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)

Hear poet Anila Arshad-Mehmood read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Anila Arshad-Mehmood Johanna Elizabeth Photography back next the poet Anila Arshad-Mehmood (she/her) volunteers as a governor at a school and a trustee at a mental health charity. She has a professional background in mental health and wellbeing working with young people, and currently delivers safeguarding and mental health training to colleagues. Her writing focuses on her experiences of immigrant family life in an anti-cohesive lifestyle. Anila's interests range from reading, drinking coffee and petting cats to travelling as widely as possible to learn about other cultures and cuisines. An enthusiastic member of several book clubs, Anila considers poetry an abiding personal passion. the poems The World is Made This Way 00:00 / 01:09 When I scrunch my nose up Tight into my brain I feel something It's like a bad smell crawled into my mind to hold on to Why do we do the things we do To make others feel bad for their good You can be good Own your best Your strength is power And if you are better than the rest why is it Bad to feel good to feel bad to feel Something about me is triggered by you Not something is bad about you I'm letting you know I'm feeling something because of how you Present to me but it's me who feels the feeling Not you who is bad to be good in me forcing feelings on Owning my feeling My strength My best Better, smart, assured Because not everything is me and the world is different and we all have our Better and best self and skill and behaviour And this one can be mine It isn't yours But it's not bad to say Because the world is made this way Labyrinth 00:00 / 02:31 There's a ball of twine glowing at my feet I could pick it up, See if it leads me to the centre of the labyrinth. Or I could stay here, Try my way back to the door which I closed behind me. I didn't lock it but I didn't leave breadcrumbs, I was certain the way back wasn't needed, interesting or useful anymore. Going back or forwards, Forward or backwards. When you communicate differently what do you see A different reaction or an explanation that emotions exist Hide Exist inside your mind, nose, mind. I'm a woman with emotions, More than hate, rage, fear, rage, anger, rage, sadness, rage Curious, open, sadness, happiness, excitement, engaged, hopeful Open the door and check with the key Which key opens the door This behaviour means Empath: noun noun: empath; plural noun: empaths 1. (chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to perceive the mental or emotional state of another individual. Emotional perception, try on the jacket of his dear friend and coat yourself in their sadness, happiness, sadness, step away so it leaves you behind. Emotional perception so your eyes glaze with the tinted glasses on his dear friend see sadness, happiness, sadness. Emotional perception, try on a medicated maze of bars blocking the feelings of every dear friend so only you can feel numb and nothing – not their dear saddappiness. Empathic Guide. Twine in a maze of bloody chains and no need for breadcrumbs, step into the light and wander around without the twine. No map, no guide, no rooms, doors, windows, what comes next, explore, who says twine is the way to explore anymore? Still 00:00 / 00:49 the women who came before me Rose but how can I wonder how can I access my sass draw on words and steal back breath to rise above this smog engulfing me I am drowning in black squares zoom sequences and distant W A L K S dreaming of the time when I step back from the bitter twisted lies written in hashtags I’ll remember I didn’t run from discomfort even when it ran from me like women who came before me I want to fill with air and rise Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Hilary Watson read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Hilary Watson back next the poet Growing up in South Wales and now living in Cardiff, Hilary Watson graduated from the University of Warwick with a BA and MA in Writing. She was a Jerwood/Arvon mentee, and has had her poetry published widely in UK and international magazines, including Atrium , Ink, Sweat & Tears , Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal and The Interpreter's House . Hilary is also an editor at thrutopian writing magazine, Bending The Arc . the poems Accountability Badger 00:00 / 01:31 Badger glares at you in the street from behind the net curtains of his two up two down. No chimney smoke, no love escapes the chamber of his heart. He knows what you did, what you keep doing to yourself each time you choose avoidance, when you’re too fearful to forgive. ‘Unforgivable,’ he mutters, sips tepid Marmite, his claws tight on the handle of the mug. He’s thinking now of earthworms, slugs, of how you hold him hostage in this Valleys town because you crave accountability, refuse to take the test, to do the work yourself, the stripes behind his ears turning grey. ‘One last job,’ he’d said, typically assignments taking half as long. He clasps the teaspoon in his padded paw, stirs clockwise, anticlockwise, tuts, shakes his head as some new excuse issues from your mouth. Excuse 00:00 / 00:59 The excuse arrives in the palm as though it was always going to land there, like a dragonfly out on the hunt, settling to eat its catch. The excuse is effervescent, more delicate than expected but who can deny that weight of legs in the centre of an outstretched hand? Fortunes cannot be read, but look here; that stance across the life and love lines folded into crevices. Who could ask for a more convincing reason, conceive of a lie that cuts so deep as the jaw of that magnificent dragonfly crushing a gnat to cells? Pygmy Hippo 00:00 / 01:05 Lean on my gate. The man in green throws carrots into this stew of my own making. Submerged, I can hold my breath for ages, walk underwater, bob for air, my nostrils bubbling apostrophes. Toss me a dandelion leaf. I’ll show you that to love me is to know no decency. Shy, me? I can go months without making a peep. I sweat blood. Ferocity’s my middle name. The man in green throws cucumber, fern fronds. I am going to die here. A young human climbs an old human. Some fun, at last. Find the diamond resting on my tongue. I’ll open wide. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

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

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

Hear poet Stephanie Clare Smith read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Stephanie Clare Smith back next the poet Stephanie Clare Smith is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, whose forthcoming lyric memoir, Everywhere the Undrowned , will be published in spring 2024 by the University of North Carolina Press. Stephanie's poetry and essays have been published in various journals including Bellevue Literary Review and Xavier Review . She currently lives in North Carolina where she's a social worker and mediator for families in crisis. the poems Small 00:00 / 01:18 Sleep is my friend, I tell myself. I don’t believe myself. I need more friends. What I have is Joni Mitchell songs stuck in my head. I really don’t know love at all. I make shapes with my body under the covers as though I am falling from a plane in the sky – a fetus, a windmill, a steak knife. Which shape survives a long-distance drop? The Times said a fetus – survivors fall small. In the morning, I wake like a clock. A chopper’s overhead beating the air. But this is not Nam or Afghanistan. The radio reports cops up above. A man dumped a woman out of his truck onto the avenue that feeds the heart of the city. Or else she jumped to escape the not-Nam/Afghanistan war in that truck. He fled on foot when the chopper hovered over. All day he’s at large like a storm in the sky. All day she’s out cold in a hospital wing. I feel all small; how she jumped or was dumped in the shape of log that rolled across the road that feeds the heart of the city. When a Horse Smells the End is Near 00:00 / 00:28 nostrils flare fist wide eyes shoot sideways halfway white a bad blows up bigger there nothing left to blind the view a storm stares through a round black sky a moon cut up a crack across the back of night and gallop gone to the edge foul the way it’s over Whereabouts 00:00 / 01:14 I dream I’ve gone missing. Wake up still here in this adopted state, out of place, nothing new. I throw back the comforter, count ten friends from home, lost or gone. Mostly gone. Mostly dope. They follow me to the sink like prayers. I cup my hands underwater. Wash my face, dress up my past, miss ten laughs. I drive to work, clip on my name. Be here for now. If I didn’t stay, if I’d kept on driving, someone here would call the cops, at least by Thursday. But it’s not a crime to just get gone. All I’d take with me is mine, low-key in my little car. I’d drive to other towns, all gone grey. Adopt every state. Take on new names. Hope, Mercy, maybe Shame. Maybe Eleven. The ten gone missing ride along with me and sing our songs. I stay put for now, feed feral cats, work overtime, eat out on Fridays. My little not-disappearing acts. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Simon Alderwick read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Simon Alderwick back next the poet Raised in Surrey and now settled in Oxford after several years of moving between various locations in England, Wales and the Philippines, Simon Alderwick is the author of poetry pamphlet ways to say we’re not alone . His poems have been featured in Magma , Anthropocene , Ink Sweat & Tears , Berlin Lit , Acropolis , Dust Poetry Magazine and elsewhere. Simon's debut collection, reaper in a headlock, will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2026. the poems love in the age of extinction 00:00 / 01:01 hot day on her lips, record-breaking thighs. no ice left when she tells me – we need a circular economy. she breaks the bones in my fingers, feeds me water – filtered – through a paper straw. straddles me, hushes my concerns, this aging population. she knows love’s impossible, keeps sandbags stacked against the door. we can't die out like dinosaurs – she says – we are God's chosen creatures. but her laugh, a tipping point. she drills me until she strikes oil. we spill across the bedroom floor. smoke like chimneys after. she says: the future’s out on Mars. – i don’t think we’ll make it. when she's gone my cat brings me birds fallen from the sky. the game 00:00 / 01:11 my daughter holds a red building block to her cheek, says: hello . i pick up another brick, say: hello . no daddy , she says, taking my hand, you’re in London . she walks me to the bedroom; goes out; closes the door. i put my ear to the receiver of the block. i can hear her through the door. hello . brick heavy in my hand. i miss you . my hand against my head. when are you coming home? i tell her soon. i tell her i’m on the airplane. i break down the bedroom door. holding my arms out like an airplane; fly around the front room; land in the front garden; run to the front door. my daughter runs to me kicking toys across the floor. i hold her in my arms. it’s a silly game but it feels good to make a game of it at last. flubbergust 00:00 / 00:35 can't come out today – bit of a mad one i was opening a packet of crisps and found a blue whale inside i said: normally the packaging is inside you but he failed to see the funny side i called a number on the crisp packet but i don’t think the girl was listening she said it should go out with the general waste i said for the love of god it's still alive Publishing credits love in the age of extinction: exclusive first publication by iamb the game: shortlisted for The Telegraph Poetry Competition 2022 flubbergust: Magma 81