Hear poet J-T Kelly read poems for wave 16 of literary poetry journal iamb. J-T Kelly wave 16 winter 2023 back next the poet J-T Kelly is an innkeeper in Indianapolis who lives in a brick house with his wife, their six children and his two parents. His poetry has appeared in Bad Lilies , Vita Brevis , Amethyst Review , Agape Review , Neologism Poetry Journal and elsewhere. J-T's debut chapbook is titled, Like Now . the poems Sousveillance 00:00 / 00:56 God has bugged the human heart. There are things in there God wants to hear. I imagine most of it is noise. Maybe God has something set up like a bobber on a fishing line. Talk to a friend about how you need a new toaster, and … Wait. That might be Facebook. God is the one who tells you that Santa can’t give you what you asked for. Behind a series of decorated wooden screens, God is moving, moving always. And muttering. But what is God saying? The language around God is all baffles: mystery this and can-you-catch-Leviathan-with-a-fishhook that. Well here’s the big secret: The listening device works both ways. You can hear God speaking whenever you want. Like now. Like now. Art History 00:00 / 01:42 I don’t know what you know about painting— house painting, I mean—but there’s an art to it. House painters are known to be drunks. So, of course, are painters of art. Caravaggio used models who were drunks and murderers. It takes one to know one. It may be that the mystery is not in the art but in the drunkenness. To be a drunk you don’t even have to paint anything. To paint a house you have to show up every day. You have to outlast the guy who caught the dropcloth on fire with his cigarette, the guy who fell off the roof because he found the safety harness restricting, the guy who cursed and threatened the homeowner in the homeowner’s own home. You have to show up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and on your birthday. You have to show up on the Feast Day of Saint Catherine of Bologna, patron saint of painters. You have to show up on the Feast Day of Saint Matthias the Apostle, patron saint of drunks. Matthias is the one who, when Judas Iscariot didn’t last, was chosen by lots. It seems to be up to chance who turns out to be a drunk, although, if you’re a painter, the chances do seem to be higher. Who makes it out of drunkenness alive sometimes feels like chance, sometimes like something more personal. There is a mystery. There is an art. My Wife Says Loving the Fall is Short-sighted 00:00 / 00:23 The racing clouds of autumn make my heart race, as if life had no bottom, no top, just space and time to love what is, one thing by one, without this wintry business of being done forever. Publishing credits Sousveillance / Art History: Like Now (CCCP Chapbooks) My Wife Says Loving the Fall is Short-sighted: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Holly Peters read poems for wave 16 of literary poetry journal iamb. Holly Peters wave 16 winter 2023 back next the poet Holly Peters is a Creative Writing PhD student at the University of Plymouth. She held the position of Plymouth’s Young City Laureate from 2019-2022, and had her poem Artificial Moons featured in the Moths to a Flame: Art and Energy Collective installation at the Glasgow Botanical Gardens during COP26. You’ll typically find Holly hiding somewhere between the covers of a book, or out walking her crazy spaniels, Dotty and Booby. the poems Building the River a Bed 00:00 / 01:12 a river skitters in the dark wriggling like a lullaby’s shh I take the first rock; it weighs the same as the peach pit in my stomach. Clay rolls in the canyon of my palm, squishing between fingers, then shuddering back to shape. An audience of stones, I deliberate, the choice all mine. nothing falls fast in the waves, settling down for its final rest The second breathes dust, hot to touch, singed syllables filling my throat. You don’t have to ignore the craters: use your nails and crack them open. The river shapes beds from burdens: kneel down, whisper them gently. water ages slow, sighs as it swallows my offering Crumbling. I’d avoided the river for years – it no longer able to relieve me – yet I still gather the third rock that slices through the sand timer’s neck. The bank cuts into the hard white behind my shins and I cry as I litter what’s left like ashes. soft drops melt like they were never there at all The Bread Affair 00:00 / 00:53 Her teeth grind in time with the knife that slathers butter over his slice of bread. His dinner steams, fragrant with turmeric and all the time she has spent stewing over it. Not that he takes any notice. Whatever plate she presents him with – matsutake mushrooms, moose cheese, wagyu beef – his mouth waters only for the ample half-wheat bread. Her arrangement of lip-pink tulips has already been extracted from the table’s heart, so his bulging loaf can fill its centre. He takes his time massaging butter into the bread’s porcelain cheek. He cups his hand, its back arching, then spoons his dinner inside, letting the slice envelope it like skin. He chews it, mouth opening wide, tongue slopping. The crumbs cascade, shredded like the last slivers of her patience. I Want to be a Forest 00:00 / 00:49 You won’t know which part of me you hold in your hands: my lower lip, a worn-down heel or knobbly elbow – because it’ll look no different to dirt. You’ll be given a watch-sized box filled with two palmfuls of what’s left of me, and even though I’m only saying it, those flakes, like tree bark, are my heart. All the rest, enough to fill a wheelbarrow, will be mingled with the remains of others. What was once kneecaps, earlobes, eyeballs will become part of the damp woodland floor. But in that forest, it will always be a part of me you hold in your hands. It will be earth, and worm food, a home for tentative tree roots, a world unravelling in the planet of your palm. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Elisabeth Kelly read poems for wave 10 of literary poetry journal iamb. Elisabeth Kelly wave 10 summer 2022 back next the poet Elisabeth Kelly lives on a hill farm with her family and too many animals. She's been published in numerous anthologies and journals both online and in print, and she's authored three poetry pamphlets: Carbon , Mind Mathematics and Wild Chamomile . Her first children's book is due out in 2022 from Stairwell Books. Among Elisabeth's favourite things are puddings, and the changing of the seasons. the poems Otzi and the Giant’s Eye 00:00 / 00:31 Sometimes, I feel I am curled up in the eye of a giant, light glints makes an iris out of sunbeams that wink from the depths of this ice sea. I forget for a moment, that suffocating pressure keeps me still as bonded molecules suspend me in a sphere of solid fluid. And I wonder, if I tap a finger against this lens would my world fracture into crystal tears and cry me out from the depths of this ice sea. Tiny Bird Heart 00:00 / 00:15 Light whispers at the window, blue burrows through nudges the dark away. Quietly I uncurl, the nest gives way, as your tiny bird heart beats through the sound of your feet dabbling across the floor. Wild Chamomile 00:00 / 00:40 It smells of pineapple when your crush it, I didn’t know that was the smell, until later. It is the smell of summer, concrete cracks where engine oil pooled, rainbows on slurry puddles, afternoon trips across fields to find an old milking carriage eroding in dens of nettles, the corrugated roof calling like Sleeping Beauty’s turrets full of promise, drizzling reality across the rotting wooden floors. It is scars created by rusted metal treasure, submerged in bogs, or broken bottles used on flat stones to cut berries, it is long days alone. Publishing credits Otzi and the Giant's Eye: Dodging The Rain (This Ice Sea) Tiny Bird Heart: Green Ink Poetry (Discovery Part 2) Wild Chamomile: Wild Chamomile (Selcouth Station)

Hear poet Elizabeth M Castillo read poems for wave 10 of literary poetry journal iamb. Elizabeth M Castillo wave 10 summer 2022 back next the poet British-Mauritian poet Elizabeth M Castillo is a writer, indie press promoter, and two-time nominee for The Pushcart Prize. Her writing reflects the various countries and cultures she grew up in and with – exploring themes of race, ethnicity, woman/motherhood, language, love, loss and grief (often with a dash of magical realism). Published widely in the UK, USA, Australia, Mexico and the Middle East, Elizabeth has bilingual debut collection Cajoncito: Poems on Love, Loss, y Otras Locuras to her name. She'll add debut chapbook Not Quite an Ocean in December 2022. the poems Ghosts 00:00 / 00:45 I tell my children there are no ghosts in this house. I press a kiss into their cheeks and foreheads and leave them to the peaceable mercy of sleep. No ghosts, I say. Except the one that lives in the stain on the bathroom floor. The lady that swirls around the bottom of your mother’s teacup, in amongst the sediment. The ones you plastered into the walls. No ghosts, except the one that lies in bed between us. The one hidden beneath the flowers in the garden. The two I folded between the pages of my passport. The one that stares back at me from the bathroom mirror when I brush my teeth at night. Zot dir, or a short history of Mauritius 00:00 / 01:47 Ou koné ki zot dir? So many things mon tann zot dir they say / they say the dutchman came / he ate the dodo / curious bird / stupid bird / zot dir independence will be won by the wits of the indian / papi inn dir / nu bizin alé / nu bizin get out / zot dir Le Père de la Nation has the ear of the queen / they say / things are better in Australia / In UK / In SA they don’t say créole zot dir coloured / Mo matante inn allé last year / 65 / before the riots start / labas tou prop / she said / labas seulman ena bon dimoun / nice people / they say / zot inn met bann lekor / under the mountain / enba la ter / they say / Mauritius is still the star of the indian ocean / they say parti socialis pu sauv nu zile / zot dir / ten thousand rupees / c’est rien / they say / sorti la! / sorti la! / kifer Kaya pann res trankil ? / they say / the hungry tourist / come down / devoured our coastline / the south / the east / is all we have left / Ramgoolam / they say / has lined his own pockets / they say it once / they say / look to the horizon / thick and black / we blame Japan / zot dir / the island is retracting / inwards / they say / nu zil pé vinn bien gran / no more beaches / no fish / ban pecheur / zot disan / has pooled down by the river’s mouth / Jugnauth / zot dir / his hands live under the table / so bann kamrad / their coffers are full / faratha from six / to 25 rupees / they say / we have no language / they say if bis don’t kill you / hopital will / they say / pa kozé / stop saying all the things we saying / res trankil / dernié fwa kiken in kozé / so disan / his blood / it runs beneath the mountains / out beyond the reef / into the sea / that you left behind / The Other Woman 00:00 / 02:16 The sun has set, and at this hour, shadows hang between the daylight and the trees. There, the sudden scent of blood, scent of man , carries to me on the breeze, the wind howling through, falls silent at my feet: 'good hunting, milady,' it whispers, then retreats. There is a darkness in this forest, an end that rivals death itself, in the mist about my ankles. Even lizards know they would do well to hide inside their hovels, and underground. Dirt crunches beneath. Treacherous soil! Leaves plunge downwards, to be eaten by the earth. The naked trees testify: this forest is deadly, and will swallow you whole. I hear footsteps racing, running, in thundering lockstep. Flash of black. Flash of teeth. There are dangerous games afoot! Surely it’s time to turn back. Surely it’s time to go home. I am well beyond my borders now. She can’t catch me, she can’t catch me, here, where I lurk and linger on the periphery just out of sight, just beyond her mind’s eye. She knows I am here, her veins course with rage, and vengeance. But she does not know where. She is death. She is danger. But the line has been crossed, the threat prowls within her marked territory. She may think I have lost, but this no longer bears any resemblance to a fair fight. No, now two legs, not enough. I drop down onto four, draw strength from the thousand invisible heartbeats, the lifeblood, the microbiome of the forest floor. There is fear, and some fury, encrusted under each hungry claw. The hunt smells of my father, champion long before I had ever heard of this sport, and I wonder: would he be proud? There is sweat at my temples, and my wrists are bound to stop them from trembling. I step, crabways, low and feral, without shadow or sound. Your ears twitch and you shudder, your neck craning to see what you and I must learn the hard way: the deadliest thing in here is me. Publishing credits Ghosts / Zot dir, or a short history of Mauritius: exclusive first publication by iamb The Other Woman: Glean & Graft / Descent (Fresher Publishing) Shortlisted for the 2021 Bournemouth Writing Poetry Prize

Hear poet Candradasa read poems for wave 7 of literary poetry journal iamb. Candradasa wave 7 autumn 2021 back next the poet Born in Canada and raised in Scotland, Candradasa is an ordained Buddhist who now lives in New Hampshire, USA. His poetry has been published (sometimes under his given name, Michael Venditozzi) in Agenda, Acumen, Black Bough Poetry, Chapman , Finished Creatures and elsewhere. He was nominated for The Pushcart Prize in 2020. the poems Banagher Dam 00:00 / 02:38 That time we walked up to Banagher Dam competing all the way: the shocked, stern, physical silence, and the miraculous heat, and our thumping hearts when we got to the top. I fell asleep on the grass. When I woke you convinced me about eating apples including the core, though already a little wary of me; so it felt like I was being taught, not the old mutual sharing of ways. (A few years later, a man in Wales tells me birds won’t eat an apple’s pips as they contain some tiny trace of cyanide. He’d stopped himself on hearing this and, glad of the excuse, I found it made a lot of sense to me.) But back at the dam it’s getting late. We’re starting down, lighter between us as we come near the moss-wood, fern-breaks, soft-crumble sides falling away to the burn beneath; we cross a bridge – and run: Whooping, barking, down on all-fours, shuttling between trees like men formed in a certain kind of light growing supple as deer, while overhead a tawny sky, and underfoot the fawny ground. Scampering the wounding way of a young forest’s hollows: trip- humps and leaf-fills and rotting trunk-cuts; ducking in and out of vision like the lost patrol in a film of a far-off jungle war. A wreathing passage then, the yield of branches; smooth our stooping, sharp our awareness of the other, even when invisible. We’d stop, dead but for the beat in the ears – then strain, catch sound, and whoop again And run again, and harry and chase and laugh respectful; maintaining reserve – then suddenly veering over new paths won together through the wood: crisscrossing in front, behind each other, never getting in the way. Till eventually we emerge – glorious and nakedly undefiant – to collapse sweating, roaring with blood, silent again in a heap of grasses piled dry beside the stile close to where we’d left the car. Allan Donn ‘Ailein Duinn ὸ hì shiubhlainn leat’ Ailein Duinn 00:00 / 01:36 My Allan Donn, where do you lie in foam white as an alb? Your pillow now a mermaid’s purse, your bed of kale and gorse unseen beneath the sea, Oh, Allan, who can comfort me? The seals kept faith with every soul that fell from Hurkar rocks; their mothers watched them from the doors but no one made the shore, and all of us were torn, Oh, Allan, may we be reborn? So talk with them, my Allan dear, as we would in the dawn, our little boat with anchored dreams of other ways and times warm by the harbour side, Oh, Allan, have we lost the tide? Then pity us, sea kings and queens, the orphans of your race; whose fathers wash ashore like shells, and all the stories tell of hearts lost in the sound, Oh, Allan, sorrow’s in our hands, My Allan, when will we be found? Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange) 00:00 / 00:48 Those stones. Stones like huge mountain breads all dried out, still with the memory of oil. The heaviest overlaid in rings, spiral darknesses, sun-proofed save for the keyhole glow shown once a year: a god lasering in. The blessed work of generations roped together, hauled up and on: setting unequal day and night, their solstice harvest of grain and art. The wonder of river minds that floated quartz the length of the Boyne and turned whole hillsides to heavens where all our kings will be crowned. Publishing credits Banagher Dam: exclusive first publication by iamb Allan Donn: Chapman (Vol. 106) Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange): Deep Time, Vol. 2 (Black Bough Poetry)

Hear poet Warrick Wynne read poems for wave 18 of literary poetry journal iamb. Warrick Wynne wave 18 summer 2024 back next the poet With three published books to his name, Australian poet Warrick Wynne has had his poetry featured in various Australian and international magazines and journals, including Walleah Press and Varuna, The Writers House Blog . Warrick lives and writes on the Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne. His most recent collection is The State of the Rivers and Streams . the poems Hands 00:00 / 00:39 Level 3 is 'Hands': the swathed palm, the unhinged fist, the fingers fractured black or twisted, suspended in slings wrapped in gauze. We all face each other mute as moons. This is what happens when pressure is applied against the grain, this is the flaw in the great architecture what a piece of work ... how easy it is to break this hold we have on things, we can hardly grasp it. Spider Crab 00:00 / 01:08 Above the Victorian Fish poster, (vivid illustrations of the edible denizens of the deep) a white spider crab mounted on a wooden board pinned to the wall as it was in my childhood. I mean, this exact crab, legs now blackening with age was in a (different) fish and chip shop of my youth, brought here, no doubt, with the goods and chattels from some former enterprise, and I recognise it: one giant claw open wide to snap, the other retracted shy, evasive punch and counter-punch. At Hector's Seafood now, the staff wear light blue tops emblazoned with a yellow marlin rising from a vividly tropical sea. I wait for my flake below fading ivory claws, one outrageously enlarged, one curled inward gently like an invitation, or an imploring gesture to the past. At the edge For Harriet 00:00 / 00:27 We walk to the edge of the bay drawn, it seems, to this great dish where you played and swam and now, stand here, with your own baby strapped to you. Could anything be stranger? the three of us beside the sea, the submerged beach where you played a stone wall, the city in the distance whatever next? Publishing credits Hands: The Best Australian Poems 2013 (Black Inc.) Spider Crab: exclusive first publication by iamb At the edge: Love the Words Anthology 2022 (Infinity Books)

Hear poet Angela T Carr read poems for wave 2 of literary poetry journal iamb. Angela T Carr wave 2 spring 2020 back next the poet Angela T Carr is a poet, editor and creative writing facilitator. Winner of the iYeats International Poetry Competition 2019 and The Poetry Business 2018 Laureate's Prize, Angela's had work placed or shortlisted in over 40 national and international literary competitions. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The North, The Lonely Crowd, The London Magazine, Poetry Birmingham, Strix, Mslexia and elsewhere. Originally from Glasgow, Angela now lives in Dublin. the poems Girl with Child on a Swan’s Wing Grave 8: Mesolithic Cemetery at Vedbaek, Denmark 00:00 / 03:24 I was a girl when my father brought me to him – my dowry, the tawny-sheened hide of a buck, twenty bright strings of the teeth of a roe – I came, the tremble of a small wild thing. I came, a creature caught – a hunger, a heart, its string the beat of the forest. Strangers stripped me, braided shells in my hair, said my sons would be warriors, a chief’s kin: And my daughters, I thought, what of them? Men killed boars to roast and feast, the night air thick with smoke, their flesh, a drum and burning stars – they writhed about his head as he took me. In time, my belly grew a boy, a fawn – he kicked and quickened, my nearly child – I hunted him across three starless nights and, blooded, fell. Women washed my corpse, wreathed me in ivory, daubed me blue – my wedding fine, a pillow. They wept as they bore us out through the grasswood huts, past the hummocks of the elder dead, to the shade of the trees, laid out where the black earth bared and the sun, a bone knife, speared the charging sea. A tithe of red ochre, blown from a bowl drifted down, clotting where the birth-tide flowed. We were put to ground in the lope of the wolf's moon, my breathless boy in the cuff of a swan's wing – flint blade at his belly – and I, ringed in teeth, all the beasts of the forest at my throat. The Truth About Figs 00:00 / 01:40 Each ripe fig has at its heart a devoured wasp: a solitary female, to pollinate the fruit's inverted blossom; she crawls in at the meeting of the bracts, the ostiole: a hole so small it rips her antennae, splits the tectonic opacity of skeletal wings; sky-bereft and undone, she nonetheless tends the fig's dark garden, its minute inflorescence – strokes stigma, seeds stamen, tucks her eggs into the styles of ovule florets – and settles into death: the enzymatic gall of her own deflowering. Sink your tongue into the burst of purple skin; mouthful of fleshy sweetness, born of a sting. Quadratic Love Song 00:00 / 01:27 So many things will sit inside a square – a book, a bell, a tooth, a cup, a bone – but who would look and think to find them there? Who’d ink their shape in light when there was none? I think about the square that is a house, a room, where footsteps creak the wooden boards – the one that’s empty of the two of us – I’d name the sound if I could find a word. Though you were never one to fit a tongue or root equations as are graphed by hand – you’d lay your shadow as your sun demands and slip through pauses tighter than a drum. My arms have learned to love the weight of air, to circle what won’t linger in a square. Publishing credits Girl with Child on a Swan’s Wing: The North (No. 62) – winner of The Poetry Business 2018 Laureate’s Prize The Truth About Figs: The London Magazine – placed third in The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2016 Quadratic Love Song: The Lonely Crowd (No. 10)

Hear poet Ken Cockburn read poems for wave 10 of literary poetry journal iamb. Ken Cockburn wave 10 summer 2022 back next the poet Poet and translator Ken Cockburn spent several years at the Scottish Poetry Library before going freelance to work in education, care and community settings – often in collaboration with visual artists. His most recent collection is Floating the Woods . Ken's also the man behind the pamphlet Edinburgh: poems and translations , which features work written for the guided walks he leads in the city’s Old Town. He also translated from the German Christine Marendon's Heroines from Abroad . the poems Hands 00:00 / 01:37 These hands have buckled belts and fastened buttons These hands have howked the tatties from the ground These hands have handled cutlery and weapons These hands have picked the apples from the bough Hands to hold a pen or blade Hands to strike and cup a match Hands to give the eyes some shade Hands to take another catch These hands have spooned out medicines and teas These hands have painted watercolour scenes These hands have tinkled old piano keys These hands have worked industrial machines Hands to turn another page Hands to hoist and set the sails Hands applaud those on the stage Hands with dirty fingernails These hands in tearooms picked up cakes and fancies These hands have sharpened pencils with a knife These hands held partners at the weekend dances These hands have mapped the progress of a life Hands to scrub and peel potatoes Hands to cup a baby’s head Hands to knit a balaclava Hands to smooth the unmade bed Hands to give a proper measure Hands to stitch the binding thread Hands up when you know the answer Hands to shush what’s best unsaid Ward 00:00 / 00:48 I keep my diaries in a large bookcase my mother told me crossly, years ago, she was now giving to my sister. Fine, fine. I left with what did belong to me, returning sooner than expected when, days before the move, my father collapsed. I went to visit him in hospital as he convalesced and took my daughter who, at eighteen months, was still innocent of past and future, caveats, grudges, grip and slow release. Let property wait. The ward dispenses all we need for now. Rodney 00:00 / 00:58 At that school at that time there was no choice: rugby. Skinny, tall and slow I was put in the second row, scrummed and pushed on cue. Asthmatic, on cold days I wheezed until my lungs gave in. I was keen. I wanted to be good enough for the first fifteen unlike Rodney, disinclined to bother. Played at full-back to avoid set pieces, on the whole, he was left untroubled. Once we were on the same team; a breakaway left only Rodney between the runner and our line. 'Tackle him!' I shouted, but he stood his ground and the ball was touched down. At that moment I could only admire his simple refusal to play the game. Publishing credits Hands: part of Lapidus Scotland's Working with ‘Hands’ and Living Voices Ward: exclusive first publication by iamb Rodney: Poetry Scotland (No. 101)

Hear poet Devon Marsh read poems for wave 7 of literary poetry journal iamb. Devon Marsh wave 7 autumn 2021 back next the poet Since serving as a pilot in the US Navy before embarking on a career in banking, Devon Marsh has had his poems and essays published by The Lake , Poydras Review , Black Bough Poetry , Split Rock Review and River Mouth Review , and has been featured on periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics . Devon lives in the North Carolina piedmont, and is currently searching for a good home for his first full-length poetry collection. the poems Driftwood – Olympic Peninsula 00:00 / 01:24 Children throw driftwood into the sea, rebuking the wood’s audacity. Limbs and trunks lie ashore, bone-like rather than a severed part of forest. Yet the skeleton-white logs pay homage to shadow-black forms. Trees above wave-carved cliffs oversee the beach. Tall firs look ahead. The firs turn from the ocean, put breath into the sky. They look back and think again. Children cast pieces of trees to withdraw with the tide and feign they won’t return when we’re gone. Tall firs regard the sea. They look back and think of me, know I am of the forest even as rhythmic waves pound within my veins. How many will pulse the shore where I stand rooted to a spot on the sand? I take evergreen breath from the sky, look back, breathe again. I watch my heirs, relish their audacity. My children throw driftwood into the sea. Own Fault 00:00 / 01:36 Last night’s rain bowed the stream. Water cranes to peek above the rim, see beyond the channel of its world. On green hillsides, scattered orange firs resemble derelict sculpture, ignored rather than poisoned, like a forest erected when we built bridges that threaten to collapse from negligence. How could we fail to maintain our means of traverse? I would find another way to you, swim a raging torrent, tasting with each dip of my face the rusted tang of failure. Distracted by thoughts of a crossing I won’t make, it’s a verdant tree, lovely with life I curse when I misjudge my cast. This is my own fault, no one else to blame for a hook sunk to its barb in this summer’s terminal growth. Wade ashore, cut the leader, leave the mayfly perched above the current. Its name — Ephemeroptera —gives a nod to its day in the sun. Tie on line, knot nymph to tippet, eye the yellow slice of sky backed by faience, by cobalt. I wade in, cast again, try not to squander light. Around me, trees agree on a color for night. Storm 00:00 / 01:18 On the porch, close to 10pm. Enjoying red wine, lingering rain, thunder moving off, songs of at least three types of frog. Lightning flashes at greater and greater intervals, building tolerance for a gap that will carry to the next storm. This is when I replay our conversation wonder why you wondered what I meant. And also wonder if I should remark to you, inside, about the storm as it subsides. Something obvious, a point of sure agreement. The darkness rather than what’s in it. With no flashes I see the sheen of the screen. Pixeled black covers the yard, drowns the pond, obscures field and forest and sky. Night tries to mist onto the porch like rain, pool with shadows. The candle keeps it at bay. I’m on the bright side listening to frogs, replayed conversation, and receding thunder until it’s time to blow out the flame. Publishing credits Driftwood – Olympic Peninsula: River Mouth Review (Issue 4) Own Fault / Storm: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Scarlett Ward Bennett read poems for wave 2 of literary poetry journal iamb. Scarlett Ward Bennett wave 2 spring 2020 back next the poet Scarlett Ward Bennett is a West Midlands poet whose debut collection ache – published by Verve Poetry Press in 2019 – has been nominated for a 2020 Forward Poetry Prize. She was nominated for Best Spoken Word Performer in the 2019 Saboteur Awards, and came third in the Wolverhampton Literature Festival Prize judged by Roy McFarlane. Scarlett runs several poetry workshops, and hosts the 'Versification' poetry evening in Cannock. A self-confessed hedgehog lady, she volunteers for West Midlands Hedgehog Rescue. the poems Culling Season 00:00 / 00:44 Somewhere in a town that is best known for how deep it has dug underneath itself, where the addresses are earthy like “May Dene” and “Old Fallow”, and roads fling themselves lethargically around woodland bends, a pot hole rips the gut out of an exhaust on an accelerating Ford with all the viciousness of antlers on bark. After all, it is rutting season, and it’s all I can think of lately; feuding stags butting skulls, concrete tearing out metal piping, and the way my neighbour boasted to me this morning of the fawn he shot through the eye socket. We’re going to have to talk about it at some point 00:00 / 00:46 aren’t we? Except, I don’t want to. Can’t instead we talk of dandelion manes; the way they nose their way through cracks in the pavement, only to be scattered in infinite directions when kicked violently enough, scorned spores spiraling; frantic heads of fine-spun lace dizzying themselves away, as though away is the only place far enough from that damned kicking boot. Can we focus on the flowers and not think of anything else – not of how I ran home to my mum’s house, shame dampening the crotch of my underwear, and not of the beads from my snapped bracelet that I clutched tightly in my fist. What Is True Of Spring 00:00 / 00:54 is true also of ourselves. Learn from her; how she unfurls her flowered fists, waits for buds to burst from the end of branches, like beading blood on kneecaps, or lacquer slicked at the end of knuckled hands. Heal from your wounds womb first; blood is no omen of death, but of the pact we make with life. Even fossils dream of dawn, brittle from singing themselves hoarse clinking away under all that soil like forgotten coins in a deep pocket waiting to be unearthed. What if none of us ever stopped singing, the same way an oak remembers its notes of green once April comes back around no matter how much white winter had buried it in? Publishing credits All poems: ache (Verve Poetry Press)

Hear poet Anna Milan read poems for wave 13 of literary poetry journal iamb. Anna Milan wave 13 spring 2023 back next the poet Currently based in Hertfordshire, England, Anna Milan has had her poetry featured in various publications – Butcher’s Dog , Under the Radar , Eye Flash Poetry , Black Bough Poetry and Ink Sweat & Tears among these. the poems The wind is not yet awake 00:00 / 00:47 Patience, eyas. The wind is not yet awake. Wait for its breath to rise and turn till you can scoop the air under pointed wing. Your eyes are not windows, but walls. Enamelled with anger, watchful, siege-ready; mistrust kept safe behind ashlar and buttress. Although the frosts snap at your feather buds the spathes will grow curved and strong. When the barbs lock firm to collar the wind then, eyas, we’ll be ready to begin. Eyas: a young hawk; especially (in falconry) an unfledged nestling taken from the nest for training money & sex 00:00 / 00:46 I’m doing it for me she says & though in a way that’s true she speaks the softened vowels of her great grandma who heaved out the bastard child of the earl of bath & wrecked her voice in the process so forever & ever after it had an echo of the master’s tenor like the bass notes below the hymn’s melody in the estate chapel on the big hill & when she’s in those killer heels doing it for her I can’t help but wonder how many male choirs are in the harmonics singing yes yes that’s my girl you don’t answer to god or man do you what a chance to write yourself your own sweet song girl House guests 00:00 / 01:01 My mother drew cedillas in lipstick on the mirrors, scrubbed the skirting boards clean, and left stands of autumn grasses growing right up against the patio doors. Afterwards, my sister came to throw wet leaves at the ceiling and do handstands in the kitchen. The first man I loved told me a lady never bares her feet until she is alone in her room. He always turned off the light with his thumb before he shut the door. The next one, a man with grey curls and eyes saddened by the sea, hammered nails into a newly decorated wall to put up a shelf, and heaped sand onto it in restless piles. Others roam about outside, waiting to come in. Someone once said to me, In the end, aren’t we all just guests in someone else’s house? I think it’s true, but these days, I am more careful about letting people touch the walls. Publishing credits The wind is not yet awake: Atrium money & sex: Butcher’s Dog (Issue 16) House guests: Under The Radar (Issue 25)

Hear poet Clare Proctor read poems for wave 7 of literary poetry journal iamb. Clare Proctor wave 7 autumn 2021 back next the poet Clare Proctor's poetry has appeared in Shooter , The North , The A3 Review and Finished Creatures , as well as in anthologies from Yaffle Press and The Frogmore Press. Clare's writing also featured in Handstand Press' This Place I Know: An Anthology of New Cumbrian Writing . She placed second in both the 2018 Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year and 2021 Ware competitions. Clare lives in Cumbria where she teaches English, and is a member of Brewery Poets. the poems This Woman Wears a Green Dress After Julian Cooper’s Bella Vista Hotel 00:00 / 01:09 This woman stands in the doorway, wearing a green dress. This woman wears a green dress, clenches her fingers. This woman clenches her fingers – her nails make crevices in the skin of her hand – this woman makes empty crescents on her palm. This woman is the body that makes a shadow on a side of the bar. Her body blocks the light trying to shuffle through the door, through the window stained with street dust. This woman breathes in the bar-room smoke, lets the clatter of an empty tequila glass fall into the back of her mind, lets its stickiness become salt, the salt of the sea breeze that she senses behind her eyes. This woman sees nothing. She is listening to the wind crossing a far-off ocean. Her green dress lifts in it. On Falling in Love with Poets 00:00 / 01:06 I have fallen in love with poets, with the spaces they hold within them like underground caves. I want to be lowered into those caves with a head-torch, reach my hands out to the walls, scarred with their stories. I want to fall into their voices, when they do not hesitate, but resonate, like the deep note of the viola. I love the idea of falling in love with poets, and in love with all that poets have loved; with their moments of climax, with their late-night tears, with their unchosen words that slip from their lips when angry or drunk or tired. I want to fall for their suffering, dip into it as if it is a well, wash in its dark water. I want to feel their pain, like splinters stuck in the skin of my fingers. I have fallen in love with the word – poet – how the two soft syllables shape my mouth. Sappho’s Leap After Felicia Hemans 00:00 / 02:24 The women are ceaseless. The women are ceaseless as the waves. The women are ceaseless as their own echoing sighs. The only way for the women to be still as the sea-bird hovering on the death wind, is for the women to throw themselves from cliffs. If the women want to jump from cliffs, they should dive in a perfect arc. The sun should be setting behind them or fingers of the dilated moon sifting over their bodies, the sea a molten silver. Their fragile forms should be the shape of a crescent as they dive, a flattering silhouette. The women can be gentle and sentimental or fierce and tragic, but at all times when jumping from cliffs, the women should be beautiful. Men may want to paint the women later. The women should hurl themselves into the sea because their love is unrequited. Their unrequited love must not be for other women, but for a man/sea god. The women’s pain should be private unless they are jumping from a cliff; they should cry in a pitiful fashion, a few tears on the cheek subtle as pearls. They should avoid ugly crying, or they may not be a fitting subject for a painting. The women should consider the weather, should pick a day that best fits their form and colouring. They should pair their outfit with the sun/moon/white cliffs. Their dress should flit around in the wind enough to expose bare legs and should cling enough in the rain/sea mist to delineate their breasts. The women should keep their hair long so that it can whip around their faces and stream behind them as they fall. The women should fall in slow motion, over and over again, into the mind of the man/sea god. They should never land on the rocks, breaking their body and shattering their face, neither of which would reflect well on the man/sea god. Women who are planning on jumping from cliffs should check the tides. Women jumping from cliffs should be recovered in one piece, their free dark hair pushed back from their pale faces, that should look at peace now that they can sleep forever in the unslumbering seas, dream about the man/sea god that they absolutely, definitely love. Publishing credits This Woman Wears a Green Dress: came joint-second in the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition 2018 On Falling in Love with Poets: Byline Legacies (Cardigan Press) Sappho's Leap: won second prize in the Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2021