Hear poet Natalie Ann Holborow read poems for wave 1 of literary poetry journal iamb. Natalie Ann Holborow wave 1 winter 2020 back next the poet Natalie Ann Holborow is a writer, digital content specialist and marathon-runner. She won both the Terry Hetherington Award and Robin Reeves Prize in 2015, and has been shortlisted and commended for various other awards including the Bridport Prize, The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition, and the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize. Her debut collection, And Suddenly You Find Yourself (Parthian, 2017) was launched at the Kolkata International Book Festival and was listed as one of Wales Arts Review's Best of 2017. Her second collection, Small, will be published by Parthian in 2020. the poems Andromache 00:00 / 01:30 Assume I am wearing black. Assume I have swathed myself in the hollow shades of his bruised knees, dust-clogged and sticky, assume I am leaching away with him. The tracks of his belly scar the dirt. Does anyone ask for his wife, hair dripping over the Trojan walls, towering ten feet over the beetled men below, gleaming up and blinking through her? Assume the wind blew me over the edge of the wall, quiet and pale as salt. Hear me say nothing at all. See these living hands. Hear the smack of my palms against stone, blood coiling its way to my heart, bind me tough as a horseman’s rope. Blow my bones to polished pipes they play when great men fall. For me, no tune at all if I should choose to stagger up, sway on broken toes, burst my lungs screaming for the dead man’s bones with our only child tumbling over crumbling stone in a gasp of blood and milk. When Hector cracked his back behind the chariot, when the bruises flowered blue, when our only baby spiralled like sycamore, the Gods, I felt it too – I called Astayanax, I called Hector. Who called Andromache? Who? Black Dog ‘I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.’ ~ John Keats ~ 00:00 / 01:31 He woke me just this morning, nose pushed to my sleepy cheek, breath shuttling down my cool neck: my faithful black dog. His tail clubbed me all shades of violet. The sun sawed me in half. He follows me to the kitchen. Here he comes, his canine shape gleaming like polished jet. I stoop over my coffee, hiss at him to go. My mouth lands on his drooping ear but the stupid dog is deaf; his dumb tongue a dripping slab searching my hand like a rodent. When milk won’t do, he loves the sting of salt. He nuzzles the lid of my eye. Wherever I go, he follows. At office desks, restaurant booths, hunched in the seat of a taxi, my faithful dog sniffs out my bones. When lovers come, he turns possessive. I wriggle free from their fingers, stop them kissing the sides of my jaw. They leave when I talk to the papered wall. I grieve when their footsteps have died. I go to bed at odd hours to watch the small pulse of blue time. When sleep stands me up for the zero moon, the dog strikes me down with his paw. Smoke Signals 00:00 / 00:55 We grew apart in inches, not miles. The house hummed, an empty theatre, our mother pushing the vacuum between our silence. Hacking clots of broken words, your lungs drained themselves into your pillows, fists thumping softly until you sucked in again, stained your breath from a chilly window. Where are you – I knuckled the question into the wall which dragged on between us, searched with my palms for your warmth. A blank inch pulled you away, and I listened to those hisses, those furious sobs, heard the weight of them bending your spine. The vacuum tumbled to a stop. You stopped hissing, opened your window, blew quiet smoke across mine. Publishing credits Andromache: Southword (Issue 36) Black Dog: The Stinging Fly (Vol. 2, Issue 28) Smoke Signals: And Suddenly You Find Yourself (Parthian Books)

Hear poet Suchi Govindarajan read poems for wave 8 of literary poetry journal iamb. Suchi Govindarajan wave 8 winter 2021 back next the poet Writer, poet and photographer Suchi Govindarajan lives in Bengaluru, India. Her poetry has appeared in publications ranging from IceFloe Press and Cordite Poetry Review to perhappened magazine and Usawa Literary Review . Her poems have also been included in two anthologies. Poetry is Suchi's first love – fiction is her newest. the poems Of blood and war 00:00 / 02:10 The first time it happens, you are barely twelve. So much blood must mean either wound or war, s o you run to your mother and ask if you are dying. This is not death, she says, this is existence — just the basic bloodshed of being woman. There will be a celebration next week, she says with silks and jaggery, turmeric and gold. But don't be swayed by such fleeting love; the real gift is an unwritten book, stitched with rope, bound with tradition, its pages ornate and yet so sharp with rules, they only slice the fingers of women. Because you are a child, you take this gift, and you come to believe in this unquestioning dark, the flowers that will wilt, the milk that will spoil, the men and other fragile beings that will take ill. Everything, she says, that can be defiled by you. Last April you helped your aunt make mango pickles. This month, even your touch will spoil them — all that careful soaking in brine and spice — all that ageing in the home's coldest corners where you will now sit for days every month, muffling the many mouths of your pain. You cannot go to temples now, says your mother. You cannot worship the goddess I named you after. You are still a child, she says, but you are enough woman You are still a child, but you are already too much woman for anyone to bear, not the men, not the priests. They must pray to save all their gods from you. You told me once that he loved you 00:00 / 01:29 You told me once that he loved you because you were simple. I wondered then if he had seen your bookshelf or your bathroom. Did he see that small callus at the base of your palm? Does he know the weight of your gaze as you look out the window? Even on cold nights, you never cover your feet with a blanket, yet you show me these socks he bought for you to wear. They are the exact shade of purple that you hate and call violet. You told me once that he loved you even if you weren't beautiful. I wondered then if he had seen you speak about justice or poetry. Has he seen how you hesitate before you burst into laughter? Does he know you have your grandfather's hooded eyes? You told me once, under the yellow light of a station, of your surprise at his love and his existence. It was a windy night, your wild hair was held in a bun. You were wearing a sweater that billowed like a storm. You told me then you would try and love him back. I smiled, and felt a new grief in my limbs. Current affairs 00:00 / 02:05 My teacher told me my poems should be more current, should celebrate things in the news like the breaking of sports records, like the eradication of diseases, new machines in our libraries, or how a child, just six years old, sang like he was born of birds. Don't just write about flowers he said, or philosophy or these clouds of unrequited love that billow about your youth. Until we broke the mosque, I did not follow his advice. Until then, nothing in the world had touched my cocooned life: I had touched nothing in the world. But now I felt like it was my chariot wheels that crayoned dried blood into the tar. I watched my parents turn to wolves at orange moons, cheering for men with pickaxes, waving their fists at a box they could not turn off. But when I went to my teacher my words now a raw torment my pen now moving hard enough to leave round bruises on the page behind (at last, I thought, a poem he would praise) he grew narrow and cold. In a play last year, he had painted my face blue, draped me in shawls of gold and Raamar green. I had broken a bow for him. Now he whispered mantrams to protect his gods, and flung my poem back and told me to stick to love and clouds and flowers. Something that would dissolve and disperse easily. Something that would not leave marks even on the back of a page. Publishing credits Of blood and war: Usawa Literary Review (Issue 2) You told me once that he loved you / Current affairs: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Patricia M Osborne read poems for wave 22 of literary poetry journal iamb. Patricia M Osborne wave 22 summer 2025 back next the poet Patricia M Osborne graduated with an MA in Creative Writing in 2019. A novelist, poet and short fiction writer, she's published eight poetry pamphlets and had numerous poems and short stories appear in various literary magazines and anthologies. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Taxus Baccata , was nominated for the 2020 Michael Marks Pamphlet Award, while her poem ‘Sandcastles Fall’ was nominated for The Pushcart Prize in 2025. When not working on her own writing, Patricia enjoys mentoring other writers. the poems Galanthus 00:00 / 00:59 I shelter at the base of trees, abbeys, churchyards or amongst woodland. My neighbours, mistletoe, petasites, wild aconitum, hang close to my side. I’m harvest for Norman Monks who decorate churches at Feast of Candlemas, nature’s medicine, rub on temples to treat mal de tête . I spring into action, push up through arctic-white and cheer through winter gloom. Standing with grace, I nod as you pass by silver birch. Milk-tone drooping petals, viridescent stem, ... symbol of purity. Journey through a Mythical Forest An encounter with my muse 00:00 / 02:00 He wraps strong branches around me. I inhale his sweet scented needles with the promise of a story in a dream as the yew’s magic heals my mind from darkness into light. Twigs brush my bare arms, I caress their fruit, a cluster of nuts drop to my feet with the promise of inspiration as the hazel’s magic heals my mind from darkness to light. She rustles her leaves, I finger her silver bark, peel back a small patch with the promise of fertility as the birch’s magic heals my mind from darkness to light. Sturdy boulders stroke my shoulders I glance up at his crown with the promise of protection, strength and wisdom as the oak’s magic heals my mind from darkness to light. I kneel under his huge canopy, hug his wide trunk, close my eyes. My muse arrives. I write on the page– I am rich, I am strong, I am wise, I am gifted. I am thankful to the mystic forest for its magic in healing my mind from darkness to light. I am 00:00 / 00:53 Serenity captured by blue cloudless sky over sun-kissed ripples where Canada geese play and Egyptian goslings nuzzle up to their mother. I am Love and Harmony together with family, friends, yet miles apart. I am Hope as daffodils wave their yellow heads, and perfect pink blossom sways from the nearby cherry tree. I am Memory as forget-me-nots in their blue and white glory push up from the ground. I am Peace and pray this world will let me in. Publishing credits Galanthus: Taxus Baccata (The Hedgehog Poetry Press) Journey through a Mythical Forest: exclusive first publication by iamb I am: Nature’s Bookends (The Hedgehog Poetry Press)

Hear poet Theresa Donnelly read poems for wave 21 of literary poetry journal iamb. Theresa Donnelly wave 21 spring 2025 back next the poet Theresa Donnelly is an Irish/Canadian poet who has enjoyed a career in Hospitality & Culinary Management. Widely published and anthologised, she's a past winner (and judge) of Canada's Food for Thought poetry competition in 2014/15. Poet Vanessa Shields said Theresa's poetry, ‘offers a delectable arrangement of observations that both haunt and honour.’ A member of The Ontario Poetry Society, Theresa's also a founding member of The Brooklin Poetry Society . the poems Towards Iseult’s Chapel 00:00 / 02:10 Before the brewery, cross Joyce’s bridge. Smithfield has a lighthouse but few horses! Pass pubs that rival any museum. Sweat of centuries steeped into stone; backyards where squealing pigs were kept. On Blackhorse, enter the Pheonix Park through the ‘Hole in the Wall’; traverse the expanse to Chapelizod. The wooded valley where tragic tales of 12th-century Irish Princess Iseult and lover Tristan abounds. A tree grows above each grave, their network of branches continue to reach for each other; alluringly scented honeysuckle, and the hazel with the knowledge of the universe within its branches. The weir-view at Martin’s Row: a favourite place for contemplating characters and the Liffey’s descent. In the Mullingar House, home of all characters and elements in James Joyce’s novel, Finnegans Wake, Earwicker pours pints, served by Anna Livia Plurabelle. Under a copy of Joyce’s death mask, a tourist reads the aforementioned novel. In one afternoon, he’s swallowed five pages whole. His uncle’s book club in Venice, California, took 28 years to finish it. It’s too nice an afternoon to read. Maybe it’s the stone, maybe it’s the spirits from Wakes watched in his father’s local with inquisitive pen and jotter. A cultural institution. A pulchritudinous view of a city from this riverside village. Dublin’s best kept secret. Mystery of Monarchs 00:00 / 02:08 Honeyed sunlight softens his jagged features. Late January mellows under a magenta sky. Sleeping beneath malleable boughs, his heart is unyielding. But only I know it. Remember, Adelita , the path which ran beyond the gated casement into a world we dreamed but knew little of? When Madre left, he occupied the blue room; frantically paced its floor like a caged tigre . His ingested rage spewing like an erupting volcano, over ink-stained flesh. Betrayed when, even the moon turned her face, leaving innocence to whimper in darkness. Remember, Adelita , you prayed to The Virgin of Guadalupe for wings like those of the monarchs, fluttering above the cornucopia of deep burgundy auroras kiss dahlia? Your prayers answered, during the summer of dearth. In a flurry of orange-silk georgette, monarchs filled the sky: the garden: the room. Emptied me of you. You flew away; found sanctuary on Sierra Chincua . Sometimes I hear your voice, rising on the wind, as it blows above the oyamels . Remember, Adelita , for fear that I will forget. Fishwife 00:00 / 01:30 Was it an act of sanctity or sorcery not to be created from Adam’s rib? Caught in your net, I fought brazenly, until you pulled me from the sea. Sweeping shadows aside, you bent barefoot and bronzed. Your lips allowed me breathe the earth once plump with poison. My eyes became saucers over which daylight spilled. I lay on the shore sweetened by the early tides of May. Seashells ringed my newly fashioned fingers and toes. You knew my name; you repeated it over and over until it was echoed by mute swans. You unbraided my hair, draped it like damp seaweed over stones. Visible silken threads coupled both body and soul beneath your cloak of tightly woven canvas. Duck egg is either blue or green, it depends solely on the light. I chose various shades of it for each and every room, in a house where I have never slept without some memory of water. Publishing credits Towards Iseult’s Chapel: Verse Afire ~ Canadian Poetry Magazine (Vol. 2, Issue 1) Mystery of Monarchs / Fishwife: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Grace Uitterdijk read poems for wave 15 of literary poetry journal iamb. Grace Uitterdijk wave 15 autumn 2023 back next the poet Counsellor and occasional musician Grace Uitterdijk from Northern Ireland enjoys writing poetry and short stories as a creative outlet. Her inspiration stems from a love of trees, the sea and all things wild. She's also interested in the lives of those she meets through her counselling work. Published in A New Ulster and Bent Ear Review , Grace loves to swing in her hammock, drink tea and read when she's not exploring Ireland's natural beauty. the poems In the middle of her ‘Dieu est au milieu d’elle: elle n’est pas étranlée…’ God is in the middle of her, she will not be moved Psaume 46:5 00:00 / 01:37 If I cut myself in half what would I find? What’s in the middle of me? Would it be a treacle sadness puddling round my feet? Or maybe I have a ball of glass in there. Hard, smooth, breakable. Would it be cosy in there? Could I cuddle up beside my heart or would it turn its back? What would it feel like to sit inside myself? Would it be like crawling into a hollow tree? Dark and wet and alive. Ancient. A womb of sorts. Would it be comfortable? If I could pull back my skin and let my heart fall into my hands, would it just be a throbbing organ or would I really see God there? Funny how that verse uses the pronoun ‘her’. God is in her. Not you, not me. Her. I would like to find her. If I did, I would run up to her and take her hands in mine And look in her eyes and shout, ‘Do you know what is in the middle of you? Do you know? Look, it’s God! Right there in the middle of you.’ Maybe she wouldn’t believe me. Maybe she’d turn her head, avert her eyes embarrassed by my spectacle. Maybe she would miss God because she didn’t even look. I would still tell her. Who knows when curiosity might catch her looking. Empty Space 00:00 / 02:06 Are you the man you dreamed you’d be? That’s a line from a song my friend wrote and that night it was floating round my head like it had nowhere else to go. I was driving home with loneliness in the passenger seat, and I remember thinking this feels like déjà vu, am I just stuck on repeat? The country roads were quiet, it was just a random night. Who knew space could ever feel this tight. Tears are a sort of currency but that night I didn’t know what I was buying. Maybe the desire to live even if just to do more dying. I had to stop in a car park, the tears were clouding my vision. Alone in a car in an empty space I was that space So empty I could just be replaced. For some reason I shouted ‘fuck off’ to a God I wasn’t even sure was real. I felt like my layers of skin were peeled to reveal the shreds of my humanity. Blood and water, water and blood. Is that all I am? Water and blood? I thought you promised there wouldn’t be another flood but what if every day is a flood and I am not the one being saved. Maybe I am just enslaved to this loneliness that follows me. Maybe my whole life is just one long damn fight to be free. If I’m not alone then why do I feel so fucking alone? When the noise is gone I sit there in the car park in the dark no longer even sure if I have a watermark to distinguish me from all the other lonely people in other car parks. I sat there crying until all the water in my body had seeped out of my eyes. Now I was left with blood. Life is in the blood, not the water. My tears had bought me one more day to live. Maybe tomorrow I would cry blood. I started my engine, reversed back out, drove home and got into bed. I’m not even close to who I dreamed I’d be, but I’m alive. Sometimes you feel alone in your own body 00:00 / 01:28 You are there and I am here. One letter difference and yet Can you see the insurmountable distance between us because I can? People say, ‘oh we are united, humans are all one’. Yeah, I've had moments like that, but can you not hear the story of humanity? You are there and I am here, and here is not there. There are two different words for it. I'm trying to be there, with you and yet you don't feel my nearness because the distance between those words remain. I'll try again. Talk to me and I won't understand but touch me and I'll know because touch is more visceral than words And wrapped in my arms here and there seem a little closer together. I know you feel alone. I feel it when our bodies collide, Slide to the left, away from your body, away from your pain. You can't bear to remain because you despise being here. It's ok; I'm alone too. I'm learning how to be here. I'll hold you tight until you feel safe again. Until your body is your own, until my body is my home, draining the distance between here and there. Press your body against mine, hold your head in my hands. Maybe we are less alone when we are alone together. Publishing credits In the middle of her: exclusive first publication by iamb Empty Space / Sometimes you feel alone in your own body: A New Ulster (Issue 99)

Hear poet Graham Clifford read poems for wave 20 of literary poetry journal iamb. Graham Clifford wave 20 winter 2024 back next the poet CEO of a large Multi Academy Trust and author of five poetry collections – published, variously, by Seren Books, Against the Grain and The Black Light Engine Room – Graham Clifford is the author of The Hitting Game . He's seen his work chiselled into paving slabs in Walthamstow, translated into Romanian and German, and featured in the UK's Poetry Archive . He's had poems in Poetry Wales , The Rialto , Magma , Ink, Sweat & Tears and The London Magazine , been anthologised by Faber & Faber and Broken Sleep Books, and rejected by The New Yorker. the poems No Alternative Now 00:00 / 01:06 Let’s grow a forest and hide in it. We will stay there for years, our clothes dropping from us in leaf shapes in the dim crunchiness where we copulate quickly like foxes, and crap standing, ready to run. After a while, reporters will arrive but we will be up a tree, bearded and matted. Puffballs come up in the areas where we urinate: they are delicately luminescent, buzz in the dark like candle-lit, drizzly planets. Shivering, curled together, one night I smell death about to bloom in you – next thing, you don’t want your hazelnuts, can’t pull yourself up onto our branch. From then on, until it happens, every night I dream we drive sharp cars and eat from tins. We will never get this life out of our system. Why He was Chosen 00:00 / 00:50 The man whose body accepted the pig’s heart had a violent past and worked with a machine that de-beaked chicks. The heart lasted three years partly because of immunosuppressant drugs. The night before the transplant he watched a YouTube video of a black and white Russian experiment where a dog’s head was severed, reattached and had its nose tickled and it reacted. It is reported the man mostly stayed alive because he studied calm and practised identifying and eradicating stress with the fidelity of a bear goring salmon full of semen and roe from a terrifyingly cold river in the dark. The Best Poem Ever Written 00:00 / 01:45 I write a poem that is the best. Massive. Not just long, but huge intellectually and although it is book length reading is like freefalling, each line greased with two genius thoughts. The poem makes me famous. I wander oxygen-depleted nights down city streets and hear lines of my poem bartered between sticky lovers. On the train, I peek over the top of a hardback book about me at a man in a suit nodding off and recognise the words he’s mouthing in his swoon. All front pages, every day, showcase stanzas of my poem – bombings and murders get tucked inside. The new novelist pays well to get my poem printed as an introduction: she knows her work makes no sense without it. Everyone I have ever known rings me to ask how I did it. I say I don’t know and that’s the truth. After a year the fuss hasn’t died away. I sit at my computer and hear downstairs turn the TV on. I put my ear to a gap in the floorboards. It’s an actor, and he’s reading my poem. It’s a good version: I’ve heard it before. He has a Shakespearean voice doing justice to what the introducer called The Best Poem Ever Written. I listen to it all, I travel where the poem takes me, then get back in my chair and write a better one. Publishing credits No Alternative Now: The Hitting Game (Seren Books) Why He was Chosen: The Rialto (No. 100) The Best Poem Ever Written: Obsessed with Pipework (No. 24) Author photo: © Martin Juhasz

Hear poet Piero Toto read poems for wave 23 of literary poetry journal iamb. Piero Toto wave 23 autumn 2025 back next the poet Piero Toto (he/lui) is a bilingual poet, Italian translator and translation lecturer based in London. Author of Queering Sexual Health Translation Pedagogy , he co-edited Gender Approaches in the Translation Classroom . His poems in English are in Magma , Poetry London , fourteen poems and Queer Life, Queer Love II , as well as in other UK and international publications. In his native Italy, Piero has published the poetry pamphlet tempo 4/4 , and is a contributor to literary blogs Atelier and Laboratori Poesia , for which he translates contemporary UK poetry into Italian. He's also the co-editor of multilingual poetry magazine Atelier International . the poems Emotional Freedom Technique 00:00 / 00:49 My therapist says: narcissism is a form of unspent joy I say: you think you love yourself until you don’t you think you love somebody until they don’t spent is their body a continuum of—what? as if absence could summon the shape of stillness (on the matter of stillness we rewind the hours) and who but who deserves their fate, really? you already exist this time exists the linear cry of your thinking forever exists This was a day of revelations: bleed with me until the tenderness of a pause smoulders from within How to Address Absence 00:00 / 00:24 the outline of shadows reveals we’re born in the depth of zigzags & groans reflecting the impact we make the neon messing with our vibe I turn around to feel you inside me a hollow touch how fickle the dark incessant in this last room The Performance of Pain 00:00 / 00:25 give us a scar or a street corner we can fight when secluded in the chase for a name that fits give us more time to reset the world perception reduced to a pixel of you my hell is an echo of wanderers today’s epiphany: we shimmer still like blood on a scar Publishing credits Emotional Freedom Technique / The Performance of Pain: exclusive first publication by iamb How to Address Absence: Queerlings (Issue No. 2) as part of House Trilogy

Hear poet Jonaki Ray read poems for wave 4 of literary poetry journal iamb. Jonaki Ray wave 4 autumn 2020 back next the poet Jonaki Ray is a poet, writer and editor based in New Delhi. She won the 2019 Iceland Writers Retreat Alumni Award, and was nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. Jonaki's writing has appeared in several publications, including The Rumpus, Indian Literature, Southword Journal, Cha, and Best Indian Poetry 2018. She is the author of Lessons in Bending , and her debut collection is Firefly Memories . the poems Kaemon Accho? Shob Thik? 00:00 / 03:12 This was a refugee market once, and now, more than fifty years after they were displaced the red-and-white saris, the Desh magazines, the nolen gur sandesh dot the shops, proclaiming the Bangla majority on the pavements and the streets. Yet, at the corner, the tarpaulin-covered fish market spatters with Bangla, Hindi, Oriya, Ahomiya, Bhojpuri, Manipuri, and more, reflecting the origin of the fish piling up the plastic-lined tables of the stalls. Mackerel from Karnataka and Pomfret from Maharashtra flash silver, their kite-like bodies quivering the ice underneath; the fishermen pull out black thread like veins from the brownish-grey jumbo prawns from Orissa—“Eita bish, bhoojle didi” while the shovel-like Rohus are haggled over mostly by the Bengalis. “Eikhan kar lok prefer boneless fish such as Surmai”, sneers Dulal’s grandson, as if not wanting to search for flesh tearing through thousands of needle bones reflects a lack in the people who belong here—the here that remains different from home. Dulal’s shop is the oldest—forty years and more— and the only shop with the “Eikhane Bangladesh-er Padma Ilish Paya jaye” sign. Grandfather would have bought the Ilish— not wincing at the 1200 rupees per kilogram price—a true Bengali doesn’t count money when buying Ilish—he used to say. But grandfather is gone, and so is Dulal. Now, his grandson jots down the day’s purchases in a notebook that seems to reflect the blood of the fish dripping down the tables into the water tanks under them. I buy my usual Sunday stock—250 grams of Rohu and 250 grams of the silverfish resembling Morella—a measly total of Rupees 220, and nod at Dulal’s grandson --Aashi—there is no word for goodbye in Bangla; instead I tell him I'll come (again). I'm already dreaming of marinating the pieces in salt and turmeric and frying them crisp in smoky mustard oil— the simplest of recipes that has travelled down from grandfather to me—in the same way that he did—from Burma to Bangladesh to India—just like these fish. Kaemon accho? Shob thik? How are you? All well? Desh Country (a popular Bengali magazine) Nolen gur sandesh Sweets made of milk and palm jaggery Eita bish, bhoojle didi This is poison, do you understand, elder sister Eikhan kar lok The people here Eikhane Bangladesh-er Padma Ilish Paya jaye Hilsa from the Padma river in Bangladesh is available here Ilish Hilsa Aashi I’m coming (a way of saying goodbye) Memory Talkies 00:00 / 01:48 On the road leading away from Florence, a woman is screaming at a man with a Picasso face. Shaking his head and half-shutting the door, he walks inside the house, leaving her alone at the stoop, smoking. She's trembling like the skeleton of a snail being picked clean by a colony of ants. The driveway leads to a gate and a child is attempting to swing it open, his face a smeared version of a Botticelli angel. Old men in Kolkata, reading newspapers, smoking, and solving the world’s problems are facsimileing in the suburbs of this city, while Cypress trees' fingers point skywards, apportioning blame. Buttery light pouring over miles of yet-to-be-harvested farms with stakes at their hearts dusks the days to evenings. In Montefioralle, a woman named Margherita offers me a gooseberry-coloured plum, while her husband tugs at her attention like clothespins before a thunderstorm. I'm back in the city that led a crushed Independence Mutiny, failing with my mother in convincing my father to let her go for a conference, alone. Who will take care of everything, he asks, even now, a dozen years after her dying. Eating Water Living Tales 00:00 / 01:15 Parboti Ma, front teeth missing back teeth always chewing betel nuts hands busy sweeping floors, stoking the stove kneading the flour, sieving the curdled milk into sondesh sweetened with gur, or roshogollas steeped into sugar syrup, tagged as ‘a hocche bangali’, for the hocche, hai she added to every line, dipping from Hindi to Bangla. Parboti Ma, happy to cook for Khoka Babu my father—fish and mutton, flavored with garlic and onion, food she herself was banned from eating, laughing at herself “Paani Khana hai” (I want to eat water)— dipping from Bangla to Hindi. Parboti Ma, refugee from Bihar, worker in Kolkata, resident of Delhi teaching me, “Stay still, just like the teeter-totter in the playground, and one day, balance will come to you.” Hai Is Publishing credits Eating Water Living Tales: The Sunflower Collective (June 8th 2019) Kaemon Achho? Shob Thik?: The Margins (Asian American Writers’ Workshop) Memory Talkies: winner of the Oxford Brookes University International Poetry Competition (ESL category) 2017

Hear poet Jim Lloyd read poems for wave 25 of literary poetry journal iamb. Jim Lloyd wave 25 spring 2026 back next the poet As well as having poems in Stand , Poetry Wales and One Hand Clapping , Northumberland-based Jim Lloyd won third prize in The Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition 2020 . He recently completed an arts practice-driven PhD at Newcastle University, using various media – including creative writing – to explore the question ‘What is it like to be a bird?’ Jim's three poems for iamb are in memory of his father, the artist R J Lloyd (1926–2020). the poems Bookmark 00:00 / 01:07 I wait, having rung both bells – as instructed by the notice (which could have been written by a Lindisfarne monk). Waiting for two doors to be unlocked and unbolted. Doors which I would have run through freely. A double-handed handshake, Then a light lunch, with a well-chosen vintage. Maybe, you’d like to look in the studio? Of course! I’d say, with a little trepidation. See the latest paintings, for the latest show! I reckon these might sell well, or that’s the aim … (Moon figures – Avebury ring). And then we’d talk – of Nicholson and Co. and of Mr Babb’s black puddings, and the price of frames – and what Ted Hughes said, and what you in turn, told him about the monotype inks and the printing presses, and about the narwhal tusk you once bought on a whim one cold mid-winter’s day – and the loneliness of the long-distance runner was mentioned, only in passing . No Guru 00:00 / 00:14 Last night, sleepless due to rain, we walked down Scratchy-face again – you showed me where the foxes ran, and we heard a Yellowhammer sing. The Long Stone Row 00:00 / 03:15 A track, just perceptible from afar, Disappears close up; some trodden grass here, Occasionally a boot print. We follow This meagre path over the wide moor, On a compass bearing, by the bog Cotton, and the tussocky moor-grass, and heather. What is there apart from this wet slog? There are no curlews crying out, no grouse, Nothing moves – there’s only heath and rock. So, we keep on walking, until a cross Comes into view, then a cairn, then a menhir; A stone presence, rising from the peat and moss. Standing tall, a pillar of warm black ice, Smooth to touch, lichen coated, always wet; Soaked by rains, and chilled by moorland mists. The 2001 monolith: dark granite. Then another stone, and another, and another … Who put these here? Beings from a different planet? And have you been here? Did you discover These lost long-stones? I think I will ask you – Did you trudge across this featureless moor? You have been to places like this, I know, But did you visit these monuments? Or did you dream your Dartmoor stones. Rock aligned with rock, to orientate With the stars and winter solstice sun – A site for druidic sacrifices. I will tell you where we walked: we began By the ruins of Drizzlecombe farm, Then climbed Combshead Tor, and by a large cairn, Past the pool which isn’t always there, By the stone circle, and the long stone row, And on towards the low ridge with the scars Of the tin workings. On again to follow A faint trail (or maybe a sheep-track) Over the blank moor, skirting the hollows Of Foxtor Mires, to a cross by a leat. From here, we could see Nun’s Cross and the farm; A rectangle of green, with a single tree. And I remembered, this is near Childe’s Tomb. Not a child’s tomb, but a man called Childe – A rich hunter, who got lost in a snowstorm. It is said that the blizzard was so wild That his horse collapsed, exhausted, and died. It sounds improbable, but they say he slit open his horse to get shelter inside. The storm raged, and he left a note to say, Whoever finds his body and provides A good burial will inherit all his money. This news spread fast, and the ensuing race Was won by the monks of Tavistock Abbey. They mounted a cross, here, at his burial place. Did you know that story? Do you think it’s true? We walk on, by bleached, broken stems, retracing, Stone by stone, step by step, déjà vu, Like we have been here before, on these trails, But this time I cannot tell you and you can’t reply, with one of your long tales. Publishing credits Bookmark / No Guru: exclusive first publication by iamb. The Long Stone Row: bind (August 31st 2021)

Hear poet Thomas March read poems for wave 12 of literary poetry journal iamb. Thomas March wave 12 winter 2022 back next the poet Essayist, performer and poet Thomas March is the author of Aftermath . His work has featured in The Account , The Adroit Journal , The Good Men Project , Evergreen Review , OUT , RHINO and Verse Daily . Thomas hosts and curates bi-monthly 'variety salon' Poetry/Cabaret – a performance series that unites and invites poets, comedians and cabaret performers to share responses to a common theme. A contributing editor to GRAND , he's called New York City home for more than 25 years, and teaches at both The Brearley School, and in Barnard College’s Pre-College Program. the poems Connected 00:00 / 00:39 Absence can’t be absent until the waiting stops and every holiday or date that celebrates something of ours can pass without my noticing when I get into bed that I’ve been expecting to hear from you, maybe an accidental call— maybe no accident. Until then, we remain at the opposite ends of widening silence, nothing between us but an unseen wire, pulled taut— a trip wire, a guard wire held by a ghost, a string vibrating soundlessly between two Dixie cups. Separate Now 00:00 / 01:12 Most of the stemware has shattered, and the plates have chipped, of living together, never replacing anything we still had two of. Whatever is broken or worn I guess we kept for the having of only one of us, one day— so now that you’re leaving, you leave whatever is replaceable. Our suitcase is yours now, and mine you can have, too—now that I have your closet space, and all these drawers. (I’m keeping one drawer just for you— with bracelets from a Pride parade, our hotel soaps and small shampoos, a key to your old apartment, the corks from two bottles of Veuve, some ticket stubs, a metrocard, your extra checkbook. All of it remains, as if the heart were not a reliquary of its own.) But what will we do with the shoes? We were sharing our shoes before we settled our sides of the bed. So who’s to say whose shoes are left behind this door that has to stay unlocked, with one of us per side? Hello, Future Crossing the Pont des Arts, Paris, 2019 00:00 / 01:30 'Hello, future,' I say. 'Just say, "Hello, future."' We don’t stop, but you wave to the camera and sing, 'Hey, future!' in that way you sing 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Hey, you!' if it’s me when you open the door. I imagined that day we would watch this, after everything we could be had already happened. We’d look at each other in a comfortable room at the quieter end of our well-traveled life and reassure ourselves by telling your fortune— that everything to come would be worth all the rest of everything to come. It wasn’t innocent, asking you to mark this point from which we’d measure whatever time was left. I knew it might be sad for at least one of us to watch someday—sometimes I watch it on behalf of the future we planned, sometimes one we might have escaped. What if I had stopped you there to confess my fear—that we’d never be happier? We could have parted on that bridge and never said a thing we never should have said. But as long as we live in this future you greet, there might be so much more to say—when we’re ready no longer to be two idiots on a bridge, assuming it will hold. Publishing credits Connected: exclusive first publication by iamb Separate Now: Out Hello, Future: Evergreen Review Author photo: © Matte O'Brien

Hear poet Emily Cotterill read poems for wave 13 of literary poetry journal iamb. Emily Cotterill wave 13 spring 2023 back next the poet Emily Cotterill is a Cardiff-based poet originally from Alfreton in Derbyshire. Her pamphlet The Day of the Flying Ants was part of Carol Ann Duffy’s Laurate’s Choice selection. Emily has been published in a variety of print and online publications, including Poetry Wales, The North and The Waxed Lemon. She's currently working on a first full collection about celebrity, storytelling and pop culture. the poems Slag 00:00 / 01:12 I have loved coal, like a teenage girl loves an older guitarist with a rough black smudge of eyeliner. I have built my life on it, screamed down decades for it, COAL NOT DOLE – bared my soul for it, but old women gossip about the pit. I know the world has had enough of it. Coal – with its head full of history, strong arms, filthy engines, heavy, the small town sex of it. Broken bodies, white knuckle wives, the silence of canaries – has risen from slag heaps and pit heads to thick air spluttering into anyone born late with an old miner's lungs. I have loved coal but recently, when I sit in the fresh place built on the scar of my grandfather’s pit, I have loved birdsong, greenspace, the safety and hope of it – wind turbines, rising white beacons, sharp armed, slicing clean paths to a future. The Greatest Punk Album In The World Ever (Disc 2) 00:00 / 00:44 I am consciously, consciously picking up women: to carry in my pockets, to throw at rough walls in moments when something might make them stick. I have lined my back teeth with Viv Albertine, replaced my extremities with Patti Smith. I have built a soft curve around a sad razor, there’s blood in my mouth that’s familiar. I do the things men do, just better. I have swapped my memories for the future, but when I whimper, hear Debbie Harry scream. The Cheeseburger Love Song 00:00 / 01:26 At the window is a woman you have loved despite your diet, gorged on the look of her with the guiltiest parts of hunger. Her deft hands dance on the wax wrap paper, forearms flecked with a hundred spitting oil scars. The fast food tattoo. She is always here, and you suppose that she remembers you, from her un-kissed acne years and all the warm paper bags between. You, who would surrender your torso to the drive-thru window, to take her by the faded polo-shirt collar and to have her. Her lips would have the cherry pink taste of market stall gloss, her mouth drenched in free fills of fountain cola and the thing is, she has seen you, all your faces in those repeated flash cars. She could make you in a minute. Plunge your heart and her hand into the deep fat, feel nothing. You are ruined, crisp and bubbling. She scrunches your wrapping, she throws you away. Publishing credits Slag: A Change of Climate (Illingworth) The Greatest Punk Album In The World Ever (Disc 2): exclusive first publication by iamb The Cheeseburger Love Song: The Day of the Flying Ants (Smith|Doorstop)

Hear poet Thomas Zimmerman read poems for wave 18 of literary poetry journal iamb. Thomas Zimmerman wave 18 summer 2024 back next the poet At Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Thomas Zimmerman teaches English, directs the Writing Center , and edits The Big Windows Review . He's been active in small press publishing since the 1980s, and his latest poetry book is Dead Man's Quintet . Thomas' poetry can be found in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal , Pulp Poets Press , Green Ink Poetry , A Thin Slice of Anxiety , Grand Little Things and elsewhere. the poems Few Good Things 00:00 / 01:00 A sluggish walk in dewy woods with Ann and Trey, who nearly snagged a fresh-dead bird. The sun burned off some brain fog, thoughts began to breach, and then submerged without a word. Unshowered, stubble-chinned, I had a bad night’s sleep: Trey licking, barking in his dreams. Or maybe it was me, poor poet sad enough to nurse his ironies and memes. And now black coffee’s coursing through my wan and tepid blood, spring-gleam in glacial shade. Yet ennui clings like moss, chill hanging on. Not hard to see how few good things get made. How long this search for beauty, truth, gods’ signs? Ad infinitum? No, just fourteen lines. How Slowly 00:00 / 00:54 Some days, how slowly flows the river: that of consciousness, and I a crumbling cork in it. Oh rudderless. I think of all the swimmers in my streams, some surfers too. All hunted down: white sharks. My screen glows whiter than potential, clean blank canvas stretched, which I, most days, mistake for nothingness. Last night, twice, thunder shook the house. An inch of rain. So muggier than hell today. But after work, I saw a fawn, curled cool in backyard spruce shade, looking at me with intent, or so it seemed. But I admit I often think that you are looking at me that way too. You like to say you’re not. Dispatch 00:00 / 01:10 My dad would have been 94 today, and I’ll be 63 next Saturday. Regardless of which Zimmerman’s alive or dead, years fall like rain to swell the river, same mad god still counting drops. Now, drowned gold sun, dry champagne in your glass, strong ale in mine. I slept in late this morning, haven’t showered. Mind’s a dark pavilion, fairness in the shadow turning blue, and temples gray. I write because I want to feel alive: the poet in the book I’m reading says the same. New moon: late birdsong, whine of tires on the interstate, the bedroom window cracked to let the night air in, death floating lonely and austere. I feel it pass but know that it and I will cycle back. This dispatch from the planet, time, my molecules: so slightly all coheres. Publishing credits Few Good Things: Beakful (November 28th 2023) How Slowly: Disturb the Universe (February 13th 2024) Dispatch: Litmora (No. 0, August 2023)