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 S Reeson read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. S Reeson back next the poet S Reeson (she/they) is 58 and bisexual. They have been published by The Poetry Society and Bloomsbury/OneWorld, and had work in more than 20 publications and anthologies – most recently, Ink, Sweat & Tears . When not creating, they are very close to being able to deadlift their body weight. the poems Blame 00:00 / 00:52 I will not let this voice be silenced this has become a moment definition carving ideals going forward that in a space for giving the right things aren’t received people have stopped listening everyone who plays this game do you see that rules have changed questions transform weapons a proper form to lessons learnt at distance and in time I will ask this voice will define Cascade 00:00 / 01:27 the day she opened up my brain put her hand inside plucked out a poisoned shard I may not have been listening instead I may have been falling the day I learnt fairy stories aren't for happy endings they're for lessons earnt I heard inertia's static undermining that may soon destroy us all I renounced its terrorism ~ another day begins within a schism inside this safest space indicates an altering position I do not see enough inclusivity instead I only taste their lack of comprehension the day that other people accept they're born as levers the world might then begin to change I will not repeat a previous senseless history inbred I will become a helper kinder force idealism ~ the day I finally embrace a subtle shift relaxing this constant fist constant poisoned shards cascade away Give 00:00 / 00:51 sometimes it is about you and the comprehension given to what it is that isn’t good an acceptance of a need to change looking at what’s fundamentally wrong piling up as rubbish round our feet nobody anywhere is perfect ask when was the last time objectivity came off the shelf in the spaces between living take a long hard look at yourself there is always space to give Publishing credits All poems: previously published in the author's Substack

Hear poet Kate Jenkinson read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Kate Jenkinson back next the poet Dr Kate Jenkinson is scientist and poet reconciled – and one of a handful of LinkedIn Business Poets . Her work has appeared in publications such as Flights , Feral and Steel Jackdaw . In 2022, she performed her TEDx talk Poetry Never Abandons Us . Two years later, her debut collection Un/Broken was born. Kate is the founder of the groundbreaking Poetry in Business Conference, launched in 2024, with its mission of creating more paid jobs for poets. Her neurodivergence and aphantasia are both features of her recent work. She also likes hats, writing about the many she wears. the poems Curated Chaos 00:00 / 02:11 INCOMING TEXT: ‘It’s been a right faff. But I’ve got it sorted.’ Love is: changing a tyre at 10.30pm so I can go to my poetry workshop, and he can play golf Love is: asking if you want to eat tea together Love is: eating tea together ADHD is: forgetting you said you would eat tea together, getting distracted and forgiveness. Zuihitsu legitimises distraction allowing me to follow the flow of a busy brain. Lyrics that are my life’s soundtrack I’ll tell you what What I have found That I’m no fool I’m just upside down. Kairos time is my favourite. It’s not chronology. It’s being ready to seize the moment! Is a neurodivergent brain synonymous with creativity? I think it could be. Would you be interested in attending more live events in Hebden Bridge or the local area? I don’t know what the local area means, so how do I answer that question? I definitely want to attend more live events in the North as opposed to virtual, but I really miss the chat function – which is ironic (it should be called the random thoughts function). Random thoughts I have often that infiltrate and illuminate my dreams: • losing my teeth • resitting my ‘A’ Levels • getting to school late and then waking to remember I’m 55 and I can never be late for school again. Ducks sound like they are laughing – well they would – they outlasted the dinosaurs. Corporal Punishment 00:00 / 01:42 I pushed you hard: in sport, in study, in life, at work. I burnt you out three times at least. I neglected, ignored, dehydrated and undernourished you. Dear Body , I am sorry I didn’t learn to love you more when we were young. I only noticed you in pain or pleasure, never in-between. I rebelliously loved the features others called out in playground names: rubber lips, hairy legs, melancholy eyes. I had to cover up for shame of exposing thighs, ‘above the knee’, that others should not see. Now I wish I had been there for you, as you have always been there for me. Had I understood your needs I may not have fallen so low. Menopause feels like your revenge as you demand attention through every wayward regulation. P.S. I will do my best to listen, to understand the transformation we are going through. I must accept this for what it is: a time to be wise, womanly, mature. Where sleep, thoughts, thermoregulation, nutrition, heart beats, beauty are in transition. Body , I will learn to love you more. Forgotten 00:00 / 01:11 I forget. Then remember I’ve forgotten to forget, again. A repeating pattern. Every time the shame, the stinking shame of it screws my face, makes me gag. Those reeking memories plague me. Remind me of all I wish I’d done for me, instead of giving that promise of a better life to someone else. I could have asked for help. But a strong woman has no voice. She shoulders the burden mute; stubborn as a beaten mule. She digs in deeper. Calloused hands dig so deep, she is buried in remembering. And only when she’s six foot under, coffin-deep, bone-cold, where no-one can hear her, forgotten: she screams. Publishing credits Curated Chaos / Forgotten: exclusive first publication by iamb Corporal Punishment: Un/Broken (Poetic Edge Publishers)

Hear poet Rachel Carney read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Rachel Carney back next the poet Writer, creative writing tutor and academic Rachel Carney is based in Cardiff. She won the 2021 Pre-Raphaelite Society Poetry Competition, and has had work place highly in several other competitions. Her poetry has appeared in One Hand Clapping , The Interpreter's House , Ink, Sweat & Tears and elsewhere. Rachel's debut collection, Octopus Mind , with its themes of perception, creativity and neurodiversity, was one of The Guardian’s Best Poetry Books of 2023 . the poems Self-Portrait as Pieces of a Saint After Saint Teresa of Avila 00:00 / 01:01 you may kiss my jaw in Rome or grip my finger bones in Avila peer through thick museum glass at my shrivelled drooping heart and see how they transfigured me at death into a slice of pious art my humble flesh spooned out in prayer my left arm pinned for you in crystal decomposing slowly in its own realm I am exhumed again my skin ripped from its frame plundered for your touch your taste devoured by your curiosity your faith in me and though you hold the pieces of me in your hands I am not here I never was Dys 00:00 / 00:56 I want to dis/ entangle the sly hiss of dys, to dis/embowel the fraught dis/ease of it, as it slips in front, so sure, so certain. I want to dis/turb its dis/avowal, crumple it, curtail its sudden fist, flung like an abuser’s kiss. I want to dis/arm the beast of it, dis/dain its dis/approval, dis/pel its dis/paraging taste, its dull dis/gust, how it dis/ figures our praxis, dis/misses us. I dis/inter dys – its cold corpse dis/carded on the kitchen floor, like an old god. Mine 00:00 / 01:18 I’ve known you, always, in the small pearl of your absence, drifting slowly away from me across the years. I’ve felt your restless waters, your crumbling edifice, your waves. I’ve seen how dark this cave is, full of dancing shadows, echoes of echoes. There is no avoiding the possibility of you in the ebb and flow of ongoing tides. I’ve seen you in the flash of the sun on the water. I blink, and then you’re out of sight. I’ve heard your quiet breath, as you lap against my surface. Your shore is wide and open, your song a song of life, your ripples hardly there. I’ve always known how impossible you are. A bubble, faint with light. The skin of you so thin. What would it take to turn you into flesh? How can we know what could have been? Publishing credits All poems: Octopus Mind (Seren Books)

Hear poet May Chong read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. May Chong back next the poet May Chong, a Chinese/Malaysian poet and speculative writer, has had her work featured in Strange Horizons , Uncanny Magazine , adda , Parentheses Journal and elsewhere. She enjoys spoken word (watching and performing), birdwatching and terrible puns. May's nature-themed micro-chapbook, Seed, Star, Song , is available as part of Ghost City Press' Summer 2020 series. the poems You ask the soil if you belong 00:00 / 02:10 What has always been whispered through other leaves grows bold, thunderclaps laterite-red: never. Transplant, hue and clay, your roots never the right length. Untrue/half-bred not hybrid, weed not plant. Be silent and show some gratitude for this flowerbed, for being at all allowed. If you protest, tear up taproots and leave, raw mandrake words and all. Never mind how we were all planted once upon a time. One more time. The loess left behind answers come home . You will be welcome and warm, one with brethren abandoned before seedcoat thoughts. Come home , you must return to ancestral yellow, mellow alluvium where no others are allowed. (But you have already torn/ been torn tongue from stem to survive. You feel the way you will wither, alone in a field of pinched heads.) Rocks whisper from where black dragons tumbled them riverwise. In your sap runs neverbelonging, mountain thrust into monsoon. We are all of us guests from nowhere. The knowing makes it easier to bear the stones. And still you want. You awaken. Again you ask the soil if you belong, and you should not be grateful for silence. Yet you are. Lockdown 00:00 / 01:11 Grant me space secured with key, myself and I. Walls of my own creation, closest to a one-man hug. A floor to take a stand on, because the letting in has meaning. Give me granite and blood concrete before those who have ripped 'moment' and 'wait' and 'just' from their dictionary. Swallow the deep diggers who think keys are only for those in hiding. My time has its meaning, its rhythm and combinations because bolts in the head are trouble and padlocks through the heart are worse. Ask the selves I debrided, husbanded, ribs toothed like tiger traps. Vulnerability has meaning, meaning let me slam the door closed and fling it wide to let you in, you who means something. And even now 00:00 / 01:19 A radish waxes defiant in the asphalt below JR Osaka station’s pedestrian bridge. A man thinks of its rich tresses, his granddaughter, the last time he felt like smiling. Near Wangsa Maju, a moth flies into a packed LRT. Small as hope, alive. A whole carriage holds its breath until it lands on a Bangladeshi worker's chapalled toe. Some nameless brown bird gurgles into the rain-soaked morning. Soon there will be sun and wind enough for everything to dry gorgeous. Silence is learning how to unlock love, unlock tears from behind teeth, loose them with the gasp of something born anew. You learn from your elders how to make broth from the good bones of a world and still, and still, and still— Publishing credits You ask the soil if you belong: Bending Genres (Issue 19) Lockdown: exclusive first publication by iamb And even now: Banshee (Issue 12)

Hear poet Hannah Linden read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Hannah Linden © Jeanette Mullins 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)

Hear poet Lesley James read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Lesley James back next the poet Lesley James is a writer from Wales whose debut poetry chapbook is A Walk With Scissors . She's been published in a range of literary magazines and anthologies, including BOLD , The Broken Spine , Full House Literary Mag and Spelt Magazine . She was shortlisted for a UK Very Short Story award by LoveReadingUK, and won Cardiff Writers’ Poetry, Flash and Article prizes in 2022-23. Lesley's words have also earned her two 2023 Best of the Net nominations. the poems Ways in which a cortado can prompt existentialism (No. 3) 00:00 / 01:09 In the pastel Caffè Nero that used to be my bank, a man nudges a scuffed skirting board with his toe as he moves a chair. It falls off. I realise they’re all fake. Held on by silicone or No More Nails. What’s important is the impression. Never mind the feeling of concealment and being duped. The Doric pillars rise. But not very far. What sits above the lowered ceiling, I ask a barista? Beyond the replicated coving? He shrugs and shakes his head behind the Perspex screen. Bank clerks, no doubt. In a stately two-tone world. Greying and cobwebby. You Don’t Know What I’ve Done With thanks to Rachel Long, Caroline Bird and Arda Collins 00:00 / 01:02 And they say that Polar bears are under threat, but I saw them – one grey one beige – shopping in Cardiff City Centre yesterday. I did one of Harry Styles’ tattoos – and they threw me out of art class aged thirteen. Lizzo chose me to be one of her Big Gurrl Dancers, and I said ‘No, bitch.’ You don’t know what I’ve done. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'VE DONE. I invented squissors, scissory tongs to squeeze the slop from cat food pouches so you don’t get gunk all on your hands. And you know that gunk, the cat food stuff that drips all on your hands … I’ve licked that. I chose an elderly guy – seventy-five – to fuck to end my marriage – Yeah! I stole the cat – that cat, the one who lives with me – from his perfectly good home and made friends with his real mother. And I write it. I write it all. Like I’m writing us. Now. In The Drag Queen Vegan Café Ways in which a cortado can prompt existentialism (No. 5) 00:00 / 02:05 To unsheathe September’s lunaria seed from their waxy shields, you should first lick your fingertips. Take a single flat seed head between two fingers and a thumb, and make to snap your fingers. It falls apart. The crispy ovals flutter down. Catch the falling seeds. Some will jump away, and found the Honesty of two years’ time. Pearl lantern moons remain. On vanilla feet with toffee apple fur, the cat forgets we do this every year. He chases the papery housings like they are secrets I’ve been keeping from him, or his own free will. In darkness he practises sleeping round corners for when winter comes. But for now, everything is drag-queen vegan café, Banksy in Port Talbot, Frida Kahlo on blue brick. The buddleia points tourmaline fingers at pigeon-blood cosmos wearing bee earrings (clip-ons). The wingbeats of overhead sparrows purr like flicked open fans. Last night’s massive bedroom moth (critch-critch) has laid eggs from her orange furry bum, and left the building. Everything is voluminous, daubed-on, lipstick smeared, waiting to die. An apple drops. The astilbe is still. Publishing credits Ways in Which a Cortado Can Prompt Existentialism (No. 3): A Walk With Scissors (Infinity Books UK) You Don’t Know What I’ve Done: exclusive first publication by iamb In The Drag Queen Vegan Café: Full House Literary Magazine (Issue 2)