Hear poet Hannah Linden read poems for wave 14 of literary poetry journal iamb. Hannah Linden wave 14 summer 2023 back next the poet Hailing from a northern working-class background but living now in ramshackle social housing in Devon, Hannah Linden has had her poetry published in Acumen , Lighthouse , Magma , New Welsh Review , Tears in the Fence , Under the Radar and elsewhere. She won the Cafe Writers Poetry Competition in 2021, and was highly commended in the Wales Poetry Award 2021. Hannah's debut pamphlet is The Beautiful Open Sky , and she's currently working towards her first full poetry collection. the poems What the Wind Said 00:00 / 01:48 There’s no doubt I was already buried. I was prone and silent so it’s no surprise people talked about me in the third person. I was the family problem—the musty smell from a corner, the already gone but lingering. I did everything underground. Even my thinking was hidden from me. Up would come an idea— a fruit that was perhaps poisonous. I didn’t know how to trust anything. I felt the rooms of me become caves half full of water, somewhere, somewhere. My body was a disconnect. I was blind and deaf. Threads of me stretched thin, deep below the family carpet. I wanted to be gone, threw spores to the wind— tiny pieces of conversation seeking release, some lichen-yearn escape from a spent flower burst. There was no romance in it, no fairytale quest. I was turning myself into nothing, drifting on thin air. I don’t know who whispered onto a breeze the direction to a crack in the pavement. It was a small thing, small kindness, like I was alive—like I should be alive. The Fight 00:00 / 01:33 She said HE had packed my things, boxes stacked under the stairs, ready for the off. I tasted nothing of the reconciliation supper, the too- light chatter of my brothers, my sister's over-long hug as we whispered goodbye. But I felt Mum's silence in the car, the negative pull until I was a black hole sucking everything into my void, except her. She sat on the edge of Nan's spare bed. You will never come home again. I am a half-circle. I am an apple falling from the tree. When she left, I slit open the boxes to search for my overall: my dead dad's shirt, the hold of his undying smell. My step-father had thrown away this rag of him—the remnant Dad gave me for when there’s dirty work to do. How he'd kept me clean. I roll up my sleeves, remember bare arms, tattoos he'd regretted— it's my skin being bloodied now. Light 00:00 / 01:35 When I first climbed out it was simply the absence of him. Then the absence of pain in the shoulders that I hadn’t known was connected to him, like shadows are. Then a ladder started to form, simple steps like noticing I enjoyed the sound of a ticking clock. Or being able to turn over in bed, turn on a lamp to read, or open the curtains to the moon. Ladders of light are not a form of magic. Sometimes they are silence in a room that is not always aware of the sounds in another. I wasn’t used to climbing, the muscles in my legs weary from lack of use. Resting on a ladder of light takes practice. I made some of the rungs into ledges. Rested with my children. Sometimes it’s best not to look back or try to calculate how far there is left to climb. In the hollows at the back of the rock face, pressed hard into the surface, the imprint of women’s fingers, more felt than visible, waiting to be found. Publishing credits What the Wind Said / Light: exclusive first publication by iamb The Fight: The Beautiful Open Sky (V. Press) Author photo: © Jeanette Mullins

Hear poet Abigail Lim Kah Yan read poems for wave 15 of literary poetry journal iamb. Abigail Lim Kah Yan wave 15 autumn 2023 back next the poet Abigail Lim is a Malaysian engineer and spoken word poet who will point out to you, every plane she sees in the sky. She has a poem published in the 2021 Malaysian Millennial Voices anthology titled 'How to Paint the Rainbow When You're Colourblind'. She is also the winner of the 2022 Kuala Lumpur Youth Literary Arts Festival Poetry Slam. the poems Domestic Arrival 00:00 / 01:50 You told me I felt like home earlier on. But the way you bring my feet up to your lips to kiss them makes me feel like a church instead, an altar. Catholics are called to repent during Lent, and it feels like we're always apologizing in advance. When I cry, and I cry a lot, you do not tell me to stop. You reach out to hug me just as soon as my eyes turn glassy like yours, watching the rims of my glasses catch the first drops of tears. You told me to write sad poems about you, but you're the happiest part in all of them. Because you bring offerings too, of fancy chocolate, and the Killer Queen champagne and so many burgers. The remnants of smoke and ash in my bathroom like the incense wafting from thuribles. And teaching me Jeff Buckley's hallelujah on the electric guitar is the closest thing we both can agree on for a hymn. You told me I'm your matriarch, because in the words of Taylor Swift, fuck the patriarchy (in more ways than one). You told me I felt like home earlier on, and I told you, you make me feel like Eve, you, my Adam, I want to split open my chest cavity, dig around for the one rib that always felt misplaced in me, break it off, hands scarlet and ivory, offer it up to you, say, "I think this belongs to you, how long have you been without it". Kintsugi Inspired by Robert Frost 00:00 / 02:28 Nothing gold can stay and nothing good can stay I want you to stay so bad, I only wear silver jewelry, keep the gold rings and necklaces for special occasions. because nothing gold can stay and an orange sunset only casts its glows for so long on my Kelana Jaya condo we watch it fade together, from the swimming pool, floating, hands reaching out like otters at sea, afraid to drift too far away because nothing good can stay I am afraid to wonder if we'll ever trade our silver rings for golden ones di tanah yang sudah mengenal rasa darah kami, yet still demands its pound of flesh why do I need to renounce my faith for something you have ceased to believe in We are mere casualties of the 1984 Islamic Family Law I wonder if there are those before us Who did not yield to this pressure, a cult, beckoning Gold is typically a malleable metal darah mereka bukan lagi milik tanah ini and I want to break your IC in half, Make you a new one, take my last name, You're already more of a Lim than I am, Christened the Lim Jetty in Penang with spills of beer and cigarette ash teaching me to speak my ancestors' tongue 'Wah ni hui Chiang hua yi ah' all the aunties say Can we make gold stay? Because I'm an engineer, and you're pretty smart, Together we'll polish the little gold we have until they shine constantly, We're both clumsy, but we seem to have a pretty solid track record of keeping our silver rings safe If we can make good stay, I will follow you beyond a sunset's horizon, To a land where personal beliefs are kept personal (I don't need a church or a government to recognize our union) And if gold rings are too precious a commodity, I'd marry you with paper rings in a heartbeat. Icarus 00:00 / 01:47 I think some planes were meant to stay grounded - like the 737Max after the Ethiopian Air crash. I think I am what happens when a plane stalls, suddenly, there is not enough lift to keep me off the ground, and my internal pilots suck at recovering. I think this is as close as I get to Icarus, he too has felt the thrill of flying high, hair tickled by the wind, waxy wings white against a golden blue sky. I think I am as stubborn as Icarus, somehow believing I can touch the sun, but gravity will have us in its grasp at the last second. He too would've felt the air sucked from his lungs as he fell all the way down. I think we both do not have time to grieve unsuccessful dreams, we just die along with them. I think some dreams are meant to be forgotten the moment you wake up, but I remember all my sleep paralysis demons. And I think I do get a little sad each time I see a plane in the sky, knowing I am so far removed from ever touching it. But I hope my love still finds it adorable when I compulsively tell him, 'see plane' or 'got propeller, looks like ATR72', neck stretching out windows to get a better view. I think, on some days, he is the dream I get to wake up to. I think I am trying to be happy staying grounded, at the very least, you can't have a good flight without a safe landing. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Catrice Greer read poems for wave 8 of literary poetry journal iamb. Catrice Greer wave 8 winter 2021 back next the poet Baltimore-based writer Catrice Greer is a 2021 nominee for The Pushcart Prize who spent November 2020 serving as a Poet-In-Residence for the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Catrice has been published in several local publications and online journals, as well as in an international anthology. She's currently a Guest Editor for IceFloe Press, and Guest Poetry reviewer for Fevers of the Mind. the poems Cortical Cartography 00:00 / 01:54 I give thanks for you bravely doing this again traveling synapse by synapse trails of electric pulses jumping blackhole gaps that used to remember holding the dead space a new soma body birthing from bleating darkness show us the nucleus the middles of what we were made of Axons spread like kamikaze flying squirrel bodies with arms akimbo reaching dendrites touching Grateful for even this axon potential sometimes on sometimes off Praise for brave synaptic dives and jumps Grateful for re-birthed myelin insulating protecting making sure that we traffic on our way by the quickest route charged in this dark matter discovery-space This astronomy building anew, wrinkled city of light, crevices, crannies, gyri and sulci, ridges and valleys jellied, crinkled mass sectioned by lobes all speaking trillions simultaneous synaptic voices prayerfully all at once this chatter mines the neuronal network and we build a whole new world I Am Home 00:00 / 02:20 Lost you Early November When the leaves started falling And time faded backward Sitting here crocheting Stitching memories one loop at a time Your voice in my head swirling Humming a hymn, your favorite And I sing each note yearning, solemn As if you’d appear suddenly solo into a duet and we raise our voices as high as you ascended when it was time For you to be called home I rock quietly ashen stilted lone tree Swaying In a wood still lush knowing I sit with a pain I can barely speak the name awash with memories of you and the absent space we called your chair, dresser, your place at the table the place we used to go every Friday, your touch, your smile beaming a side-eye on an inside joke between us, The memory that had your name all over it that our family can’t tell anymore without crying, laughing, wishing you here And one day I will see your face again We will see you Feel you As your spirit is so close in the air here near me Near us vibrating in the humming I believe I can feel you We will never forget you A whisper softly tells me: 'I am home' The Gathering 00:00 / 03:14 Hear ye, hear ye We are gathered here today family, friends, enemies, enemies of my enemies We are here at the black hole mouth of this isolated cave in the grief painted infected unknown space to bury our dead among us Those dead things between us that hold us back Those things we no longer speak Those things that twine and whip round our vocal chords that prevent the i’m sorries i miss yous, i love yous the pieces that bumble forward like an emotionally blind man heady on drink bumbling home too late for whatever he was meant to be there for knocking over sentimentals, and traditions, passed down collectibles shattered in pieces launched jagged landmine shards speckling the ground Our DNA, our ancestors, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers long gone our creators ask us to stand here together Ask ourselves if in this space we will abandon Our old skins Our old breath and choose to share anew Can we bury this dead thing between us all so we can stand wrapped in sinew, tendons, blood¹ coursing miracles spiraling through the breath lifting us in a swirl of meditative purpose Can we find a new space a sense of being We are here in this vortex to bury the living dead under loam, clay, rocks, into the broken soil Cover it. Mark it as resting here never to go forward We mark new paths with a sign here as we crawl out heel to heel ... 6ft apart linked in spirit life begins anew we celebrate together mourning yesterdays embracing our multicolored confettied I forgive yous, littered in the air, celebrating our tomorrows ¹ Ezekiel 37:8 — King James Version: 'And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.' Publishing credits Cortical Cartography: Silver Spring Town Center Newsletter (Ancestral Voices 2020) I Am Home: Afro-American Newspaper (Baltimore Edition) The Gathering: first published under the title Elegy in the Silver Spring Town Center Newsletter (Vol. 8, Issue 9)

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 Paul Brookes read poems for wave 2 of literary poetry journal iamb. Paul Brookes wave 2 spring 2020 back next the poet Poet and shop assistant Paul Brookes lives and writes in a cat house full of teddy bears. He's published numerous volumes of poetry, including The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley (Dearne Community Arts), The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press), and A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press). He's also collaborated with other artists – on Stubborn Sod (Alien Buddha Press) with Marcel Herms in 2019, and on the forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed. Paul is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and editor of the Wombwell Rainbow Interviews . the poems R Ash Wednesday 00:00 / 00:30 Thas gonna mucky me forehead wi old codgers ashes what we burned yonks since as if it could remove our guilt and sinfulness for doing so. As tha finger paints a cross on me bonce al see our ancestor crinkle and pop Like it were fireworks and watch all harshness and fret go up in smoke. Al have to go mi sen a wesh afore a sees our lass else it'll get her all wonderin' an we don't want that. Don't want folk pryin'. No need. The Gent 00:00 / 00:35 The regular gent as I beep the barcode of his white bread, I take correct change from his held out palm. He struggles to put his purchase into his thin plastic bag. I open the bag wider and drop the bread into it. My wife is cremated, he says She'll be buried Thursday. I say I'm sorry to hear that as my till queue gets longer he lingers, a heavy silence. I say hello to the next customer. The heavy silence moves towards the door. We Wait For Sick Sunblaze To 00:00 / 01:22 go. Too long in the barren teeth of glare, lustre is death, see this wrinkled skin, cancerous blotches, blinded by this sharp, dry lucence. The soft, sodden darkness will give us life. Make us young once more. Rub out these wrinkled laugh lines. Smile again in the night. Blood unclenches without light, opens nightscented warm inside thighs and playful inside fragrant mouths tastes a sweetlife of shadows. Darkness outside reflects the firedark between your thighs, welcoming wild cave of your mouth. Our tongues play together in the juicednight. What has come into being in us is life, life that is tenebrous; eyes use what sunless gives, dark shines in lightness, and lightness cannot overpower it. Aphotic. Listen, words bear witness to dark, so that everyone might believe through them. Words out of warm, wet atramentous mouths. Words are not the dark, they bear witness to the dark. Real dark that gives dark to everyone; it is coming into the world. Publishing credits R Ash Wednesday: Stubborn Sod (Alien Buddha Press) The Gent: Please Take Change (Cyberwit) We Wait For Sick Sunblaze To: A World Where (Nixes Mate Books)

Hear poet Em Gray read poems for wave 27 of literary poetry journal iamb. Em Gray wave 27 autumn 2026 back next the poet Brighton-based poet Em Gray's writing often explores themes of neurodivergence, mental health, and the intersection between humans and other species. She was highly commended by the Forward Prizes for Poetry in 2024, won second prize in the Mslexia Poetry Competition 2022, and shortlisted for the Creative Future Writers' Award in 2021 . She's been interviewed for Modron Magazine 's More Than Human series, and was Mslexia's Poet Laureate for its Summer 2026 issue. Em's poetry can be found in Mindsprings , Propel Magazine , Perverse , Black Iris and elsewhere. the poems Horse goes pillow shopping in Ikea 00:00 / 01:14 Horse knows not to giddy her mare-hips near glassware – observes all creatures here are adept; the tender of tentacles for smalls, Owl who glows on demand. Horse studies pillows of most comfort for most bodies – gets spooked by polyester, what rubs off and on and thinks of moths, of dust not dust but scales that hold prisms lost through collision with the world. Horse isn't wild – more, skittish , defends her ears, wears a ribbon of sunflowers for saying, be kind. Horse wants to lie like a meadowsweet foal but stand-leans into waffle – sensing, to sleep this way, is readiness to run. On telling the depressed to exercise 00:00 / 00:39 It may not be enough to forward us a newsletter lauding the sprung beds of municipal flowers – leave bulbs in paper at our doors, return (on noticing they have not been taken in) to donate a trowel, return with soil, a jardinière, a watering can, then to fill it. It may not be enough to seat us at windows, describe the scent of hyacinths. What a silent disco is and isn’t 00:00 / 00:44 There have to be headphones, the claiming of funtime space like a pub garden or low tide beyond the shingle – glow sticks (ideally), an allegiance to the beat. Passersby should know just by looking when the track drops, and feel plaintive (how it is to watch gladness from an unlit street). What it cannot be is the sound inside your head – confusing your block for the set of a musical in which you are the only dancer. Publishing credits Horse goes pillow shopping in Ikea / On telling the depressed to exercise: exclusive first publication by iamb What a silent disco is and isn't: Lighthouse (Issue 30)

Hear poet Matthew M C Smith read poems for wave 2 of literary poetry journal iamb. Matthew M C Smith wave 2 spring 2020 back next the poet Matthew M C Smith, a Welsh poet from Swansea, is editor and founder of Black Bough Poetry . His poems have been in Anti-Heroin Chic, Barren Magazine, Icefloe Press, Wellington Street Review, Other Terrain and Fly on the Wall Press. Matthew is writing his second collection after his debut, Origin: 21 Poems . the poems Cool Oblivion ‘ ... llithro i’r llonyddwch mawr yn ôl.’ from T H Parry Williams’Dychwelyd 00:00 / 01:23 Choose life; extract yourself from systems, circuits, voices, spies in ether. Crawl as servant, slave from your masters, take freedom in roadless deserts. Leave gasfields burning. Echoes in canyons, drift of caverns, find your channel in rock, seeking nothing, nothing at all. Close your mind in cool oblivion, hide inside your silent shadow, where blood slows to deep time’s pulse. Dying King 00:00 / 01:51 I am with you. I am always with you. You pulse with a click of the drive. The dying king. I press your paper-thin shroud of skin, as thumbs curl over balsa bones, ridges royal. My eyes probe famine’s fault lines, scan this lucent husk, your twilight mask. Under your arm, now thin, translucent, I once slept, sheltered from terrors in the night. Now, I keep watch. How did it come to this? Morphine dulls your silent ward. It keeps you from fires in the fields, from the sibilant hiss of the underworld, the gaping maw of night. We are skin, my dark follows your dark. * Above tides, I feel winds of unconquerable spirit. I stand at the edge, choking with loss. Cosmology 00:00 / 00:50 from static we make our slow Rosetta linger lone in void of dark no one can hear us in these rooms of silence this is our language of stars fingers of intricate play & movement there are lights faint and far as moths we are drawn & dance Publishing credits Cool Oblivion / Cosmology: IceFloe Press (February 29th 2020) Dying King: Anti-Heroin Chic

Hear poet Oormila V Prahlad read poems for wave 19 of literary poetry journal iamb. Oormila V Prahlad wave 19 autumn 2024 back next the poet Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is an Indian-Australian poet, artist and improvisational pianist. Her poetry and art have appeared in journals and anthologies including Cordite Poetry Review , Black Bough Poetry and Bracken Magazine . As well as being nominated for The Pushcart Prize, she's had work put forward on several occasions for Best of the Net. Author of Patchwork Fugue and A Second Life in Eighty-eight Keys , Oormila lives and works in Sydney, on the traditional lands of the Cammeraygal. the poems Dirge in June 00:00 / 00:47 A lone tree wilts in the solstice night— a ripple in blue pashmina. Slow denudation— its trunk is a withering cross sowing moth wings in the night. All around the periphery of the dark hours frost-eaten buds decay, a carpet of papillae strewn on purl-furrowed soil. There is no mercy in the frigid sky. It descends in a shroud of clouds. Myrrh numbs the pain of bruised torsos, tortured limbs shivering in winter’s Golgotha. Padma mudra 00:00 / 01:09 The boy on the marshland is a pious lotus a helix of petals unsullied by the murk of mud. He lies awake at night in a hammock of moon— breath sustained by the thin gruel lining the stalk of his belly. His fingers moisten cotton wicks. Oil hisses into blue-eyed flames as primroses quiver in prayer. The boy knows that his salvation lies in the power of the syllable— he captures cold cursive in chalk on slate forging words forming phrases raising a bridge over the quagmire one kernel of knowledge at a time. An indigo god smiles, bamboo flute in hand glowing from an igneous wall. They will converse—boy and deity and alter what seems to be hewn in stone. Padma mudra is a hand gesture in Hinduism and Buddhism that resembles an opening lotus. It symbolises the journey from darkness to light. Maiasaura 00:00 / 00:37 I know her in her unravelling— her kaolin scales ground to dust scattering upon a tongue of breeze. There are lessons I learn early on— that I must grow a pellicle over my skin to heal the penury of touch. Frenzied murmurations mimic the shape of her armored heart— love is a severed appendage the shadow of a fleeing gecko a clot of cold blood throbbing in the dark. Maiasaura means 'Good mother lizard' Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Georgia Hilton read poems for wave 2 of literary poetry journal iamb. Georgia Hilton wave 2 spring 2020 back next the poet Georgia Hilton is a poet and fiction writer originally from Ireland who lives now in Winchester, England. In 2018, her poem Dark-Haired Hilda Replies to Patrick Kavanagh was joint winner of the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize – her debut pamphlet, I went up the lane quite cheerful , being published by Dempsey & Windle that same year. Georgia’s first collection, Swing , is also published by Dempsey & Windle. the poems Dark-Haired Hilda Replies to Patrick Kavanagh 00:00 / 01:26 On Raglan Road I saw you first a dishevelled man with heavy black-framed glasses. So severe you looked but you had a wound that made you beautiful. After we talked that first day, I dreamt of you. You were walking towards me very fast and purposeful with an intent that might have been mistaken for malice, had I not loved you. I abandoned caution at first. But my father gave me a great gift when he said to me, Hilda, you cannot eat words and air, so I became a doctor and married the engineer. But not before I had given you poems with your own name in them, given you my youth. Let you open the catch to a window in my mind, thinking I would fly, but you had me chained to a pedestal. I, no marble idol, just a flesh and blood woman. And you were always an awful man for the drink, you said so yourself, Patrick. Oh to think I might have been one of those sorry women who follow their husbands to the pub screaming for them to come home before they spend the rest of the housekeeping. I might be a creature made of clay, Patrick, in fact, I’m sure I am, but you have a brass neck calling yourself an angel. Cinderella 00:00 / 01:19 If I were to slip into the river, it would not be at Poor Man’s Kilkee, where teenagers and vagrants take their ease with cans of lager. Nor would it be on O’Callaghan’s Strand, where the grey silt is deep, deep and a dozen swans are on the slipway. Nor would I make a dramatic leap off Sarsfield Bridge by the boat club, where an indecisive light flickers over the martyrs of 1916. No – I would choose this stretch, just downstream of the Curraghower with views of King John’s Castle and Thomond Bridge. By day the seagulls swoop and dive, swans fight the estuary current, and you can see the hills of Clare beyond the bend of the river at the Island Field. But by night my eyes are drawn only to the water – the roiling inky black inviting me to shed my history, surrender my skin. The old stone steps are there, I would not need to climb or jump but simply descend like a debutante – keeping both shoes on. On the Naming of Convict Ships 00:00 / 00:45 It seems cruel to name a convict ship the Eleanor. Eleanor, after all, is the parson’s daughter, who smiled at you once or twice. You could no more touch her than you can touch thin air. Eliza is the girl who took your hand at the county fair. Caroline is your sister, Georgiana the grim mistress you have only glimpsed on horseback. Jane is the governess at Manor Farm. Mary is the dairyman’s daughter. Elizabeth the name you sometimes murmur in your sleep, and Isabella is someone you will never meet. Isabelle, Isabella, Bella, Belle. Publishing credits Dark-Haired Hilda Replies to Patrick Kavanagh: I went up the lane quite cheerful (Dempsey & Windle) Cinderella: Lunate On The Naming of Convict Ships: Swing (Dempsey & Windle)

Hear poet Emily Blewitt read poems for wave 5 of literary poetry journal iamb. Emily Blewitt wave 5 spring 2021 back next the poet Author of This Is Not A Rescue and poetry submissions editor for New Welsh Reader , Emily Blewitt has poems in The Rialto, Poetry Wales, Ambit and The North , among others. She was Highly Commended in the 2016 Forward Prizes, and has appeared at the Hay Festival and on Radio 4. Emily has collaborated with other writers and artists on the Weird and Wonderful Wales project, and is a recipient of a Literature Wales bursary. She's currently writing her second collection. the poems 13 weeks, 2 days 00:00 / 01:18 I don’t know how to say it, but there you were—little ghost in my ceiling, floating on your side. The outline of your slim hips, strung spine stretched lazily in the same position I sleep some nights, facing away from your father. We watched you refuse to show us your nose. You offered your crown instead, crossed and uncrossed your arms and legs, dipped upside-down. You were turning the way a seal rolls underwater for joy. You were radiant and reluctant to share. The midwife said this was your place, that we were just visiting. When finally you lay on your back, a small otter cradling clam and rock, she was quick as a heron slipping a fish to the gullet to capture your image. She had to be. You were elusive. A natural phenomenon observed perhaps twice. Luminous like algae on the water, like Northern Lights. Archaeology 00:00 / 01:25 It’s getting your eye in: scraping the surface layer by layer with the edge of a trowel, moving the earth towards you and exposing the soil, a clutter of generations before you. Brushing dirt off dirt. Holding dirt to the light and tossing. Sifting dirt like prospectors. We dampen the ground, show the plough-lines’ scar, the clay cap that looks like stone, the outline of the ring pit. Stains show organic matter. Marrow sticks to the tongue. We mark what we find in situ because we must. Context is everything. Love, this is how we find ourselves once more in a field, with swifts and hares and the farmer. Where tributaries fuse, where a person might stand from a rath with her children and look out to sea. For every two people on their hands and knees, four more wait at the edge of the trench. This slow unearthing makes us. We dig, not knowing what it is that we are digging for. Parch Marks 00:00 / 01:26 That was the year it snowed in March. Drifts inside the front door, a small snowman in a corner of the attic, and I crunched up and down the hill to our house in walking boots, keeping to the verge. We scattered bird seed in the garden. I conceived and lost it just before the heatwave struck, in May. The grass singed, my sweet peas failed to flower, our house was airless and we couldn’t sleep or touch each other. The cat shifted from tile to tile. I blistered walking up and down the hill in sandals. By August, thunderstorms broke the tension between us and my headaches eased. You told me that when lightning strikes the junction box three times, it shorts. I became lighter, stronger, like wire. When the clouds cleared, parch marks everywhere: seen from the air, scars on the body of the land that prove there were settlements; that someone once lived here and here . Publishing credits 13 weeks, 2 days: Islands Are But Mountains: New poetry from the United Kingdom (Platypus Press, 2019) Archaeology: exclusive first publication by iamb Parch marks: Creative Countryside (Spring 2019) Author photo: © Michael Willett

Hear poet Isabelle Kenyon read poems for wave 18 of literary poetry journal iamb. Isabelle Kenyon wave 18 summer 2024 back next the poet Manchester poet and novelist Isabelle Kenyon is managing director of Fly on the Wall Press . She's had four poetry chapbooks published – most recently, Growing Pains and Potential . Isabelle has also published debut thriller, The Dark Within Them . Her poetry appears in IceFloe Press , Ink, Sweat & Tears and elsewhere. the poems Afternoon Tea with Self 00:00 / 00:54 We are in Ali’s café at the end of the world – it must be for I am sharing scones with myself at sixteen our legs gangly under table and much the same, though one pair is wrapped in electric blue, and I find there is always an Ali’s café to be found somewhere. She says she is ready to understand, dabbing lip-gloss curves with napkin. I say she never will, sorry, some things, people, you pass on from, like wraiths, better to shrug the last five years off like glitter. She says I am lying, of course, and I smile for I knew she would say it and we finish our tea like a stubborn, married couple. Gestures which are really about inadequacy and absent fathers 00:00 / 00:41 I like you experimental hair strands traversing the colour spectrum, sheep-shorn at base, wild deep, like your laugh. Lately, you've tamed nature to Mouse for a man who requires bread pre-chewed into starch. You mother-bird hop; I text silent space bars of an argument which is really about growing up and out as two separate shoots of grass one nestled in the same compost, one fidgeting for further fields. Wonder 00:00 / 00:30 She gives him hair on his chest downy like the otter, playful and familiar. He gives her her lips from the pit of a plum, all spring and juice she finds herself delicious. She has found answers: why his spine is sculpted just so why his hands are warm bowls of milk. Publishing credits Afternoon Tea with Self / Gestures which are really about inadequacy and absent fathers: exclusive first publication by iamb Wonder: Sarasvati Magazine (Indigo Dreams Publishing)