces, by Allison Walters Luther
I saw a girl in my shower last night
Not a ghost
Or maybe she is
Part of a dream
But her face is there
In the marble tiles
Among a gallery of portraits
Two down and one over from Batman
A knight’s move
With un-lost irony
She looks
Vengeful
And I wonder
If she is
Me
This poem perfectly captures how mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, can cause a detachment from yourself. Mental health issues can cause someone to not recognise their current self with regards to the past version of themselves they have become accustomed to. You can stand in front of a mirror and know that the person looking back at you is indeed yourself, but you are so far changed from who you used to be that it is almost like looking into the eyes of a stranger. Your past self is a ghost – you may think you catch a glimpse of them, but you aren’t entirely sure they’re there; the old version of yourself is dead. Walters Luther does an amazing job at capturing the internal struggle with identity that many of us face throughout our lives.
Aarushi Malhotra, also known as Rush, (Instagram: @theskyisgay_021) is a 22-year-old currently studying English at University in Scotland. They have previously been published in Lemon Peel Press and Querencia Press, but began writing poetry as a child as a way for them to understand the way the world around them functioned. They now write poetry to document the things that make an impact on them, which leads us to their poem Havoc. Havoc was written by Rush on a walk home from university, they always cross paths with places that have a significant amount of moss which leads them to stop to appreciate the beauty of nature.
Havoc, by Rush
Rush describes that they often touch the moss, allowing themselves to revel in the soft velvety plant that blankets the likes of trees, rocks, and riverbeds. They recount the feel of the moss as soft and inviting; the poem was inspired by the beauty of the colour green and how it encapsulates nature in a wider frame. Rush allows for the reader to see how the moss perseveres through life and death, through light and dark, through wet or dry – the plant, and its beautiful shade of green, provide hope for the persistence of life through struggles.
Abel Johnson Thundil is a poet from India who describes his poems as ‘sometimes sentimental, sometimes dark; but always with a madness that’s very enjoyable.’ His works have appeared in the likes of Terror House Magazine and The Pangolin Review, and his latest eBook, a poetry collection titled Wilted: Poems of Modern Tragedy is available on Amazon. His submission, Depth, was inspired by his fascination with magicians doing magic tricks with doves. I won’t be delving into the poem too deeply, as he would prefer the deeper meaning of the poem to be left up to the readers interpretation.
Depth, by Abel Johnson Thundil
There’s a thud in my chest
And I lie down;
Bulged eyes,
Panting.
There’s a thud in my chest
And my ribs creak like a wooden floor,
Stretching and dislocating
Until it comes out:
A dove
Trapped within for so long,
Staring at the heart pump
And the lungs go in and out…
In and out.
A dove
Trapped within for so long,
Existing in a red monotonous maze…
Finally out,
Finally free…
Wanting to reveal itself to me,
Because I’d never believed in it.
Wanting to reveal itself to me,
But cannot.
Blood pours out my chest…
The wide hole it made in me
Through which the heart is seen
Beating,
Beating,
Beating…
And done.
Razeena Mustafa (Instagram: @its.razeena) is a young poet who likes to express real life emotions into their written work, her poem Antique Love was published in our previous edition, edition three. For our newest edition she has submitted A Mess, a poem she describes as highlighting the inner and external conflicts one faces during life.
A Mess, by Razeena Mustafa
It’s a mess everywhere I look
Clothes cover every inch of the floor
collecting dust as they lie lifeless,
Books, wrappers, pens
fill up every space of my bed,
Half-eaten food rests on my desk
their wrappers long forgotten,
What is this?
This mess
I shake my head, trying to keep my eyes open
but they droop, deprived of sleep and comfort,
The clock strikes 2
as I scramble to finish my assignments,
I was once the girl who slept at 10
now I lie awake till the sound of morning birds,
What is this?
This mess
Everyday I look in the mirror
and see the same person,
I do not recognize her
Her dark circles are not mine
Those tired, decaying eyes are not mine
That unruly, uncombed hair isn’t mine
Who is she?
What is this mess?
At school, life goes on
I laugh and forget myself with friends
For just a moment, everything seems fine
But at home, everything changes-
The never ending cycle continues
I’m glued to my desk; a prisoner in my own room,
Sleepless nights spent worrying about the future
Wondering what will become of me in a couple of years
What is this?
This mess
I try and I try to escape
I pick up my clothes and hang them up
but they always end back down,
I try to focus on the work given
but I end up pushing the limit,
My mom pleads with me to take care of myself
but I just don’t listen.
This mess,
It’s an anchor that drags me down to the dark depths of the sea
I cry and reach out for a savior
but there is no one,
Why can’t I ever seem to escape
this mess?
As I sit in my chair, shaking and sleep deprived,
trying to finish up assignments before dawn,
I look around the room, clothes still on the floor
the room in disarray,
I wonder if it’s because of me,
this mess.
Mustafa’s poem describes a scene many young people can relate to – it’s so easy to become overwhelmed by numerous aspects of life such as schoolwork and social lives. Young people can put up a front in person with their friends, but in private they may struggle to look after themselves via doing things such as keeping on top of the cleaning of their desk and the floor in their room. The narrator throws themselves into schoolwork, hoping to finish the mountains of paperwork they have been given before their deadlines pass – often leading to all-nighters. It’s an awful cycle students in the modern era are expected to follow blindly, one thing I will tell younger readers who may be tuning in is this: your mental and physical health must always come first. Education is important, but it is not worth the sacrifice of your health. Please reach out and contact someone if you are struggling.
Thomas Robins (Instagram: @poetwritertgr) is a Welsh poet currently studying at Bath Spa University, he is interested in the transgressive, the boundary-pushing and the punk. At present he is an unpublished poet, so we are glad to be the one who introduces his work to the world of poetry readers. His submission Beachy-Head was written using Jericho Brown’s duplex poetry form, a poem that usually consists of seven couplets where the second line of the previous couplet repeats to form the first line of the next couplet. It’s an interesting form I’ve never seen before, so I thank him for introducing it to me.
Beachy-Head, by Thomas Robins
All of my thoughts become grains of sand:
desperate wisps around my beachy head.
Meadows of worry and doubt in my head.
Buried, like a lovely, rotting garden.
I woke up. I was alone in the garden.
I must’ve been drinking again. Or thinking of it.
I wonder if I ever get anything from this,
or maybe it reminds me of weeping.
I think I’m in love with the feeling of weeping
over the most pale, precious thoughts.
Pale, precious thoughts
desperately wisp around my beachy head.
The narrator’s thoughts being ‘grains of sand’ is interesting, as the saying goes to ‘have your head in the sand’ is to be unwilling to recognise or acknowledge a problem. However, the image of a beachy-head, to me, gives me the image of a head being filled with the sounds of the ocean, soft white noise. Robins describes how part of his aim was to use the form as a way of highlighting themes of emptiness and the subsequent loneliness that follows when you are alone with your thoughts. I think his poem is impressive in the way that it uses a contemporary form of structure.
Grant Shimmin (Twitter: @shimmo23, Instagram: @shimmonz) is a South African born poet who resides in a valley within the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. He works as a journalist, but has returned to writing poetry after decades of inactivity as a way of him to draw his deep stories to the surface for all to enjoy. His submission is a combination of poetry and photography, with the landscape within the photo being from the valley he lives in. He wanted to capture the blue of the sky bleeding through the clouds cresting the ridge of their valley, colouring them a shade of blue. This phenomenon allowed his imagination to run wild with his poetic work.
His poem, The Crown, highlights the rarity of the magnificent sight. Describing the clouds and the blue rim of the valley shows how it in the moment becomes a defining feature of beauty – a moment so enchanted, that it feels as though it is being shared by only him and the clouds, as their little secret.
Sugar de Santo (Twitter and Instagram: @sugar_de) is a gay, disabled, visual artist from Berlin, Germany. He has a bachelor’s degree in Art History and has been writing for over 10 years, with some of his work appearing in Alien Buddha Press, Beaver Magazine, and The Writers Club/Grey Thoughts. His blackout poem Escape deals with the subject of love as a queer person.
His poem reads as follows:
Escape, by Sugar de Santo
Time apart I no longer want.
Look into my soul, my thoughts.
He can’t love,
He can’t love anyone.
Surprised by the thought that flicks across my mind
I can feel, the darkness that separates us
On a level
He doesn’t love me
I do love him.
When his blackout poetry, also known as erasure poetry, is paired with the collage of the men and the roses, we see the depiction of a narrator struggling with their sexuality and the doubt that comes with not knowing other people’s sexuality and subsequently their feelings towards yourself. The narrator is enamoured by their love and doesn’t want to spend time away from him – but also acknowledges that their love cannot be. Unrequited love is a tragedy many LGBTQ+ people face, especially in their youth when not only are they are discovering themselves, but their hormones and emotions are at their peak.
Yukta Muniraj (Twitter: @YuktaMuniraj, Instagram: @book.scars) is a law student in India, but she is also passionate about literature. She has a short story titled Blue Heart published in The Unconventional Courier magazine, and numerous other publications with both prose and poetry. She describes that writing has always been a hobby of hers which she uses to express herself.
Broken promises, by Yukta Muniraj
They all left
Just like the breeze
Touched my skin and left a tingle
I sit alone by the roof
Just me and the sky above
asking me to stop hurting
People who promised
Love that faded
And scars that remain
All just like Breeze
Younger me would beg them to stay
now I just let them pass
just like their broken promises
no one stayed
Broken promises is a poem that reflects on the narrator’s sense of abandonment, acceptance, and the personal growth that stems from the broken promises of loved ones. The poem begins with the image of people being similar to the wind, they come and go quickly and quietly, leaving the faintest sign they’ve been there in the form of goosebumps on your skin. The narrator explores how the vast open sky is full of gusts of wind, just like the way the world is full of people who will come and go as they please. At first, the abandonment leaves painful scars in youth, but as the narrator ages they begin to acknowledge that life goes on.
Tess Aiteouakrim is a 19-year-old poet born and raised in London. She uses poetry as her way of expressing the indescribable, and often takes inspiration from everyday life. She enjoys combining her passion for science and art to create pieces which uncover the depths and truths weaved into the world we live in. She is a previously unpublished poet, looking to share her work with journals and publications.
The safety net, by Tess Aiteouakrim
Her rays are the mesh
Intersected through the windows
Of my soul
Lighting my inner dull
Triggering the bloom
Of the hopeless love
I have for you
But who am I referring to?
Her warmth makes me giddy
Her warmth sets my mind free
Contenting me
Making me believe
That I can achieve
And makes me relieve
That she’s still there
When it’s clouding
Foggy or misty
Like my mind is sometimes
But still melts my thoughts
The ones that shouldn’t pass by
Distance is never an issue
93 million miles
And she still smiles
When she radiates me
Triggering home
Within my lone
She glistens
As she kisses
Every part of me that I cannot see
Reminding that beauty is natural
She shouts
‘I am powerful
And so are thee’
As she dries the tears
Running down my face
Whilst she sets
I reminisce of you
Before I fall
Into the pool
Of dusk
Aiteouakrim describes her poem as using the sun as a metaphor for mothers. By personifying the sun as a she and allowing her to give kisses to her face, we see the warmth and comfort shared by both the sun and the mother figure in the narrator’s life. She provides light for us to grow, picking ourselves up out of the darkness we may find ourselves in. Aiteouakrim describes how her mother is the most powerful and influential person in her life, she serves as a defining feature and no matter the distance, she is able to remove bad thoughts and dry the tears. The mother is something the narrator can fall back on as she is always there for them.
Kushal Poddar (Twitter: @Kushalpoe) is a poet from Kolkata, India where he resides as a journalist and editor of the magazine Words Surfacing. He has published eight books, including Postmarked Quarantine where he explores the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on everyday life.
Loneliness Gardens Loneliness, by Kushal Poddar
I should have made some tea
for you and instead, I served
loneliness in bed.
My father savoured the same
until the day he didn’t and died.
You looked at me.
I sprawl like a spoilt garden
at the estuary of spring.
My father’s seeds turn into saplings.
In Poddar’s poem, we see a narrator who reflects on the failure of their current relationship as being the result of their father’s influence on them in their youth. The narrator looks upon themselves as having inherited some of their father’s negative traits, such as the coldness and loneliness the father shared with his partner, who we assume to be the narrator’s mother. The narrator acknowledges that he should have done things differently, and maybe their relationship could have been saved – but as the title suggests, the detachment of their unloving father serves as the foundation on how his children will form their relationships in the future. Thus creating a cycle of difficult relationships where they are unable to understand their partner’s needs.
Alex Carrigan (Twitter: @carriganak) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Virginia. He is the author of May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022), and Now Let’s Get Brunch: A Collection of RuPaul’s Drag Race Twitter Poetry (Querencia Press, 2023). He has had fiction, poetry, and literary reviews published in Quail Bell Magazine, Lambda Literary Review, Barrelhouse, Sage Cigarettes (Best of the Net Nominee, 2023), Stories About Penises (Guts Publishing, 2019), and more.
Vision Fading, by Alex Carrigan
Carrigan’s poem Vision Fading is an ekphrastic, written after Carrigan read the poetry of Jessica Kim, I assume it was her collection L(EYE)GHT (2022). L(EYE)GHT is a poetry collection written by Kim inspired by her personal experiences with vision impairment. It explores her disability in a medical sense, and the subsequent coming to terms with the gradual loss of sight. Carrigan’s poem serves as an excellent piece to compliment the work of Kim, almost like an Ode dedicated to her and the strength she has as an individual. On her website, Kim describes herself as a differently abled poet, and when she is not writing poetry she is advocating for the disabled community. Carrigan has chosen a truly inspirational person to use as a centrepiece for his work.
Thank you for tuning into our fourth edition, we hope the poetry within this edition speaks to your soul as deeply as it has to ours. We appreciate everyone who has submitted and chosen to participate in our magazine, and as always we encourage all poets, new and old, to consider submitting your work to us. If you don’t follow us on social media, you may not have heard that we have a poetry contest open at the moment – you can check it out via the dropdown menu on our website. See you next time!
Credits
Abl Akl, H. (2023) ‘final fugue’. Correspondence (2021) published via Waterton Publishing Company: https://amzn.eu/d/bNna33u
Aiteouakrim, T. (2023) ‘The safety net’
Allen, S. (2023) ‘Brink’. His most recent collection: Unfrozen, Hobnob Press: https://www.hobnobpress.co.uk/books/p/unfrozen-poems-of-the-west-country-by-stephen-allen-1
Ambrose, W. (2023) ‘Last Wednesday’s Dream’. Twitter: @westofcanon https://westofcanon.com/
Barnes, N. (2023) ‘joan of arc & michelangelo’. Twitter: @ColesWordsPoet https://nicholashbbarnes.wixsite.com/website
Berry, S. (2023) ‘Wind Song’. Twitter: @SonjaRBerry1
Biku, W. (2023) ‘They’. Twitter: @bikuwandering https://wanderingbiku.medium.com/
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “renga”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Dec. 2016, https://www.britannica.com/art/renga
Carrigan, A. (2023) ‘Vision Fading’. Twitter: @carriganak
Chin, C., Onyedikam, U. (2023) ‘Untitled tan-renga’. Pouring Light on the Hills (2022) https://amzn.eu/d/fzMkp3W
Donnelly, P. (2023) ‘Two Deaths’. Twitter: @pj_donnelly His debut poetry collection, The Second of August (2023) from Alien Buddha Press is available via https://amzn.eu/d/72wEQRt
Johnson Thundil, A. (2023) ‘Depth’ Amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/bBcrQkb
Larew, H. (2023) ‘Tucked Inside’. Twitter: @HiramGLarew Patchy Ways (2023) https://www.hiramlarewpoetry.com/patchy-ways
Muniraj, Y. (2023) ‘Broken promises’. Twitter: @YuktaMuniraj, Instagram: @book.scars)
Mustafa, R. (2023) ‘A Mess’. Instagram: @its.razeena
Pearson, B. (2023) ‘Return to the Adventure’. Twitter: @BernardPearso19 https://abookatberntime.uk/poetry/
Poddar, K. (2023) ‘Loneliness Gardens Loneliness’. Twitter: @Kushalpoe
Pulido, H A. (2023) ‘to change’. Twitter: @heather_tries
Santo, S. D. (2023) ‘Escape’. Twitter and Instagram: @sugar_de
Shimmin, G. (2023) ‘The Crown’. Twitter: @shimmo23, Instagram: @shimmonz
Riggs, T. (2019) Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow to Spend Week at Hood. Hood College. [Online] https://www.hood.edu/news/woodrow-wilson-visiting-fellow-spend-week-hood
Robins, T. (2023) ‘Beachy-Head’. Instagram: @poetwritertgr
Rush. (2023) ‘Havoc’. Instagram: @theskyisgay_021
Walters Luther, A. (2023) ‘Faces’. Twitter: @AllisonLuther allisonwaltersluther.com
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