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)

Hear poet Kara Knickerbocker read poems for wave 7 of literary poetry journal iamb. Kara Knickerbocker wave 7 autumn 2021 back next the poet Kara Knickerbocker is the author of chapbooks The Shedding Before the Swell and Next to Everything that is Breakable . Her poetry and essays have appeared in Poet Lore , HOBART , Levee Magazine and Portland Review , as well as in Pennsylvania’s Best Emerging Poets and Crack the Spine's Anthology: The Year 2020 . A Best of the Net nominee, Kara has received support with her work from Murphy Writing at Stockton University, Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and the Gullkistan Center in Iceland. She currently lives in Pennsylvania, where she writes with the Madwomen in the Attic at Carlow University. Kara also co-curated the MadFridays Reading Series. the poems If You’re Asking Why I’m Leaving 00:00 / 00:42 Because this row of brick houses ghosts with heads on backwards, because my skin sleeps under your nailbeds, because there isn’t a color red I’ve loved since the car crash. Because even birds fly south, and because without wings, your lips travel down just the same because I let you, because religion was the well-oiled machine of our bodies. Because thoughts of a baby’s open mouth, because I am egg yolk, Because I cannot imagine anything more breakable than if I stay. Etymology of a Middle Name After Airea D Matthews 00:00 / 01:16 Rose— of Latin origin, rosa, meaning fragrant flower, meaning my mother bloomed with me until I came out, pink & right for the world, the last precious baby dangling on the branch of our family tree, because after my brother & before me there was a seed that only bled where it was planted, never grew into a face, or name, & they crowned me Rosie, because my cheeks flush redder than they should be from petaling my way back to the womb, drunk-blushed attempts to stay long-stemmed, always wild & because a daughter is a beautiful thing, my mother tells me, though I know the letters sound more lovely in her mouth. O, Rose that grew from the concrete, rose into a woman— I wonder if she will ever accept there are thorns around my hips not by nature but by my own doing, if she fully knows I’ve buried bouquets from lovers because what other pretty hurt do you know that both stalks the living & adorns all the dead? Show Me How to Trace This 00:00 / 01:08 & if you had a map out of your body, where would it go? What is the point of exit you’d choose to leave yourself? I’d choose the wounds already claimed: the fried egg-shaped scar burned above my left knee, my crooked pointer finger like an almost question mark, or better yet straight from the new titanium heart— where a stranger sleeps at the wheel, keeping time. That slicing open drove me into questions I still can’t answer, like where is the intersection of my own skin & all that hides underneath? How to steer away from the bump in the road that lives in my chest, unmake detours into strange tomorrows. Pulse lines are wires that got crossed along the way & now I need a key to a home I’ve already lost. These blue veins were never routes that would carry me there. All the rivers I’ve known are muddied, emptying into the mouth of someone else. Publishing credits If You're Asking Why I'm Leaving: Pittsburgh Poetry Review Etymology of a Middle Name: Kissing Dynamite Show Me How to Trace This: Sampsonia Way Magazine

Hear poet Devjani Bodepudi read poems for wave 14 of literary poetry journal iamb. Devjani Bodepudi wave 14 summer 2023 back next the poet Devjani is a writer and teacher of Indian origin who currently lives in Rugby. She has been published in several international anthologies, journals and magazines, including Stanchion Zine, Sunday Mornings at the River and Cephalo Press. Her novel, MIRRORS was published by Holland House in December 2019 and her debut poetry pamphlet, FOR THE DAUGHTERS CARRIED HERE ON THE HIPS OF THEIR MOTHERS was published by Fawn Press early this year. Her debut children’s book, PAPER BOATS, is due out in June, with Parakeet Books. Devjani is currently working on her second novel documenting the lives of three women affected by the riots in East Pakistan in the 60s and is also studying for her MA in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. the poems Swans and Chariots / A Prayer 00:00 / 01:50 You watch over her sleep like you have done countless nights Before you let sleep come over you. You take her warm hand, soft like down and kiss it once whispering a prayer Never depend on another like I do now. Never love without a reason to love Because reason will spare you pain You begin. You stop. You open the window draw the curtain tighter let in the air block out the light. You remember your own mother’s words she demanded you hear so you would be spared something like humiliation if you spoke up. She told you to keep the peace, let the men be. But ideas like humiliation, submission, like peace Are flipped like a fish that has browned too deeply on one side. So your prayer is not your mother’s as you clasp your baby’s hand to your mouth to her ear, her eyes closed as you near. Be angry-whenever the moments demand Be a gale, the sightless storm that fells the calm stoic trees Which stand silent in reprise Before the rains Be the queen of all rage and reason Because it will carry you away like a chariot pulled by a thousand silver swans into the air into the night up into the stars where the men cannot follow where the air is too thin to swallow anything but love. And she sleeps with those words hung like fireflies in the dark of her room and you are tired. You turn to turn off the lights check the window one last time and you glimpse the stars beyond the rooftops waiting for your swans and your chariot that may still come. You’re in the kitchen 00:00 / 01:02 radio news on implore me awake from dreaming eyes of witness screaming against falcons and peacocks unicorns and lions. Wild myths and accusations like crows carrying cloth bundles of discarded rags, dried with the browning of her blood, in their beaks. Drowning with the smoke in her lungs. She’s gasping. There’s something obscene about the cutting of one’s own hair in public you say, but so is the slicing of her tongue and the paring of her fingers, dividing each one into two, four, eight, twenty on each hand. More fingers to cut, to mutilate and sew a button on her lips that humiliate you with their open-mouthed seductive innocence. Dance then, fan your tail, mock-bow and roll your eyes like a kathakali dancer behind your mask. Smile, hand me the coffee cup I am wide awake. Aubade 2307 00:00 / 01:02 Dying suns cool rise northwards. Fading sallow light shines upon your face you look ahead. In profile you are sculpted marble monument to what we were before we scatter to distant, painted orbs. The curse of the explorer you say to me haven’t we said goodbye before? but this is more urgent than simple seeking. An escape to safer shores. Distorted reflections swim on the ship’s hull which will bear you unconditionally. It beckons open-mouthed, expectant swallowing you whole. My own vessel awaits me a different quay We will travel in parallel lines Meeting never, perhaps. Perhaps because I will hope for the impossibility of an alternate truth. Publishing credits Swans and Chariots/A Prayer: For the Daughters Carried Here on the Hips of their Mothers (Fawn Press) You're in the kitchen / Aubade 2307: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Victoria Kennefick read poems for wave 3 of literary poetry journal iamb. Victoria Kennefick wave 3 summer 2020 back next the poet Victoria Kennefick is a writer, poet and teacher based in Co. Kerry, Ireland, and co-host of the Unlaunched Books podcast. Her pamphlet White Whale won the Munster Literature Centre Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition, as well as the Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Ambit, The Stinging Fly and several other publications. Victoria was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to research at Emory University and GCSU in Georgia, and completed her PhD in English at University College Cork. the poems Cork Schoolgirl Considers the GPO, Dublin 2016 00:00 / 01:16 I am standing outside the GPO in my school uniform, which isn’t ideal. My uniform is the colour of bull’s blood. In this year, I am sixteen a pleasing symmetry because I love history, have I told you that? It is mine so I carry it in my rucksack. I love all the men of history sacrificing themselves for Ireland, for me, these rebel Jesuses. I put my finger in the building’s bullet holes; poke around in its wounds. I wonder if they feel it, those boys, I hope they do, their blooming faces pressed flat in the pages of my books. I lick the wall as if it were a stamp, it tastes of bones, this smelly city, of those boys in uniform, theirs bloody too. I put my lips to the pillar. I want to kiss them all. And I do, I kiss all those boys goodbye. January 00:00 / 00:42 I have begun the purge. Month of hunger, raindrops fall from window sills, ice slithers in puddles, the smoky breath of animals greets the air. Morning’s back already broken, veins obvious on everything. Emptying myself of all things ripe and wanton, I am winter grass. Observe me survive as earth’s shoulder blades that jut, cut up the sky that pushes down on all of us as if it wants to die. See, I am transparent as sunrise. Starving, I count my bones as valuable. Family Planning 00:00 / 01:18 You are tugging at my skirt, aged two, wanting a toy, a spoon from the drawer. You are a few months old, just able to hold your big old baby head up on that teensy neck. It is your birthday. I am sweating and empty and you are greasy-white with vernix, rising and falling with my breath. I survived and you did too, your father is crying. We are a little family, neat as a pin. Except you are still waiting, Portia or Lucia or May in parts. I carry a tiny piece I secrete so secretly each month, you grow impatient when water turns that warm and brilliant shade. It is alive while you are not. Daughter-to-be, if you could form your hands into little fists you would bang on my womb, that carpet-lined waiting room, but your father has your fingers and I have wrapped up your nails so you can’t rip me to ribbons. We keep you apart, even as we come together, but I hear him whisper your name, soft as blame in his sleep. Publishing credits Cork Schoolgirl Considers the GPO, Dublin 2016: Poetry Ireland Review (Issue 118) January: The Poetry Review (Winter 2019) Family Planning: bath magg (Issue 3)

Hear poet Samantha Terrell read poems for wave 22 of literary poetry journal iamb. Samantha Terrell wave 22 summer 2025 back next the poet Nominated for The Forward Prizes and The Pushcart Prize, Samantha Terrell is the curator of international poetry series SHINE . She lives with her family in Upstate New York, and has had her poetry anthologised in Door=Jar , Eunoia Review , Green Ink Poetry , In Parentheses , The Orchards Poetry Journal and elsewhere. Samantha's many collections – most recently, Delta Function – have consistently garnered five-star reviews. the poems AI and the Animal Kingdom 00:00 / 00:59 Fabricatus intellĭgos , a man-made being with the capacity for intelligent processing and output It’s been said what separates Homo sapiens from the rest of the Animal Kingdom is intelligence – Reasoning Skills, Speech, Forethought. Turns out we’re not very good at Forethought, since we’ve created a being that renders the use of Reason and Speech as obsolete. All those crunching numbers, tabulating potential outcomes, answering queries, researching options – who needs ‘em? But what about relationships made around the water cooler? The client who becomes a family friend? Apparently creating Fabricatus intellĭgos has proven something else, too: Homo sapiens aren’t unique because of a boundless capacity for intelligence, but our boundless capacity for love. Fluidity 00:00 / 00:32 It’s not always easy to know what’s been taken from us, or what we have taken from others. Dignity is a fluid thing – one in the moment, and another in hindsight. We put words in each others’ mouths, then take them out again to suit us. We are wet clothes hanging on the line, in the rain, beginning to sag with the weight of double-saturation – not knowing how long we must hold on. Social Psychology 00:00 / 00:34 Another ink-blot test, this time for society, is sure to reveal our perception of reality. Forget the shapes for a moment. We can’t even agree on the parameters. The blur of lines one would only characterize as grey, another sees as black and white. Should the paper be held up, or laid down? Never mind, time to look. What do we see? To one, a ballot box; to another, a crown. Publishing credits AI and the Animal Kingdom / Social Psychology: exclusive first publication by iamb Fluidity: Fulcrum Review (Issue 2)

Hear poet Julie Easley read poems for wave 15 of literary poetry journal iamb. Julie Easley wave 15 autumn 2023 back next the poet Julie Easley (she/her) is a working-class poet, activist, intersectional feminist and trans ally widely published in anthologies online and in print. Her poems have featured as audio readings on the US New Generation Beat Poet Laureate Ron Whitehead’s album From the Ancestors (with music by Gabriel Walker), BBC Upload, Open Collab, and Butterfly Effect's MdZ Estate . Her film-poem skin was published by IceFloe Press. Julie's debut poetry chapbook, NOT MY KING , is forthcoming from The Black Light Engine Room Press in October 2023. the poems god in heels 'Anyone who does not know love does not know God, because God is love' 1 John 4:8 00:00 / 00:48 if god appeared before you now, they would demand you look away if you had dared to steal their words and harm them they would fix their hair, loosen a top button or two then slip on heels to stomp on your placards that preach your commandments of hate that god you howl is dead sometimes god is just a kid growing into themselves sometimes they retreat find their community online sometimes god wears knee high boots and risks being killed in a bathroom imagine Dedicated to MPs Priti Patel and Suella Braverman 00:00 / 01:20 imagine you had just crossed the sea crashed out of the waves fell down onto your knees imagine your kids strapped to your sides their lives wrapped in plastic snapped and tagged for all the front pages imagine that journey, the swell of fear in your mind, the relief of the sand as your feet hit the ground imagine being met by military might their strength and power transposed onto you imagine being met by all that force imagine the drowning of your spirit no helping hands to keep you afloat imagine that danger, your desperation imagine the spectacle of media transmission is live on the 6 o’clock news your trauma and torment in full public view imagine if none of this were true when I walked with my First Nation friend in Australia 00:00 / 02:35 our footprints were the same – marks in time and place, whispers on the land. hers had longer toes, a lighter touch, her higher arch scarcely skimming the surface of the red dust road. you could tell I was following, hers paused occasionally, turning and smudging the powdered earth between us, gathering up the grains in pinched skin. her footsteps were rhythmic, heartbeat paced, moments of movement that mourned the song of the mother. she danced a little, displaced the land beneath belonging feet, placed her land beneath her feet. our bodies became the map, charting out the points where we lingered longingly, where the dappled sunlight dripped on us like melting butter, running down our bare flesh onto crusted paths. we merged into one as we rounded the river, disappearing into cooling waters quenching that part of us that thirsted for more. we swam till fading light beckoned us home, our impressions trailing behind tired limbs, through bush-lined lanes into the mass of structures that bore the town. we left our embrace in the earth, toes melting into toes obscuring our separation, and as the sky dimmed into night we promenaded the parade of hotels, where the tone of her feet was too dark to glide through the guarded gates into the gilded paradise of cocktails and canned laughter. in her country it was the pale stranger at her side who held the keys. we retreated to the welcome noise of the downtown bar that had no care of the colour of our soles and rested, pressing our toes together as if in prayer. if by chance you were soaring overhead and happened to glance upon us, you’d find two figures playing footsie like childhood friends in the park. Publishing credits god in heels: written exclusively for iamb imagine: Culture Matters when I walked with my First Nation friend in Australia: StepAway Magazine (Issue 33)

Hear poet Deborah Gaudin read poems for wave 26 of literary poetry journal iamb. Deborah Gaudin wave 26 summer 2026 back next the poet Pantheist Deborah Gaudin lives on the inspirational Welsh Marches. A member of the Border Poets for 20 years, she's contributed to several of the collective's anthologies. You'll find her work in the Abergavenny Small Press, Obsessed with Pipework and The Journal . She's also been featured twice in editions from Green Ink Poetry . Commended in the 2023 Yaffle Poetry Prize, Deborah's had poems in two Renard Press anthologies: Kinship and Interwoven . She's currently at work on her fourth collection, Wyrd Sisters , and writing poetry about the Onny Valley. the poems How Fortunate I Am 00:00 / 01:58 that today … rain is coating slopes of trees with a thin slick. Watching it descend over the hill I think of those parched, pitted countries where rain rarely falls, how they need it, now, to quench fires ignited by hate nourish a people in despair the murderous swell of seas it has travelled sucked up, to fall as a blessing here. It pulls a blind over high heather covered moors, sealing in moisture, promising life; mist columns rise ghosts of bitten, bomb-blasted towers that will never take the shape of rooms again rustle of leaves in a gentle wind is the movement of falling plaster, a trickle of pain which seems too small a word for loss, grief, death The wind rises, lamenting fields, clouds of sheep scudding in front of it, the only violence here, a squabble of starlings their sudden panicked flight. As the rain rolls in, long-left sea surges collect unwanted in puddles, ruts tyre treads of tractors, far away from war, it’s scrabble and fight. Make of me a crazed, cracked pot, shedding water over devastated earth, fissured parchment skin, leaking love, comfort, to children who need so much more than a hug, though that would be a start, arc rainbows over ruined lives, their haunted cries an unanswered call to prayer. Queenie (Leda of Sparta) 00:00 / 01:43 It was one day, back end of summer, and so lovely by the river. Ducks pootling about, the scut of moorhens. Mild it was, and this part so secluded, I thought I’d strip off and go for a nice refreshing swim. When, without warning, this swan, a big cob he was, landed right in front of me, startling the air. He came right up the bank, beating his garment of wings with light shining through. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love nature, but he was getting close, so I began to back away, slowly. I didn’t startle him, no such luck. He took my chin in his beak to pull me close, wings gentle now, then came a soft enfolding. It was over quick, a rearing up and a long neck reaching up my back, a hiss. Now, I’m a modern girl, but not into zoophilia, that would really let the fox among the geese! I didn’t dare tell my husband, but later I laid two perfect eggs and all hell broke out of their shells. Parents can’t be held responsible for their offspring, we just give them a chance at life. Beauty is a sharp weapon to wield, but the twins were always good boys, quite divine in fact. His Shoes 00:00 / 01:29 He saw the abandoned shoe and stepped backward, a boy again, walking in his borrowed shoes. Felt the indentation of his brothers heel, the angry stamp of the toddler he never outgrew. He saw the shoe and took a step back on the pavement though under foot he smelt wet grass, crushed its stalks and the roll of small stones contoured him back to a wet meadow. He saw the shoe and stepped back to boot the ball, sending his shoe flying in a perfect arc against the blue, in a time when all goals seemed to be obtainable. He saw the shoe and stepped back to remember under a scarred desk, their placed companionship, his spit and polish giving them a soft school shine. He saw his bare feet when it was his brother’s turn, shuffled in copper beech shade, shod in dapple and last year’s fallen. Then he was kingly in the wonder of his elfin shoes. He saw the shoe, and all the steps of the footprints that had walked him here, this blue hazed morning, where the abandoned shoe waited for him to place the other shoe beside it. Publishing credits How Fortunate I Am: Interwoven (Renard Press) Queenie: exclusive first publication by iamb His Shoes: Kinship (Renard Press)

Hear poet Mariam Saeed Khan read poems for wave 5 of literary poetry journal iamb. Mariam Saeed Khan wave 5 spring 2021 back next the poet Mariam Saeed Khan is a poet, writer, journalist and digital storyteller. Her poems have appeared in Pandemonium Journal and Daily Times , and she’s given a masterclass as guest speaker on The Desi Collective (The Writers' Block Party) , as well on Virtual Camp PK. Mariam was featured on Badass.gal as part of a Young Creative Council UK project marking International Women’s Day. She also appeared alongside other international poets in read poetry ’s National Poetry Month video, ‘What does poetry mean to you?’ In December 2020, Mariam took part in Columbia University School of the Arts' Digital Storytelling Lab Program. She is currently at work on her debut collection. the poems Skyline and Sealed Envelope 00:00 / 01:19 Packed the stars in an envelope. Stamped and left it at the lamp post. Just like a message in the bottle. Unlearned all that I learnt. Waiting to relearn in the sealed envelope, of what was said and not. The symphony skyline had my Nani’s heart of her yaadein – that’s what we say to our memories in Urdu. It gives us apaniat – that she’s still here. I never got to say her my final goodbye. For it was too sudden – death is. The last of my mother’s legacy from family tree. For whatever was, is gone. The last candle to blow; like the airport’s last airplane that left without one passenger. That missed the flight and the silence of it, within the terminal. I closed my eyes. Listening to my heart beat and thinking, the souls might be on the other side, floating in the times to come. When we least expect, they might show up in our unconscious sleeping zone. Turtle and Frog 00:00 / 02:38 Look at how far you have come. From oceans, beside the chamber of passages. From hells, where the fire burnt in the forest. When all else went north; a cup of tea, biscuits, and a melody of silences in our conversation was all the solace. I referred to us as, 'Turtle and Frog'; as once, I mistakenly brought a turtle instead of a frog because the green makes it everything serene. The hand of God with the fragile times, took you along the way. He heard you praying in the drawings of hidden tales of unspoken words. Your faith kept the journey. Struggling, healing, dying and fighting to keep alive. I heard you saying in a distant miles away in a dream: 'Your trials are not stronger than you. You outlast them anyway.' Who held her home and made it alive? The Divine rhythm rewired in our lives and friendships. In the cushion of surprises and birthdays, graduations and your wedding bells. With the acceptance, to stand up front and to kick the football when is the time to do so. After all, a wasted kick is a missed chance. So why not let the turtle save that and use it later. After all, the frog jumped from one leaf to another. Looking back to see where the turtle is now. We may be circling in stories of different eras and phases; but our eyes speak, whenever we talk and communicate in unsaid times. People talk about everything except the friendships that live it up too – but as with everything, they too need water and supply of trust, love and humanity. All in all, the turtle and frog took a detour under that tree of a ground that had the auditoriums next to it. To be asked, 'Till we meet again.' For no one is one man army and there is a backstory; times and hourglass of the comforting fire that keeps the cold away. I smiled and narrated this tale of friendship and sisterhood to my niece when asked to talk about, 'Once upon a time' – and here we are still going. Snowflakes and Cotton Candy 00:00 / 01:47 The one thing that our poets have been writing since eternity? Love. A four-letter word that got a universe within. But each coating of it, looks different on an individual. The sky gets its meaning from moods of our selves; whether we know it or not, the colors changes with time; our feelings flip over like dripping sound. Sometimes it is blue, other times very whitish and red-orangish. Yet, it is what it is – a ceiling full of bulbs with snowflakes. Over a long period of distance, it keeps us alive. It doesn’t make us homeless even without any home. I stretch my hand and watch the palm lines. Wondering where’s the line of cotton candy in it? Would the life experiences all about baggage of fluffy memories that one leaves in past? I put my hand over my other hand, the small cottage that makes the sweet candies is at work. Love is what the inner thermostat of the person is. Which is why some bridges leave you; other cross you by. While the rest are stationed in the mighty mountains, with its inner calling. Now I skateboard with the walls that got no name. A pattern of ladders is a mystery. Between the valleys, there lies within, me and you. The world was asleep. And we were just getting our first snow of the season. For me, that is love. Publishing credits All poems: written exclusively for iamb

Hear poet Yvonne Marjot read poems for wave 18 of literary poetry journal iamb. Yvonne Marjot wave 18 summer 2024 back next the poet Yvonne Marjot washed up on the Isle of Mull in 2001 after a varied career that took her round the world. Her poetry, inspired by her surroundings, often links mythology with the natural world. She's been published online as well as in anthologies – the most recent of which being In Flight . Her debut collection, The Knitted Curiosity Cabinet , won Yvonne the 2012 Brit Writers Prize for Poetry. the poems Workshop Inspired by the exhibition at An Tobar, Tobermory, Isle of Mull (August 2021) 00:00 / 00:54 How small a space is a mind, to track and trace our place in this landscape. Old stories retold, folded and pressed; pieces sliced and plotted, conjured in gold or barely guessed. Fabric as palimpsest: stone set on stone, dense with ink, tense with meaning. Complexity bounded, a nexus of time and intent. Tree shadows, courtyards, a village traced and lined, a vision confined, a vestige, a moment: a world unfurled. A tight-woven fastness – a limitless vastness: this place, so small a space to hold a mind. Artist Eve Campbell spent lockdown creating textile art arising from memories of the landscapes and places that inspired her – unfurling the world within the walls of her home. The Smith 00:00 / 01:44 In his hands the smith is holding light, his face caught in its glow, thought bent on his creation. Focused, calm, intent, with all his skill he brings it into life. His grasp is confident, fingers deft and sure. Fluent in his clasp, the tongs coax a fine, subtle spiral from the glowing rod of iron. He wipes his brow on his arm, bends to endure the flare of the forge: hungry, its red mouth roars as air wakes the coals. The living metal twists and writhes, vivid in the shimmering heat. His wrist transmits the impulse. He hefts the weight, pours his strength into the stroke, one with the force of each blow; the hammer knows its task. His neck is a molten column, his face a mask marked by the heat, lit from within like the forge. The anvil is rooted deep in the earth, the coals are the world’s furnace, igniting the heat that hides in the planet’s core. Sinews tighten as he shifts his grip, seeing the work whole. The hot iron smells like blood, like sex. Like life. He straightens, observes, moves it gently into water. Steam tempered, the lucent surface, beaded with droplets, gleams in the light. Outlined in crimson, his hammer lies still. He stands, annealed in the fires of his own skill. Harespell 00:00 / 00:16 The hare lies so calm in her form of grass, but she trembles still in the wind from the hill. For the wind is a spell, and the spell is a word, and the word is the weight of a world. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Jonathon Medeiros read poems for wave 26 of literary poetry journal iamb. Jonathon Medeiros wave 26 summer 2026 back next the poet Jonathon Medeiros teaches and learns about language on the Mokupuni of Kaua’i, where he writes about education, equity, place, and the power of curiosity to kill boredom. Jonathon's many pleasures include walking, paddling and surfing, as well as enjoying time with his brilliant wife and daughters. His poems and essays have been published by Bamboo Ridge Press , Hawaii Pacific Review , English Journal , Mythic Picnic , La Rotonde , Syncopation Literary Journal and The Hopkins Review . the poems Making Lei with Brandy Nālani McDougall 00:00 / 01:58 Cut the grapefruit, two halves, sugar and then a yellow shirt, and white shorts, point at the horizon and then headstand against the wall, looking to the glass doors, and then sit on a towel, faded terry cloth, like buttered toast, in the sun, on the shore, at Kalhiwai, and then hold the fat black cat, Willy, heavy in your arms, and then his hairless chin and then also your hug like a vice and then 'keep writing' and then also 'that’s enough, Bette Middler sings it better' which you mean to mean 'I love you, but stop singing' and then 'I love you, too' and then cut the grapefruit in half and notice that it is pink inside and it is mottled yellow rind and it is on the small white plate and the spoon is impossibly small like you but not like a bird or any failed simile and then the toast, rye, buttered, and then also your ashes in a bag, in my arms, my feet in the stream, Pu’ukumu, the water is clear, cold like ashes in a bag in my arms, and then the ashes mixed with water at my ankles up side down headstand smile simile horizon yellow sugar spoon and grapefruit buttered toast terry cloth towel glass walls ashes and water sugar spoon and Willy the cat and then this one too as I tie the knot: your voice calling us up from the valley from our visit there, for a visit 4,000 Saturdays 00:00 / 00:57 The grudge is a weight we pick up and choose to carry; it is a parasite, the needy carcass of our hopes; it crushes us, draped over our skin as we walk. But we carry the grudge happily and with purpose and with some kind of love for the way it warms us, they way it licks our ears, the way it makes us feel … righteous, focused, like the energy we expend matters because we chose it and it is spent. But how many heart beats have we wasted, carrying the grudge? How many do we have left to leave it, to stoop down, and to pick up the weight of I’m sorry? And I love you? And … What the Sumo Says 00:00 / 01:18 At the honbasho, after the shikiri, and the shiko, after niramiai, after the nodowa, after the oshi-zumo and yotsu-zumo, after the salt and the ceremony, after the staring and the slapping of bellies, after the legs to the sky and the stomping of the earth, after the falling together and after the falling apart, all sumo are asked, as the they exit the dohyo, in Japanese, 'Why do you think you had this outcome?' And in English, they say 'I just do my own sumo.' But in poetry, they say How dare you My body is my own And I am the Earth And all of the water And the soil And in my breath, And in my sweat, And in the folds of my enormous And impossible body Is the way That I learned to love So This is the outcome Because I can only be This sumo right here Publishing credits Making Lei with Brandy Nālani McDougall: Aliquot (Hoʻolana Publishing) 4,000 Saturdays / What the Sumo Says: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Mary Ford Neal read poems for wave 13 of literary poetry journal iamb. Mary Ford Neal wave 13 spring 2023 back next the poet A writer and legal academic from Glasgow, Scotland, Mary Ford Neal is the author of poetry collections Dawning and Relativism , as well as an assistant editor of Nine Pens Press . Mary's poetry has appeared online and in print in a wide span of journals that includes Bad Lilies , After… , One Hand Clapping , The Interpreter’s House , Atrium , Long Poem Magazine , The Shore and Janus Literary . Her work has been nominated for both The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. the poems Mammina proves the existence of God 00:00 / 01:42 The day is on its hands and knees. Mammina basks on the balcony in great-grandmother dignity in all the quiet of a woman who has outlived her daughter, collarbones glistening, little cross flashing pink and gold among rivulets of August evening sweat as the sun finally loses its grip and goes down fighting, painting the duomo in eyeshadow colours. The whole horizon is made of churches. An ambulance squeals along an unseen street, not the smooth wail of the ambulances back home, but a desperate, discombobulated sound like the cry of a confused animal. Mammina makes the sign of the cross, lets loose a fast prayer. Her words are a string of small, round beads, tumbling one after the other. How can you be so sure anyone is listening? I ask in her bubbling tongue. My head is dusky with the sweetness the city gives off at the height of summer, and with all my days and nights at university. Mammina opens one eye, closes it, smiles back in her chair, takes a fat medjool date between leathery thumb and forefinger, squeezes it lightly, and says This perfect thing does not exist by accident. O California After Danez Smith 00:00 / 01:18 California’s an empty page, but scented like a candle so you have to write over someone’s idea of loveliness. No matter how delicate the fragrance, I could write a fist. I could write a swollen eye. I could write a lie. Perhaps a little blasphemy is okay. Bruises are not okay in California. Perhaps I bother about bruises but don’t even notice my snapped neck. Whatever you do, don’t move me. I’m resting on the lip of an ocean, and I want the ocean badly, but not this one. This one spits cold. I need the one so vast its edges are always gentle. I’ve told them that by evening I’ll be on a plane. I know if I could get to California it would sand me smooth. I know if I could get to California I could die big, die pacific, melt into the horizon like a god. We all fell silent except for the men 00:00 / 01:03 their solemn mahogany baritones closing around a keening гармошка, deepening, swelling, snaking between us, causing our skins to shed, winding around the hissing braziers, and it was as though all the longing in the earth’s bones sprouted, serpentine, charmed from sleep by Russian chords, and I decided just to dissolve into this longing, this sinuous lament, this отравление, uncoil myself from the hold of home, of language, of all my loves, and from now on my home would be this poison-apple moment, my language a dirge rich with consonants, and my only loves would be милый, любимый, Ангел мой. гармошка: a Russian accordion отравление: intoxication or poisoning милый: darling любимый: beloved Ангел мой: my angel Publishing credits Mammina proves the existence of God: Amethyst Review O California: The Shore (Issue 15) We all fell silent except for the men: Dust Poetry Magazine (Issue 7: Connection )

Hear poet Kimchi Lai read poems for wave 6 of literary poetry journal iamb. Kimchi Lai wave 6 summer 2021 back next the poet Kimchi Lai is a bilingual poet based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She has performed at Urbanscapes 2018 and 2019, and won third place in the 2018 Asia Pacific slam at Lit Up Festival in Singapore. Kimchi's work has also featured on The KITA! Podcast, as well as Speak Easy on BFM. She self-published her first chapbook, Solace in Solstice , in May 2019. the poems Waxing Moon, Waning Lover Featuring《水调歌头·明月几时有》by 苏轼 00:00 / 02:21 明月几时有?把酒问青天。 Tonight, the moon is full. She smiles at me, her gaze illuminating the glass in my hand as if she knows I wish it was you I am holding instead. 不知天上宫阙，今夕是何年。 I wonder if we have met in a different dimension; or if we will meet in heaven. 我欲乘风归去，又恐琼楼玉宇，高处不胜寒。 I would sit with you under an arbour in the gardens. Surrounded by pillars cut from the finest of jade and sharpest of teeth, protecting us from the fierce winds that try to blow us apart. 起舞弄清影，何似在人间? But the air is still tonight, and you are not by my side in this life. So how dare I wish for your presence in another? 转朱阁，低绮户，照无眠。 The moon comforts me from my window. She is trying to coax me into slumber. 不应有恨，何事长向别时圆? “You see”, she whispers to me. “I shine brightest in the face of longing. What need is there for my light if your lover radiates enough warmth? What need is there for a full moon if you already feel complete?” 人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全。 Perhaps I will never see your crescent smile, or hear your gibbous laugh again. Yet I know this: we are under the same sky. And now whenever the moon waxes or wanes, I will know it is her saying that you are thinking of me. 但愿人长久，千里共婵娟。 Fatal Blossom 00:00 / 01:00 The sprig of leaves I planted the first night we spent together bloomed today. You cup one in your hand, petals the deepest shade of sunset at its final second before plunging into dusk, haphazard but stunning. Ignore the thrum beneath your feet; the tangled vines that pulse and hiss with poison and hidden truths cannot hurt you as long as you keep me near. Let them creep quiet and swift the same way nightfall creeps upon day, curling around your crown to whisper sleep into your temples. Do you understand? This garden started out an angry mess of ivy – it was never supposed to bloom. Do you like periwinkle? Focus on the flowers. I worked so hard on them. Romantic Sentence 00:00 / 00:53 Words are unconfined, not meant to be held. But once in a while I will get lucky and manage to catch some at the tip of my pen, just long enough for me to string them into an ink necklace. Alive with earnest grammar and passionate vocabulary; every dotted 'i' and crossed 't' quivering. Staining my fingers in haste I drape it around your shoulders, fasten the ends with a full stop. The letters startle at your warmth, smudging slightly. They tumble downwards in my clumsy locution and catch at your collarbone. The same way my breath does in my throat when I see them sigh and settle into your skin; dark blue biro etched across your chest. Oh, sayang. You were meant to wear these words. Publishing credits Waxing Moon, Waning Lover / Romantic Sentence: Solace in Solstice (self-published) Fatal Blossom: exclusive first publication by iamb