Hear poet Sam J Grudgings read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Sam J Grudgings back next the poet Paranormal investigator and erotic Doomsday prophet Sam J Grudgings is a queer poet from Bristol whose work was shortlisted for the Outspoken Poetry Prize in 2020. His writing explores rehabilitation, addiction and loss through the lenses of body horror, the 1920s burlesque scene and the New Weird movement. Sam can typically be found yelling poems at punk shows. His debut collection is The Bible II . the poems Phatic CW: Grieving, mild body horror 00:00 / 04:15 People with tiny blown-out hearts, private jokes, dates, or other things tattooed on otherwise virgin skin. Reminders hidden under collars & other disguises. We weren’t to know. The distant roar of motorways that will never judge you for how you were when you were young. Borrowing from tomorrow to pay today the money you said you were setting aside to stop this feeling of constantly travelling unwanted in time. Not waking up till the month is done. I get it. Hold on, the pain is almost receding. Minute keeper of the meetings where nothing gets changed or accepted but for the agreement that Carol, from accounting, who is retiring this year, who is generous with her praise, never makes a fuss & will be forgotten in weeks of leaving, would really love another cat calendar. The anniversaries we neglect for our well-being. The smog of escaping. Staycations & expired memberships to the museum of left-behinds – all the artefacts of our past lives that never really worked out as we remember. It almost feels bearable. The parasitic burden of your diary eating your deposit & promising by the time the page turns on a new month you'll be out of the noose of your savings. I get it. It shouldn't have to be this way, but it is. You used to stand for something. Now you're browsing near-death experiences – saving up vacation days to really focus on your new-found passion for playing doctor the hard way – self-medication & the intricacies of your own autopsy. I think we had it pretty good, considering. Remember how you used to not mind being overlooked till everyone started to doubt your existence & now you can't convince people that you are alive. Passing familiarity with sleeplessness. Nodding acquaintance with loss. Fewer contacts in your phonebook & less inclination to trouble them. The dress shirts our families bought us at Christmases long past that we save for missed laundry days & refusing to let go of the touch of those who can't keep promises. You don't blame them. You can't. There's this aneurysm going around means they keep repeating the same skin song. This year they're gonna get it together. You haven't got it in you to argue. You have hobbies now that require the kind patience you pay off in instalments. The minutiae of catching a break, of catching up with school friends better left forgot, of fumbling the last moments of a relationship turned sour from disuse because you just have so much on right now & maybe it's better off this way. You haven't even been yourself for very long & now everything is ending anyways. The most you can do with what you were given. Decades of anchor wire blooming from your glassblower stomach trying to disprove your wounds. You let them. The specificity of activities that consume us. Regressing to childhood from having to call dentists about the cavities in your teratomas. Niche interests. Rewilding your past from the fleshy mechanics of distance. Pretending it was better or worse than it was, so you don’t flinch at finishing the bottle off after a long day. Gas station housewarming gifts & a future of debt. Misspelt well wishes on office whip-rounds. You forgo the right to being named complainant if only they'll just let you keep the sweet fucking sense of relief you deserve from switching off your brain after a decade of weeks. Favourite bookshops & the chain restaurants that inherit them. The groan of sidewalks between your jaw. A taste you have no desire to relish. Only ever making missed calls & the acrobatics of expressions we practise in the mirror to avoid moments like this & nothing much keeping on going, same as always & how are you? I saw you got married & had kids & that was what you always wanted wasn't it? & I’m sorry we didn't know each other as well as we deserved & no, I'm sorry I can't stop now, I have nowhere that I need to be but it's an appointment I cannot possibly, possibly be late for ... Zuiyo-Maru Carcass Remembering 00:00 / 01:50 CW: Grieving Two mothers let their girls play in roads. I get it. The cars are family to traffic & the edging of human sacrifice is a coping mechanism so this makes sense in a brother kind of way. Grieving is the opposite of touching & we are simple engines of brute force & moving on. Hooked on this kind of Cotard delusion where instead of being dead everyone you love is a Rube-Goldberg machine. Madame, your children are throwing roses yet yesterday they unveiled a great whale carcass colossal with pig grief. I’m not angry but I want to ask how they got it here when it was exactly what I needed. And you stormed the party as an unexpected contender at the dead-body Oscars. The red carpet loves you sticky with blood as it is. The children who studied at the church of the scientific method have asked you not abandon them in their time of need – to be a guarantor for their impartiality. I am here in theory only, drowning litre after litre of medical-grade kerosene. The thin edge of a wedge looking at the world like I know there's a crux but don't know what. Madame! These roses, do you need them returned? I need a bouquet for stopping journeys bloated with complex ecosystems as I am. Glass shard brittle worms, sleeper sharks & the empty of a life sunk. My friend was alive once, you have helped me understand how now he is not. Mothmen, Jackalopes, Rooksong, Yesterday And Other Cryptids 00:00 / 02:14 You are telling me the story of your parents forgiving you for the mistake of setting your nerve endings on fire. Removing all obscene in the telling. Tides of skin ripple your body. Sesamoid bones fall into your orbit as you weigh up this narrative. Your justifications have heavy. Your mouth is a purple bridge of history, a monument to spit off of into the river. I am weighing up my options in an escape kind of way, all I have ever been taught is narrative & not living up to the possibilities of absence demonstrated by those who disappeared from me. Both of us have a history of planting bridges in the chests of those who left us. Rewilding the bodies prone to burials, making something of our leaving. You are inheriting that which you least covet; architecture-sour mouths; promises of change & coral reefs. You are not sure if you are the ship sinking on them or if your ribcage is bleached from grounding too many sailors. You are reassuring me I am still here even after everything is gone. You are a giant sign that says TURN OFF NEXT LEFT. I dream of not leaving. I am sitting on my grandfather's lap. He has stopped playing to pull coins lost in my ear & instead finds a prophecy. I am loath to become heir to it. I never learned the rules of the game. My mouth, an argument of inherited language. You cover my body in road sign. Note that flight or freedom is a matter of perspective. Whisper to me to yield priority to oncoming gambits. My hands abandon their scaphoid & lunate, becoming shadows with purple mouths. At the river, two armies stop. They are telling the story of war. They take it in turns. They say they don't think it is a bad thing that they have to die. You go first , they say. This is half yours after all. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Ian McMillan read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Ian McMillan © Adrian Mealing back next the poet Presenter of BBC Radio 3's The Verb, compère of the annual T S Eliot Prize Readings, writer, broadcaster and recent recipient of The Freedom of Barnsley, Ian McMillan is a renowned British poet who's been everywhere and done more. He's already written a verse autobiography ( Talking Myself Home: My Life in Verses ), and now a memoir of childhood and the sea – My Sand Life, My Pebble Life . Ian’s been a castaway on Desert Island Discs , resident poet for English National Opera, and a contestant on BBC 1's Pointless Celebrities. His most recent collection is To Fold The Evening Star: New and Selected Poems . the poems Half a Minute Before the Start of the World 00:00 / 01:00 There was an idea. Well, more of the ghost Of an idea. And the idea/ghost idea was The idea of a tree. Somewhere (remember, There was no somewhere yet) The ghost of an idea of a tree waited To become an idea of a tree and then A tree. On the day before your first day At school you are full of possibilities In your little socks. Maybe you hold A crayon close to a blank sheet That almost collapses under metaphor’s Incalculable weight. It is, look, look, Half a minute before the start of the world And that (insert blankness here) of a tree Has no idea what the world has in store for it But it dreams its leaves are burning. Try Knocking on Your Own Door and Opening it 00:00 / 00:40 Your shadow Either side. Lit by possibility. This is like Walking and sitting down At the same time. This is like Being the past and the future At the same time. Knock now. Knock. Both sides of the door at once. Hearing the knock And being the one who knocks. Gaze through The letterbox At yourself, Knocking and listening. Listen. This is like Writing and reading At the same time. The Last Speaker of the Language 00:00 / 00:59 The last speaker of the language said this: ‘My words fall unnoticed; snow in a wood. No one to talk to’s like no one to kiss.’ Nobody answered. No one understood. The last speaker of the language lay down On the grass only he had the words for And felt his dry mind beginning to drown In the sound of old sounds closed like a door. The last speaker of the language looked up At what he called something I call the sun I passed him a drink. I call it a cup: His word for that thing is over and done. The untitled moon set fire to the night. When languages die, who says the last rites? Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Jan Harris read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Jan Harris back next the poet Jan Harris lives in Nottinghamshire, and was awarded a place on Writing East Midlands’ mentoring scheme in 2018. Her first collection, Mute Swans on the Cam , was published in 2020. Jan has had poems in various print and online journals, including Acumen , Atrium and Poetry Wales , as well as in many poetry anthologies. In 2019, Jan scooped third place in the Wales Poetry Award. the poems Summerlands 00:00 / 00:55 Willow man farms the summerlands, tends black maul in its bed of clay. At leaf fall he harvests young stems by machine. His father’s billhook rusts away. At home his wife dusts the crib great-grandmother wove from withies, stripped white as tight sinews, proud on her hand when she twined the pliant wands to shape. Their willow lines Old Yeo’s banks where whimbrel-song springs and water voles burrow deep in osier-cradled earth. And there they sleep, close to the river’s lap and lull. The glove her mother left unfinished 00:00 / 01:04 It would mean so much to me , my friend says, if you could finish it . She hands me the needles: two neat rows of knitting in soft black yarn, a single strand of silver shimmering through. The finished one hugs her wrist, fits each finger with comfort. The pattern is fragile with age, held together with yellowed tape, adjusted many times to fit her growing hand, the workings written in pencil on the back. I follow it with care, fall into the rhythm of her mother’s making. To finish the glove takes little from the skein, enough left over for a hat and scarf to keep a daughter warm on the coldest winter day. Urban sheepdog 00:00 / 01:28 He’s your uber-cool streetwise sidekick, hyper- connected through the wavelength of his lead, but unleash him and he flows like a brook through the park, gathers you in the oxbows of his meanders. No city nine-to-five for him – he keeps a farmer’s time. Wet nose in your face at dawn and instant-coffee eyes that perk you up for work – no time to play. The sticks you throw are sheep to stalk in stealth mode, belly low to dew-damp grass, his gaze unflinching before the fetch! He’s partial to the urban life. A taste of pilau rice from late-night takeaways goes down a doggy treat. He works out weekly at the canine gym, and though he’ll sleep on a rug, he always prefers to snore amid the snowdrift of your crisp and clean Egyptian cotton sheets. But see, his muzzle’s flecked with moorland brown. He dreams, and his paws shake like a new-born lamb. Publishing credits Summerlands: Ink Sweat & Tears The glove her mother left unfinished: Acumen (Issue 101) Urban sheepdog: winner of The Writer Highway Dog Poetry Competition 2020

Hear poet Peter A read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Peter A back next the poet Published widely in such places as Laldy , Spindrift, Poems for Grenfell Tower, A Kist of Thistles, A Kind of Stupidity and Bridges or Walls? , Peter A won first prize at the 2016 Paisley Spree Fringe Poetry Competition . During 2020, his work was anthologised in Words from Battlefield, Poets Against Trump , Surfing , The Angry Manifesto and Black Lives Matter – Poems for a New World . Peter's debut chapbook, Art of Insomnia , was published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2021. the poems Found in France 00:00 / 02:30 Though you would have to concede its picture perfect rural beauty here for the record are the things you wouldn’t like about the place. The middle of the countryside such a distance from anywhere. The crowded transport transferring from the airport. The open windows to keep the place cool inviting houseflies. The doorway dogs, the ever-darting omnipresent lizards. The lack of television. The steps, useful for others, which would be impossible for you. Around those steps the lavender which at home would aid your sleeping but here for you a nightmare, attracting wasps and bees. The spider’s improbably small body, impossibly spindly long legs, waiting in the shower room, patiently. Also the tiny white spider – I bet you never saw an entirely white spider! The mosquitoes, the hornets. The blood-sucking horseflies almost certainly lining up to feast upon you in particular. The bats awaiting the chance to be entangled in your lush long hair. The swimming pool that would be out of bounds for you. The conversation in which you would not wish to speak. The revelation before bedtime concerning the cleaner’s cat, its trophy mice and the minor flea infestation – successfully eradicated we think but let us know if you get bitten . As for me, the only aspect of the French place I do not appreciate is you not being here. After 00:00 / 00:54 After words their last have spoken and from here gone Afterwards it is said cockroaches will make the earth their own Do you see already some may be working to inherit behind the scenes planning preparing strategies awaiting the endgame from which all cockroach-types are due to benefit after the black rainfall/after the slaughter of words and laughter After Late night teardrop 00:00 / 00:40 I should certainly stop viewing old home movies, not because of their patchiness or participants’ awkwardness – that’s all part of their charm. Not because of their faded definition – I always liked the Impressionists. Not because they are silent cinema, recorded with the cheapest camera, but because they leave my heart haunted. Publishing credits Found in France: Art of Insomnia (The Hedgehog Poetry Press) After: Sci-Fi (Dreich Themes) Late night teardrop: The Wee Book of Wee Poems (Dreich Wee Books)

Hear poet Joanna Nissel read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Joanna Nissel back next the poet Director of Malika's Poetry Kitchen, a collective encouraging craft, community and development, Jill Abram grew up in Manchester, travelled the world and now lives in Brixton. She's performed her poems everywhere from London to the Ledbury Poetry Festival, as well as in Paris, the USA and online. Jill's poetry has appeared in The Rialto , Magma , Finished Creatures , Ink Sweat &Tears , And Other Poems and Harana . When not writing poetry, Jill produces and presents a variety of events, including the Stablemates series of poetry and conversation. the poems Thoughts on Mothers’ Day 2020 00:00 / 01:23 His tight hold and strong lead send the calendar backwards. I shed half my lifetime, my weight as we quick quick slow across the grass. This stranger saw my winces at every kick of the drum, tish of the hi-hat, chose to rescue me for a foxtrot around the garden. Evening sun stretches shadows – our heads bob among apple trees. I move at his command – can hear the melody playing in his head. We flow over the lawn: chasse, turn, promenade. A burst of laughter could be at our expense. His step never falters, he does not loosen his grip. Delicious 00:00 / 00:43 Tanks checked, mask on, I topple in backwards, descend. I approach your feet, count ten little toes, as there should be. I want to check fingers too but only have enough air for one full scan. They’ll have to wait until I’m halfway. Your legs are plump, a dimple on each side of chubby knees, as yet no sign of patella bones. There are folds at the top of each thigh to be checked carefully at every nappy change. And now I can see you are a boy. You should be my boy. A fat little belly, umbilicus trailing, wafting in the swell. Two functionless nipples but you’d look wrong without them. Now I can fin along an arm from your shoulder to the relief of thumb, four fingers, and across to the same on the other side. I swim away to see your whole face then back for the detail; teeny round chin, lips surprisingly full and a perfect bow. The cliché button nose, your eyelids fringed by blond lashes, closed. I want to see the colour of your eyes, for you to see me. It’s the Only Time I See Them On coming out – Hove Lawns 00:00 / 01:08 Mum says Dad was brought as a date for her sister by his friend who said, This is my friend Leo. Mum says Dad would have asked out whoever answered the phone, but he only rang at dinnertime when she was nearest. Mum says Dad took her to dinner and concerts, If I wanted to have fun, I’d go out with one of the others. Mum says Dad said, I’d like to marry you, but I only earn £4 a week. Mum says Dad went away, so when he came back she said, I suppose we’d better get married. Other people said she could give up work once she was a wife, but Dad said, Not bloody likely! After more than fifty years and two more generations, Dad says, Turn the radiator up, I can’t hear a word! Dad says, Have I had my dinner? when he’s just had his lunch. Mum says We’ve had the better, now’s the worse. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Dale Booton read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Dale Booton back next the poet Dale Booton (he/him) is a queer poet from Birmingham whose poetry has been published variously by Verve Poetry Press, Young Poets Network, Queerlings , The North and Muswell Press. He has work forthcoming with Magma , and recently hosted the Young Poets Takeover at Verve Poetry Festival. Dale's debut poetry pamphlet, Walking Contagions , is available to pre-order from Polari Press. the poems Church 00:00 / 01:05 when told that God is not meant to be understood I crumbled felt the weight of expectation as it dragged my body below the floor and held it there if knowledge is power then why can I not know why I am so powerful is it that my voice can be used as a weapon that my thoughts can soar beyond these four walls I’ve heard it said captivity is a state of mind I’ve been told theologists are the wisest of all well I beat Pastor at chess at pool broke out of the cage he put me in little child the Lord moves in mysterious ways but is never wrong so you tell me why you tried to darken my heart denied my being why the spirit of someone can only be what you say it is Classroom 00:00 / 00:54 how strange that want to preserve what is so obvious I have heard parents speak how they don’t want their children to know of people like me just like I don’t want my classes and colleagues to know how alone I feel we erase what we fear what we cannot understand drive it into the shadows in the hope it will never make it to light again here my voice is foreign this place where sexuality is a question-and-answer session each one a stone’s throw further from purpose no room for growth no stature that can define a willingness to teach those whose kin would want you dead Nightclub 00:00 / 00:52 I have heard the music speak to me it was the bodies of friends and strangers that introduced us kindred arms wrapped around the uncomfortable relax we move as one there is strength in physicality there is softness in letting go that not-so-sober shove onto the dancefloor that not-so-innocent rush to be close to some other proximity is breath a closely guarded secret here my breath is not foreign this place where love and lust are two words that begin with l like living Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Olivia Dawson read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Olivia Dawson back next the poet Discovering poetry as a mature Open University student, Olivia Dawson went on to publish her debut pamphlet, Unfolded , in September 2020. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Magma , Under the Radar , Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal , 14 Magazine and Eye Flash Poetry. Her work is also in the anthology, Time & Tide . Originally from London, Olivia now lives between there and Lisbon, where she's the area's Poetry Society Stanza representative. the poems Kylerhea Ferry Slip – Isle of Skye 00:00 / 00:36 Two moon jellyfish tremble close to shore where chill water licks slippery rocks. The sea pleats like accordion silk until an otter stirs the surface, twitches drops from whiskers, peers about, chases his tail then deep dives to re-emerge alongside the white flash of a fin zinc against teal, tacking a seam through spindrift like running stitch. Uncertain Coast Found poem with words from the Met Office online 00:00 / 00:46 Sunnier drizzle will probably spread through variable conditions with a risk of wet and dry. Somewhat changeable, but more settled, however perhaps cloudier thunder in odd spots should be expected, at times from the West, even the South. Elsewhere a chance of mist, the spread of an average, the possibility of breezy seas, scatterings of outlook, bright fog interspersed with isolated dying. Cold spells bounce back slowly, wintry snow patchy in occasional places, uncertain coast likely to last until May. Cosmetologist Creates Shampoo Infused with Sound 00:00 / 00:51 It’s hard to trap snuffles of a baby’s breath, the sssh of foam at low tide or the exhausted sigh of a heart when it breaks. I need silence, a sleight of hand, butterfly nets, Blu Tack to catch elusive threads, a freezer set to hoar frost until echoes split ready to be grated and mixed with white peach. Of course I make mistakes: the last batch picked up the zing of a trampoline spring from over the garden wall. But uncork this flask and what do you get? Why – use your imagination! Publishing credits Kylerhea Ferry Slip – Isle of Skye: Coast to Coast to Coast (Special Aldeburgh Issue) Uncertain Coast: 14 Magazine (Series 2, Issue 2) Cosmetologist Creates Shampoo Infused with Sound: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Brian Bilston read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Brian Bilston back next the poet Brian Bilston, author of the Costa-shortlisted novel Diary of a Somebody , has been dubbed both the ‘Banksy of poetry’ and ‘Twitter’s unofficial Poet Laureate’. His first book, You Took the Last Bus Home featured poems he'd shared on Twitter. His poem Refugees was adapted into a picture book for children, and his new collection of poetry, Alexa, what is there to know about love? was published in early 2021. the poems How to Avoid Mixing Your Metaphors 00:00 / 00:50 It’s not rocket surgery. First, get all your ducks on the same page. After all, you can’t make an omelette without breaking stride. Be sure to watch what you write with a fine-tuned comb. Check and re-check until the cows turn blue. It’s as easy as falling off a piece of cake. Don’t worry about opening up a whole hill of beans: you can always burn that bridge when you come to it, if you follow where I’m coming from. Concentrate! Keep your door closed and your enemies closer. Finally, don’t take the moral high horse: if the metaphor fits, walk a mile in it. She’d Dance 00:00 / 00:55 She’d dance like no one was watching although she liked to think he was. The kitchen was her grand ballroom; her partner was a mop. She’d foxtrot among the pots and pans, she’d paso doble to the sink, and as she swept across the floor, her mind danced, too. She’d think of how he’d held her in his arms at the Locarno and the Ritz - whirling, waltzing, a world apart - in the years before the kids, and longer still before the shadow the doctor spotted on his lungs. How dazzlingly they had danced! How dizzyingly she had spun! Her neighbours saw her sometimes, shuffling bent-backed to the shops. But at home, she’d dance like no one was watching although she liked to think he was. How Much I Dislike The Daily Mail 00:00 / 01:01 I would rather eat Quavers that are six weeks’ stale, tie up the man-bun of Gareth Bale, listen to the songs of Jimmy Nail, than read one page of the Daily Mail . If I were bored in a waiting room in Perivale, on a twelve-hour trip on Network Rail, halfway through a circumnavigational sail, I would not read the Daily Mail . I would happily read the complete works of Peter Mayle, the autobiography of Dan Quayle, selected scripts from Emmerdale , if it meant I didn’t have to read the Daily Mail . Far better to stand outside in a storm of hail, be blown out to sea in a powerful gale then swallowed by a humpback whale than have to read the Daily Mail . If I were blind, and it was the only thing in Braille, I still would not read the Daily Mail . Publishing credits How to Avoid Mixing Your Metaphors: Diary of a Somebody (Picador) She’d Dance: Alexa, what is there to know about love? (Picador) How Much I Dislike the Daily Mail: You Took the Last Bus Home (Unbound)

Hear poet Ivor Daniel read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Ivor Daniel back next the poet Ivor Daniel’s work has appeared in the Cheltenham Poetry Festival's wildfire words , Steel Jackdaw Magazine and Writeresque . He lives in Gloucestershire, where he works as an English tutor. the poems Perfect Bed 00:00 / 00:56 I dream I am at Bembom Brothers Dreamland funfair park with Tracey Emin. Hard by Margate sands. I know I shouldn’t drink that Vodka on the Helter Skelter. Apart from that, a Day as Perfect as the Lou Reed song. We Kiss with Fish and Chips Lips, Join Hips. A Turner Sunset Going Down. I guess it is the Golden Hour. Blair’s Babes and even some of his men MPs are busy Changing a whole heap of things for the Better. Back in your room we remember that we even Changed the Bed this morning. The linen soft and cool next to our Optimistic skin. Questions & Starlings 00:00 / 03:01 Wow! Can the sun set blue azure and flame at the same time? How do starlings twist and turn as one? Who decided this is called a murmuration ? And who was that, going behind that awesome tree? No...It couldn’t be.. sweeping turning swooping......soon arriving from all directions. swelling then melting then swelling. streamlining safe in such numbers. pirouetting protection from predators. twist turn swoop swirl your genie is out of the bottle. shape-shifting unsolid sculpture of starling. you spinning top you sundown twister. a magic carpet has slipped its cave. . ...a cloud of iron filings .. ... dancing from... ..and to .. . . ..an ecstatic magnet. if we could cast the ashes........ of our loved ones as elegantly as your silken swirl then that would be the perfect way to go. intuiting when to turn in complex shifting patterns through a liminal space between remarkable and miracle. flying like no one is watching or maybe like God could be watching. oblivious of compass points and rocket science yet also knowing more than this. murmuration motion poetry in motion your swarm is the truth. black mustard seed beauty. then in the last of daylight at the secret signal a final funneling collective swoop down an unseen chimney to land on your roosting grounds. I labour with my leaden words, and muse on whether starlings know how spellbinding they are. And God. Is that you behind that awesome tree? Is this the last, the only, evidence that you exist? Was this your hobby all along: the choreography of sunset starlings? And is that just the slightest hint of disappointment on your face at how the human cohort of Creation has performed? Tread Lightly 00:00 / 01:31 I navigate the micro fathom ocean charts of flat portal ice puddles on a January farm track With their trapped air bubbles whorling patterns coils gyres spirals curls Trapped otherworldly whirls Secret as fingerprints coiled like intestines mysterious as a foetal scan marbled as the white fat in Spanish ham Iced lava lamps but underfoot Liquid light shows behind psychedelic bands but monochrome The frozen surface flat as frosted glass The patterns captive Zany This is the cat ice So named because it can only bear the weight of a cat Cold-pawed agile Although I am yet to meet the cat who would leave the warmth of the hearth to test ice puddles with its paws or fret on other scientific laws as hydrostatic pressure capillary action et cetera I make a resolution to tread lightly Publishing credits All poems: Exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Charlotte Gann read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Charlotte Gann back next the poet Charlotte Gann is a writer and editor from Sussex who enjoys walking the South Downs in her spare time. Her first pamphlet was The Long Woman , which saw her shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award in 2012. Two full collections followed: Noir and The Girl Who Cried , as well as another pamphlet, Cargo . Charlotte also founded and runs online hub The Understory Conversation : a space for fellow writers to meet, talk and share in small groups and one to one. the poems The house with no door 00:00 / 00:38 The house with no door looks welcoming, with its wisteria and robins. I can see, through the kitchen window, a bowl of cherries. They’re the brightest, darkest, shiniest cherries. But that window’s shut and bolted. I move on round. I know I shouldn’t walk on flowerbeds. I keep thinking the door must be around the next corner. I’ve lost count now how many times I’ve circumnavigated. In the Classroom of Touch 00:00 / 01:36 This is how you hold a person , Mr Farnham says demonstrating. Your touch needs to be light but firm. Felt in the skin like a weight, a squeeze. No sudden movements, please. Still is best. The pupil he’s performing on closes her eyes, head slightly folded like a bird’s. She’s collapsed into his woollen front. See how my arms arc? the teacher asks his class. Hold each other like precious cargo. Never be rough. Don’t shove into the person you love. Don’t steal touch. Be clear about this: we give a hug. Thanks Lydia, back to your seat now. Giles–? The boy stares down at his feet, face pink. His worst subject. Mr Farnham waits quietly, bends his head, smiles. C’mon Giles , he says gently. The boy staggers down the ragged aisle between assorted classmates. Waits while this man opens his arms. Falls forward, hiding his face, his sobs. The teacher enfolds him carefully, whispers, You’re doing well, Giles . Calling Time 00:00 / 02:09 So I’d sit at my desk waiting and hoping and trembling before someone would say it – maybe me – A quick drink after work – and we’d go night after night, pint after pint after pint. We’d smoke sixty cigarettes, drink drink after drink starting at six when seven thirty seemed another, safe country but suddenly was upon us, then long gone and it’s more like half nine and our table a landscape of pint glasses and overflowing ashtrays after trip upon trip to the cigarette machine in the hallway and turn after turn to the bar for another round, another tray of toppling filled glasses and laughter and it still only Tuesday, say, and then the bar staff flashing the lights on and off and it must be after eleven and they’re calling a warning and stacking chairs at the other end of the narrow room and we’re the only table left and still we stay drinking and shouting until they call ‘Time’ and yank the noisy chain grille down over the bar and padlock it and turn the lights off and we grope our way blindly foghorning back up the stairs and even then not out into the night, contrite, rushing for last Tubes but into the hotel bar for residents only where the drinks are even more expensive and it’s just us two now usually and we order ‘A night cap’ then ‘One for the road’ lighting cold fags and slumping on that black-leather slidey sofa in this pot-planted environment with piano muzac playing softly and it’s hard now to keep my spirits up with you falling silent beside me so near and far away. Publishing credits The house with no door: The Lyrical Aye: Richie McCaffery Calling Time: London Grip (Summer 2022) In The Classroom of Touch: The Rialto (No. 81)

Hear poet Corinna Board read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Corinna Board back next the poet Corinna Board teaches English as an additional language in an Oxford secondary school. She grew up on a farm, and her writing is often inspired by the rural environment. Her work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in And Other Poems , Anthropocene , berlin lit , Propel Magazine , Spelt Magazine , Atrium , Ink Sweat & Tears , Magma and elsewhere. Corinna won the Gloucestershire Wildlife category of the 2023 Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust poetry competition, and was commended in the 2024 Verve Poetry Festival Eco-Poetry competition. She published her debut pamphlet, Arboreal , in January 2024. the poems Picking up my prescription ‘Sometimes as an antidote to fear of death, I eat the stars.’ ~ Rebecca Elson ~ 00:00 / 01:00 There are no stars in this city. I nibble on concrete, sip cocktails of NO₂. I’m dying for a decent constellation. Would some of those neons do? Or the flashing red lights on a high-rise? I FaceTime Olivier in the Pyrenees. He points his camera at Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Orion’s Belt … Star after star devoured through my screen. I whisper Merci , then sleep like a baby. When the woman in Boots tells me I’m glowing, I say it must be the new meds. I keep quiet about the stars. On the tube ride home, they twinkle in my stomach like a Tiffany’s heist. My uncle brings back a fox tail from the fields 00:00 / 01:09 He is carrying his rifle, brandishing the tail like a trophy. A week ago, the fox (was it this one?) got into the coop and slaughtered all the hens. My uncle is grinning. The tail is cleanly cut, bloodied at the end. It hangs from a nail in the big barn, swinging like a corpse on the gallows. For days, I'm scared to touch it. The fur is coarser than I expected. I comb it with my fingers, breathe in its musk, close my eyes and pretend it's whole. Later, I run wild with my cousins. We are foxes — and I, the eldest, am the mother, the vixen. Driven by hunger, I burn through the fields, my cubs left hiding in the ripening wheat. The wind ruffles my coat the wrong way. Too late, I pick up his scent. Field notes 00:00 / 02:02 1. field noun : an area of land, used for growing crops or keeping animals, usually surrounded by a fence. 2. Green as far as the eye can see, then the brook. Water-mint, pebbles bedraggled in weed. 3. A six-year-old girl with a net, a bucket full of bullheads. Friesian cows bellowing, tick of the fence. Where did the years go? 4. Before he died, my uncle planted a rowan tree – there in the tall grass. 5. When we first saw the barn owl, it could have been a ghost. It flew low over the field, wings whispering. 6. If I buried my heart, what would grow? Perhaps a sapling. 7. Today, I have counted three kinds of butterfly: marbled white, common blue, speckled wood. 8. Dear Field, Do you ever dream of picking yourself up and striding off over the horizon? Be honest now. 9. I don’t know what I’d do if you left. I love you, field. Please stay. 10. Are you crying or is that rain? 11. In the field, I’m a child again. All this green, all this sky. I could disappear. 12. Meadow foxtail, yellow oat, timothy. I am the field, and the field is me. I am the field , and the field is me . Publishing credits Picking up my prescription: Anthropocene (July 2024) My uncle brings back a fox tail from the fields: Modron Magazine (Issue Four) Field notes: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Yvonne Marjot read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Yvonne Marjot 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