Things Forough Farrokhzad taught me
"She taught me never to be ashamed of living a bold life"
Once Long Ago
In Once Long Ago, Jenny Robinson invites us to listen to the “dead tales of old gods long gone” struggling to find their place...
Dresse me my harpe
The speaker in Anna Cowan’s poem herself undertakes a myth-making activity in playing her harp. “It is time”, she declares, as she unshackles the...
‘The modern cult of the Girl Boss’ – Review: She Felt Fear
"Surrounded by the pressure to be beautiful, to craft a beautiful life, and to appreciate beauty, is it any wonder that Kathy goes a bit crazy? She Felt Fear is a portrait of hysteria in the twenty-first century."
The Demolished School
"Spending years of loneliness
sitting on that toilet seat, a haven
from slow lunch times with no friends, I knew the peeling paint
as if it were my own palm, cream cracking, exposing
the avocado green of the seventies."
As the smoke burns down to my fingers
To blink a bloodshot world away
And drink in rough, and burn, and heat
Until she comes to kiss the dark.
Haute Kosher: To life, l’chaim
"We must not live in fear; we must live so vibrantly that if we are taken again, we will have left our mark, so that even after our death, we will live."
Breathing in stanzas: The Slam poetry of Women of Colour
Poetry as a digital experience is how I first came to know verse. I pored through the endless bank of videos on Button Poetry’s...
The composition of a narrator: Ralph Fiennes’ performance of T. S. Eliot’s poetic voice
'Our narrator’s tone of voice sways between the revelatory and the didactic, the divine and the desperate, so that our first job is to work out whether we are watching a man or a god.'
They Always Knew (after Daddy)
I weep like a child, despised, licking my wounds, the very dog you slew, forever, forever, the wandering Jew.
Eve
Go, then - O girl, O derivative of...
‘[I]n spring the soil swells’: Poetry’s favourite season through the ages
Spring has been extolled in poetry perhaps more than any other season. Since antiquity, poets have associated spring with growth and celebration making their poems are a joy to read this time of year.
Fantasy: medieval European influences and alternatives
Faeries, elves, centaurs, wizards, dragons. In its purest form, fantasy is one of the most ancient literary genres, and fantastical elements can be found...
In Conversation with Catherine Cohen
There’s only one Catherine Cohen.
It’s something you realise about five minutes into watching her perform — she’s just burped. “I’m sorry,” she says nonchalantly,...