VeraClark
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Oestara
Belton House. He was queueing with his mam on the springy grass verge where the stone steps rise up to the hall. The sort of kid that never stays...
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- 537 reads
Things You Keep
Fake NUS card At big comp, you dress almost identical to your best friend in a red hooded coat and cork-heeled shoes. You got yours first. Her coat...
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- 632 reads
Bread and Lard
A little girl in a frothy tutu in the Bread and Lard Island Cafe is deliberating which chair to climb onto. The four adults accompanying give too...
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Clavicembalo col piano e forte
When I left, I referred to him as The Iceberg. The ex earned his title because I had a thing about glaciers. Back in primary school I learned all...
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Not All Pianos Have 88 Keys
10th March 2025 Dear Jon, It has been an age since we spoke way back in the wilderness of Covid. I write from a proper desk this time, not some...
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- 357 reads
Loved this. A circus of wordy
Posted on Mon, 21 Jul 2025
Loved this. A circus of wordy legends. Where is Walrus these days?
Read full commentPosted in Homage
A wild take on fhe sun. You
Posted on Tue, 07 Oct 2025
A wild take on fhe sun. You still do these well, Rhiannon.
Read full commentPosted in Perspective
When sleep is outside of
Posted on Mon, 06 Oct 2025
When sleep is outside of night it brings the surreal with it, like your poem has. That last verse is a beautiful balance, the tempo quietening, as the storm recedes. Beautiful.
Read full commentPosted in The weather and other remedies
I am another of these women
Posted on Sun, 29 Oct 2017
I am another of these women and I hear you. The repetition has a profound effect on the build of abuse and then a destabilising one in its close. Felt very emotional reading this. It feels like looking out on a clean still morning with a blue sky...
Read full commentPosted in i am the woman who
Loss is inexplicable and yet
Posted on Tue, 04 Apr 2017
Loss is inexplicable and yet airyfairy manages to pin down the dislocation and vulnerability of the unspeakable with beauty, compassion and carefully placed humour. It's our Pick of the Day. (and thinking of you)
Read full commentPosted in The List
Sometimes a place gives
Posted on Tue, 31 Jan 2017
Sometimes a place gives fabulous journeys to our internal psyche and your poem did for me, it gave me a clarity that's hard to articulate and that sense of being almost near-to-knowing the self, a temporal sensation that's never linear or pinned...
Read full commentPosted in Auchtertyre
Such a crock that scent and
Posted on Fri, 18 Nov 2016
Such a crock that scent and taste invoke a person (I used to eat things I hated to feel close to somebody!) but there's definitely something in the ceremony of opening their favourite bottle.
Read full commentPosted in I don't really like Hardy's Legacy
I thought this was inventive
Posted on Thu, 17 Nov 2016
I thought this was inventive and beautiful, Catherine. It's rural and plump. I dont think kennings have to be easily identifiable, part of the historic interest was in the new sounds and what was gained in the process of deconstruction. You can...
Read full commentPosted in Ladenbox
The coastal imagery combined
Posted on Thu, 17 Nov 2016
The coastal imagery combined with history and the fable are intriguing. A really well spun story so far and I hope there might be more.
Read full commentPosted in A Woman's Story at a Winter's Fire (2/2)
It must be unspeakably
Posted on Wed, 16 Nov 2016
It must be unspeakably difficult. I think of you and Bee so often. The lioness metaphor is gorgeous, a stark contrast with the stilted climate of neglect in the final stanza. The voice of care and caution lives on.
Read full commentPosted in Invincible
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