We Sail Paper Boats: Foyle Young Poets of the Year Commended Anthology 2024

Poems by the Commended Foyle Young Poets of the Year

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We Sail Paper Boats Poems by the Commended Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2024

‘It means the world to me to win the Foyle Award. Now I have the courage to show everyone my voice; to demonstrate that I am worthy of being listened to and that there are many in the world willing to listen.’

– Evie Lockwood, top 15 winner, Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2024

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Commended Anthology The Poetry Society 22 Betterton Street London WC2H 9BX poetrysociety.org.uk Cover: James Brown, jamesbrown.info ISBN: 978 1 911046 55 4 © The Poetry Society and authors, 2025 The title of this anthology, We Sail Paper Boats, is taken from Jake Moss’s commended poem ‘Sometimes I wonder what death feels like….’.

This anthology is available in a range of accessible formats.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us at fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk

CONTENTS Introduction 6 Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2024 8 Commended Poems Aarush Saha Ode to Bacon’s Bliss 9 Abi Vance Safe Places 11 Adanna Paradise Isiodu shame 12 Albie Sullivan The Fourth Horseman 14 Alex Moore Does Anyone Know Any Good Love

Poems For Straight Trans Guys ‘Cuz

This Is All Getting A Bit Heavy* 16 Anna Winkelmann Maybe they’ll be artists 18 Archana Nadarajah The Answers to my Questions 19 Aster Li Ma Mi 20 Astrid King Walk a mile in faux-leather shoes 21 Aurora C. Haselfoot Flint these things 22 Ayanna Uppal heliolatry* 23 Bryan Kim Short TAG* 24 Cameron Carvalho Midnight Elegy, Poland, 1945 25 Camille Polyakova The Fly Away Homework 26 Chantel Sorae Click 27 Chelsea Zhu Moonlight Sonata Before Ma’s Surgery 28 Cheryl Chen God’s Love Language is Physical Touch 30 Chloe Ding How Four Pieces of Bread Turned Into None 31 Chloe Oulahan People watching, part one 32 Derek Jiu Trying to Tell Your Parents You’re

Pregnant at 16* 33 Devanshi Sinha Instructions for a Sleep Routine 35 Dorit Greene Sparrows 37 Ela Kumcuoglu moth bent over hibiscus roots 38 Elise Buckingham Lazell Poem In Which I Imagine Our Future 39 Emma Catherine Hoff My Great-Uncle’s Remedy for Forest Fires 41 Emma Johnson G.O.A.T. 42 Ethan Kwak like that 43 Eva Woolven Corpus Christi for the

ones without teeth 44 Evan Wang Wreck* 45 Flora Molnar The Heron 46

Harpreet Singh The Sound of the Beach 47 Hema Iyer family tree – a contrapuntal* 48 Holly Ellis fireflight 49 Honor Giardini Therapists, Larks* 50 Humayra Vohra baby, you’re so esoteric 51 Isabelle Sheath Cliff of wishes* 52 Isobel Starks Super Market 53 Izzy Goldberg for the boy who bought me coffee on a monday afternoon 54 Jake Moss Sometimes I wonder what death feels like… 55 Jasmine Heath mr zacher’s wig 57 Juliet Capgras messy 58 Katie Walker The Terror of Zombies 59 Khadija Bashir The Chai Wala 60 Kyla Guimaraes Moth Haikus for the Person I Loved

But Hope to Never to Meet Again 61 Kyo Lee 푸르다 63 Lara Antelo-Miles Airplane tangy lemon torte 64 Laura Russell Lamb* 65 Leah Katz homecoming at last 66 Leena Tageldin An Abstract of Paradise* 68 Lewis Corry God to Justo Martínez on the evening

of his death 70 Lillia Hammond Ask Me About Grief* 72 Lily Brady nevada-style clams 73 Lucy Edmunds finity 74 Maama Affaidu i say goodbye in steps 76 Mallik Arjun Ahluwalia i had something to say but a

rich man said it first 77 Mariya Ali Hot Girl Summer!* 78 Maryam Zeshan You said 79 Matilda May Wiggins Almost definitely wrong 80 Max Cooke The English Language Confuses Me 81 Max LeMaitre Nugent I am playing with fire twice 82 Maya Le Her Inside a Glass Lung 83 Michelle Masood Desires From a New America 84 Nabeeha Hoque Archaeologist for Myself 85 Olivia Mandache confessions of a sick girl* 86 Patrick Yates Hole in the Duvet 87 Poppy McSweeney In this beautiful woodland 88 Radian Hong Father / Translator 89

Rina Yoshikawa Inside 90 Roberto Bravo Single Mother, Older Brother 91 Sarah McCready Prom Night 92 Shani Dicks 8:45 93 Shmayam Shahid the olive branch is wilting, mohammad* 95 Simone van der Schaft The nail (the hammer) 96 Síomha Gallagher Charlton on first times and broken wings 97 Sophia Irwin Voices 98 Sophie Mauritz oven chips 99 Tabitha Giddings Freak 100 Tilde Hall Shirley and I Go God-hunting 101 Usmi Sohoni How would you paint if you

couldn’t see?

102 Vanessa Niu Traditional Fishing Methods Along

the Yellow Sea Coast 104 WYR Clueless of Clouds 106 Yarema Yakobchuk Mountains, ergonomically 107 Yeshe Rai Mayday 108 Ziyi Yan how prophecy was invented 109 The Poetry Society The Foyle Foundation About the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award Further Opportunities for Young Poets Further Opportunities for Schools Acknowledgements Enter the 2025 Competition

* Content warning: these poems contain graphic imagery, references to violence, suicide, disordered eating or strong language.

110 111 112 113 114 115 116

Introduction ‘Judging the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award this year was a genuinely restorative experience; to see so many poems written by young people, while initially daunting, reassured me that poetry is healthier than ever, and continues to lure fresh minds into its weird, millennia-old conversation. I was impressed by those poets replying to the older, more formally regular traditions, and how deftly they managed things like metre and rhyme, but also by those poets finding new shapes, structures and cadences for their concerns; most of all I was impressed by how imaginatively and wholeheartedly these poets ventured into the world, asked questions, and replied to it: with tenderness, social conscience, and novelty of thought and phrase. Vanessa and I were moved to laughter, to gasps of surprise, and (rarest of all for us two) to silence. I had a blast!’

– Jack Underwood, Judge of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2024

The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award has been finding, celebrating and supporting the very best young poets from around the world since 1998.

Founded and run by The Poetry Society, the award has been supported by the Foyle Foundation since 2001, and is firmly established as the key competition for young poets aged between 11 and 17 years.

In 2024, we received over 17,000 poems from over 6,600 poets from 113 countries. 15 top poets and 85 commended poets were selected by judges Vanessa Kisuule and Jack Underwood; together, these 100 winners showcase some of the most exciting young voices today. Reflecting on the judging experience, Vanessa commented: ‘I had a glimmer of intrigue as I read the first line of each entry: where might this poem take me? This year’s entries took me to so many wondrous and unexpected places. I loved the poems that were playful with form and language and the poems that stood in humble awe at the beauty of nature. Some poems made me cackle and others made my stomach twist in recognition with the pain and struggle they depicted.

Jack and I were awestruck at how precocious and assured these poets are.

Amongst them are the future stars of the poetry world and I’m honoured to have had this glimpse into the crystal ball.’

This anthology collects the 85 poems commended in the competition, and celebrates the names of all 100 winning poets. A sister anthology, collecting the top winners, is freely available to read online (as are a 6

wide selection of anthologies from previous years of the competition and accompanying teaching resources). All of the poems were written by poets aged 11–17. These anthologies demonstrate a breath-taking array of talent that promises to inspire poetry lovers everywhere.

You might find one or two of the poems difficult to read. Content warnings are included on the Contents page and at the top of any poems where this applies. We recommend younger readers ask a trusted adult to look at the poems before reading them alone. We also have a version of the anthology available for younger readers. To enhance your enjoyment of the poems, videos of some of the young poets reading their work are available on The Poetry Society’s YouTube channel.

The young poets represented in this anthology come from all across the UK, from Kilmarnock to the Isle of Wight. Further afield, poets hailing from Canada, China, Japan and USA rub shoulders in these pages. The result is a dazzling display of talent that showcases a vast range of poetic styles, tones and subject matter.

The poems in this anthology touch on family, friendship and coming of age with deft, precision and grace. A number of poems draw on moments from school – a teacher’s wig that becomes an inside joke, a school trip to an art gallery, and the frustrations of homework. They illuminate the inner feelings of the poet while also shining a light on familiar settings and their complexities. Poems titled after food sing the praises of personal favourites, whilst also musing on capitalism, relationships and class. These poems are not afraid to think out loud. In doing so, they allow us to sit with them and view the world through their perspectives.

The title of this anthology, We Sail Paper Boats, is taken from commended poet Jake Moss’s poem ‘Sometimes I wonder what death feels like…’. In the poem, death is the ‘undercurrent …we sail paper boats over.’ Through the poem, the poet approaches a challenging topic with an open heart. This captures the ethos at the heart of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award: we hope it inspires more young people to write, to share their work and enter the competition.

We Sail Paper Boats marks a celebration of some of the most inventive, playful and sharp emerging young poets around the world. As Jack Underwood commented, these poets reassure us ‘that poetry is healthier than ever, and continues to lure fresh minds into its weird, millennia-old conversation.’

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Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2024 Top 15 Winners Yousef Alawi · Freya Beer · Grace Bowen · Holly Hellman · Charlie Jolley · Evie Lockwood · Isaac Meredith · Indy Moon · Rina Olsen · Idris Scrase · Adrien Sevaux · Meredith Wade · Ernest Wakeford · Juliana Xinwen Pan · Tasha Yang Commended Poets Maama Affaidu · Mariya Ali · Lara Antelo-Miles · Mallik Arjun Ahluwalia · Khadija Bashir · Lily Brady · Roberto Bravo · Juliet Capgras · Cameron Carvalho · Cheryl Chen · Max Cooke · Lewis Corry · Shani Dicks · Chloe Ding · Lucy Edmunds · Holly Ellis · Síomha Gallagher Charlton · Honor Giardini · Tabitha Giddings · Izzy Goldberg · Dorit Greene · Kyla Guimaraes · Lillia Hammond · Aurora C. Haselfoot Flint · Jasmine Heath · Tilde Hill · Emma Catherine Hoff · Radian Hong · Nabeeha Hoque · Sophia Irwin · Adanna Paradise Isiodu · Hema Iyer · Derek Jiu · Emma Rose Johnson · Leah Katz · Bryan Kim Short · Astrid King · Ela Kumcuoglu · Ethan Kwak · Elise Buckingham Lazell · Maya Le Her · Kyo Lee · Max LeMaitre Nugent · Aster Li · Olivia Mandache · Maryam Zeshan · Michelle Masood · Sophie Mauritz · Sarah McCready · Poppy McSweeney · Flora Molnar · Alex Moore · Jake Moss · Archana Nadarajah · Zhuoyuan Nie · Vanessa Y. Niu · Chloe Oulahan · Camille Polyakova · Yeshe Rai · Laura Russell · Aarush Saha · Simone van der Schaft · Shmayam Shahid · Isabelle Sheath · Harpreet Singh · Devanshi Sinha · Usmi Sohoni · Chantel Sorae · Isobel Starks · Albie Sullivan · Leena Tageldin · Ayanna Uppal · Abi Vance · Humayra Vohra · Katie Walker · Evan Wang · Matilda May Wiggins · Anna Winkelmann · Eva Woolven · WYR · Yarema Yakobchuk · Ziyi Yan · Patrick Yates · Rina Yoshikawa · Chelsea Zhu

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Aarush Saha Ode to Bacon’s Bliss Crisp and golden, sizzling bright, Bacon greets the morning light, A savory scent that fills the air, A breakfast treat beyond compare.

Strips of joy in pan or plate, A taste that foodies celebrate, From humble roots, a pork delight, To culinary heights, it takes flight.

Paired with eggs or stacked on toast, It’s bacon that we crave the most, Wrapped around a juicy date, Or crumbled on a salad plate.

In BLTs, it plays its part, A crunchy bite, a work of art, In burgers tall, it finds its place, Adding flavor, saving grace.

Sweet and smoky, savory too, A symphony of taste in view, Maple glazed or peppered fine, Each variation, so divine.

From breakfast feast to evening snack, Its presence never does it lack, Bacon bits or full strip stack, In every form, it brings us back.

Temptation in a frying pan, From dawn till dusk, it fuels our plan, A guilty pleasure, sure to stay, Bacon makes a brighter day.

For those who love this crispy fare, A treat that’s rare, beyond compare, 9

Whether smoked or cured with care, Its flavor lingers everywhere.

Bacon-wrapped and bacon-topped, Once you start, you can’t be stopped, In soups and stews, it finds its way, A cherished part of our buffet.

So here’s to bacon, pure delight, A taste that brings us sheer delight, In every dish, it plays its role, Bacon, food that feeds the soul.

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Abi Vance Safe Places My mother tells me to never go – near the edge of a cliff past chest deep in the sea into the bluebell forest by myself down the back alley as a shortcut into town or to the play park after 9pm on a Saturday night.

But I want to ask her why not the football pitch the hospital school a music festival or a Taylor Swift dance class because, according to the news, these are the places it isn’t safe to be a kid.

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Adanna Paradise Isiodu shame The father tells me what shame feels like: the burn of bleach on linoleum, the slide of yellow rubber against chalk-chapped fingers the rubber-band bend of your son’s life, stretch —snap under the weight of all you cannot grant it.

Shame is free school meals sign-up. Check ‘unable to provide’.

The Jobcentre intercom crackles with an empty declaration “Could Dr— come up?” and what is shame? if not a whip-thin, bright-eyed unwise med student yielding his life to a glittering void.

(It will not reciprocate.)

The son knows that shame smells like the stench of iron, sanguine; the choking starch of drywall crumbled beneath irate fist.

He is not proud.

Though later, he will brag, claim masculine pride; the grin that shame stretches across his face will fail to convince Fail to erase the sting of saline tears pulse through the lifeless chasms of grief criss-crossing his knuckles.

The first boy I ever loved told me shame is: those sluts who give it up, those prudes who don’t.

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The mother—her shame spills into her daughter’s daughter tastes like over-salted soup and a “too heavy too handed b— of a wife got calloused hands and tile-shaped teeth good-for-nothing idiot woman go cry in the bathroom and drown in the bathtub don’t know nothin bout how to please a man don’t know nothin bout nothin bout nothin.”

I knew shame by the crook of my elbow. the bend of my knee. curling soft, tendrils of smoke – shame, that facsimile of love – dipped into my belly. caressed my thighs, oh it knew me.

Knew me, like in the biblical sense, Shame was-is-was-is part of me: (And what is shame? if not i? at least i will believe as much. Got nothing otherwise.)

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Albie Sullivan The Fourth Horseman After Kurt Vonnegut

Sing, o spirit I invoke of thee Sing of dreaded plague Sing of death’s dark glee For doth it not say in the 66th book of four great horsemen from the orient, too far to look And one of them wore many crowns on their head It struck a spear in thy throat And in thy lungs pure’st dread And this here plague was not a new foe it was quite recent from two decades ago And then the highest of ministers He said “Look at these graphs!

Some of ye will die lest ye stay at your hearths!”

And the Highest of ministers doth he not say to stay away? but he ate, drank and was merry And was ashamed the next day.

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While ev’ry-one panicked and kept far away the saviours made a liquid to keep the horseman at bay But the masses distrusted this major breakthrough and falsehoods and lies like vines they doth grew But still many listened to what the saviours had said and were administered a liquid and did not end up dead And we banished the horseman with inserting in thy arm a pin But in the battle of David and Goliath Does Goliath ever win?

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Alex Moore Does Anyone Know Any Good Love Poems For Straight Trans Guys ‘Cuz This Is All Getting A Bit Heavy

Content warning: references to an eating disorder

i.

I sit in a dark movie theatre with you and you have brown eyes and brown hair and you’re eating nachos and I think I might be falling in love with you or something and I’m deeply worried about that for a number of reasons not least of which being we’re too young and both girls and you’re a hell of a lot prettier than I am so how would that even work ii.

It’s april 3 years later and we’re having a picnic together in the park Your head is on the ground near mine and you’re telling me about a novel idea you’ve had and I’m pretending to take it in but really I’m thinking about what would happen if I turned to face you in the grass would you look at me too or would I just be staring at your profile (which is like sculpture) until you saw and laughed and pushed my face away and kept talking I’m a boy now and I don’t think you’ve noticed Everything’s the same and that’s fine that’s good because I said I didn’t want anything to change but that was just a half-truth because what I really meant was I wanted you to treat me as if I’d been a boy when we met which is to say I think you would’ve fallen in love with me iii. oh your sister made cinnamon rolls! Yeah sure i’ll come over/ dude those were the best cinnamon rolls ive ever had/ like seriously i dont normally even like them but those were crazy good/ yeah your sister’s the best/ sorry about ur mum though/ yeah i get it/ your skin looked really good today btw/ aha yeah/ seriously tho/ best cinnamon rolls ever/ can you send me the recipe?

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iv.

Blackpool the summer you had your eating disorder and I’ve just had a panic attack you’re looking too skinny and we were meant to see a film but I bailed because there were too many people and I didn’t want to sit in a dark cinema with you again and waste my time listening to Mark Ruffalo talk instead of you so here we are sitting against a tree not looking at each other and I can see a couple making out in the grass and I suddenly realise we might as well have seen the movie and sat in a dark room not speaking after all. v.

Last year before college sitting on your cool metal garden furniture wrapped up by the star-spangled nighttime warming our insides with banana-flavoured rum I brought from my home to yours to celebrate exams being over and pretending to be older than we are You giggle and wipe your mouth and there’s pink dusting your cheeks and an uneven tan clinging to your skin and you tell me about why you broke up with your boyfriend and why you might get back together with him and I’m telling you to go for it regardless of whether it’s a bad idea because I’m worried if I try to say ‘don’t do it’ what will really come out is ‘kiss me’.

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Anna Winkelmann Maybe they’ll be artists Hopping up the stairs, the little ones are security guard-blasé Gaze at the ceiling, jaws all swinging, eyes even wider when you say The real art’s inside. But they’re too busy spinning Eyes heavenward, utterly dazzled and grinning.

Alas small mouths make scathing critics, particularly poor Monet He, Cézanne, Van Gogh are boring. They’re bored (in unison, they complain) Klimt, they concede, is kind of cool. Miró too, with his wacky doodles Picasso, they dismiss: this can’t be priceless, they’re not fooled.

Giggle round the gallery at all the boobs and bumcheeks Sprint past awestruck audiotours; it’s a game of hide-and-seek Flop down in the giftshop where they want a pen and notebook.

They’ll draw the whole way home, for all the aggro that it took.

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Archana Nadarajah The Answers to my Questions The answers to my questions I asked ammamma if I could stay up watching television dramas with her And she said yes I asked ammamma if I could gobble the last slice of cake down And she said why not I asked ammamma if she would retell the stories of her at the beach And she said I would love to, She said storytelling is her form of teaching I asked ammamma if she would take me shopping; just the two of us She said who else would I take She finds dress shopping a form of art hunting And she said you don’t need to ask me My answer is already yes And I said will it always be a yes, ammamma And she said ‘kunju’ of course it is But ammamma how come when I asked if you’d stay forever, you stayed silent And she said nothing But with a smile of knowingness and nostalgia I know it will be a No,no,no From you

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Aster Li Ma Mi Ma Mi, Is dinner ready yet?

Ah Ma, I hate it when people tell me I have your face.

I smile like Dad, I read like Dad, I speak like Dad, which is to say, hardly at all.

When I got my first acceptance letter it was six in the morning and you refused to look at me all day.

You just needed time, Dad said.

It’s what’s best for the family.

The next day you bought me something sweet from the bakery.

Niang, I know this isn’t what you wanted.

But I am so tired.

Ma Mi, The apartment is so quiet in the winter but my sweater snags on the words swimming through the air.

In the end we could not circumvent the age-old inter-generational dilemma: I want to leave and you want me to stay.

I stopped sitting at the table last autumn but you remain stubbornly in my periphery.

We both cross our legs, each bent over a leftover plate of microwaved macaroni.

We have the same posture, when we eat.

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Astrid King Walk a mile in faux-leather shoes I have a friend, A vegan friend: Who questions the painful irony, Of our ability to choose what’s lodged in the freezer tomb, and what comfortably sleeps in the living room, Of our ability to crave a medium-rare cut like the other fellow, though in Sunday Dinner you can almost hear the cow bellow, Of our ability to cry in the cinema when the little dog dies, while binging the delicacy of cheesy bacon fries.

I have a friend, A vegan friend: Who questions the bold hypocrisy, Of those who preach to treasure all animal life, with consumerist purchase of plastic products rife, Of those who march maintaining perfectly conditioned hair, bore from the vicious fruits of abused animal care, Of those who march with pride in their light brown UGGs, intricately lined with the luscious feel of sheepskin rugs.

I have a friend, A vegan friend: Who questions your way of life, Because of their love for animals, And so they couldn’t possibly fathom, how you can accept one collared ‘Miss Fluffy’– – and another one branded ‘293’.

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Aurora C. Haselfoot Flint these things & so the dragons spit me out onto the grass: i am too bitter even for them and their snake-smiles. unripe i am and far too green to be tasteful – those once-honest little girls: they are lying now in their beds in tears & tears in their pin-lace skin. even my brain-child doesn’t trust me now she’s seen me from inside my very thoughts and yet still hates me – 11:21 pm, midnight, pencils soft stomach, paper orange light & ink: discoloured leaves. – there are too many teeth here for such a young girl: ‘i’m sorry’ i say as i bury what is left of my fingers

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Content warning: strong language

Ayanna Uppal heliolatry

litter the body open will boy / be boat / shudder upon body / be rockabyed / be strangered in body / lash like slick oil / be boneless / slump downwards / dissect jawbone / be bodied like oil spill / regret riverboat home / be rowed / into slick summer, street-signed / be eulogized / split film from lip to / be gutted open / body foolproof / be a bullet home / sleuth sand dunes / be brown-body / hymn unraveled / be through with desire / fish impaled on foreign language / be proper noun / split his lip voweled / be harlot / scale the tectonics of teeth / be punch-drunk / slit silt / be three-eyed, spool open / this cliff / be want / the cusp whole-bodied / be flayed / listerine limericked / be grunt-work / s*x table-salted neural refrain / be kali / war cling-film on tongue / be gutless / scale spliced outwards / be derivative / rivered into forest / be orange tree / peeled by sun-shock / be gummed / grapefruit rot by heat / be heatstroke / snip open livewire of / be lipped / at crossroads / be exit sign / slick-signed with / be summer-blood / threadbare scythe-cut / be perfect o / lips imitation exorcism / be c*ckwh*re / fig-fingered on blood fruit / be tongue / slit into silt / be moondust / summer slid into encore

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Bryan Kim Short TAG After Suji Kwock Kim and Walt Whitman

Content warning: references to racist language

“as if whiteness were the heaven from which we fell, and not-whiteness our original sin, our lack, the crack where ‘outside comes in’ –” “I chink, therefore I am. Take back your chinkenfreude, your Kung Flu. O Wall, show thy chink-O-rama, thy chinkerati, thy chink tank.

You’ll chink like a stone.”

I am not it. I am not your virus, am not your coolie, your Yellow Peril, your rat, your spy.

I am not your gook, your Ching Chong ding dong, your servant, your working machine, your Model Minority. I am not invisible. I am not an alien. I am Asian but not yours. I am nomad, I am warrior, I am Gobi Desert, I am Northern. I am scholar, I am farmer, I am rivers and mountains, I am Southern.

I am a mother, a father, a daughter, a son. I am migrant, I am immigrant, I am infinite, I contain multitudes. I am your brother, your sister, I am not you. I am not it, I am not them, I am I.

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Cameron Carvalho Midnight Elegy, Poland, 1945 After the war, all I am left with are her tattered dresses, his pristine top hat, and a few beets, slowly fermenting on my bedside table.

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Camille Polyakova The Fly Away Homework Where’s my math homework you say?

Umm, well, last night as I peacefully sat, My brain deep in thought, ‘bout my homework of course…

Aliens came down!

And when I ran for cover, They grabbed me with their suckers!

I was violently dragged away!

I tried to fight, I DID! Though they had me outnumbered, I poked at their array of eyes And pulled at their antennae.

It was no use, They pulled me onto a platform And they wired to my head A fiendish device!

From my hippocampus, It sucked, with a disrespectfulness quite unneeded, All the things I’d refused to tell them!

All the math I’d ever learned, Over many years of study, Flew from my mind, Because of this brain-draining operation!

My escape was an adventure, (I forget quite what I did,) Suffice to say I couldn’t add, So go ask some other kid!

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Chantel Sorae Click The flickering of a film. / Slippery and fickle. / Iridescent fuel seeps from her fingers. // It all comes to life in the darkroom.// Dreams are strung out on yarn. / Regaining clarity with the motions of a Polaroid. / Drawing lilac streaks out from abyssal ink. / Reproducing memories in the third person. // Unravelling in her mind. // She blinks and it’s like the shutter of a camera // She speaks as if she’s keeping to common time / A performance so perfect it can collapse in seconds. / Idle praise washes over her shrine. / Her body is a temple, / and no photos are allowed. // Existing as fragmented memories. / Imprisoned in the cubic metres of the brain. / Left to rot away in the backstage cemetery. // Neurons fire— / A lens replacement. / Electricity spirals— / Eyes crinkle for the photo. / Sparks ignite— // The flickering of a flame.

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Chelsea Zhu Moonlight Sonata Before Ma’s Surgery Somehow, the cobweb at the edge of the kitchen looks bigger without the spider. White body, six eyes. Ma, I can’t help but spin a conversation into confession. But here is what happened: I bruised myself on the front doorstep. The Chinese evergreens you forgot to bring from the car trunk ended up on my knees. When I felt lava creeping out of my fractures, I pushed myself into the freezer and slapped yam nutrition labels onto my skin.

You believed you needed to cure this house before you could save yourself, stitching band-aids onto our walls like a child. All the medical bills stuffed in the paper shredder. By the oven, burnt ginger seeped into vanilla candles. I’m sorry.

I tossed your earrings down the shower drain.

Right after, I heard you talk to yourself. Wash the radish. Call the doctor. Almond flour has 7 grams of protein. You spoon-fed me obligations to save me from superstition. Here is where you can pick up my medicine. Become a shopping list. Rescue

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houseplants from this wasteland. Ma, our conversations taught me how to avoid you. Instead of confrontation, I crushed vitamins in Greek yogurt and cancelled my Spotify subscription. I thought we could reshape into parallel lines—extending beyond this plane you’ll take to the hospital. I must learn how to be mature enough to keep a secret. When you hold this cup of jasmine tea in your hands, the noise of an old fan surrounds your torn body, clouding your two brown eyes.

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Cheryl Chen God’s Love Language is Physical Touch He tells me this on our first date. The candlelight ripples across the skin on his face. He looks a bit like a sunfish, or like a children’s toy that outgrew itself. Sorry I’m late, he says. There was traffic and the roads were indecipherable. I say, No worries. The waiters come and go, each dressed like they are performing at their first violin concert. God pokes at his spaghetti. I nudge his calf with my foot. I say, Hey, I don’t usually date men. God laughs and bounces his knees. He takes back his teeth, blinks kinder eyes, grows gills on his forehead. Better? He asks me. I say, Good sport. We sip at our wine and dine in silence. I confess that my knees hurt. We check in at a hotel down the block and lie on the sofa. The children above our floor flee around their room. I can feel God staring at me. I know this feeling—I am expected to do something. I slow my breath. I ask him what he wants from me. He tells me what I’ve heard three handfuls of times: Hold me. I open myself into a crawlspace. In my arms, he is weeping.

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Chloe Ding How Four Pieces of Bread Turned Into None Girl When I first stepped into the park, I had four pieces of bread in my hand And now I had none.

So where did the bread go?

Did I eat it?

NO!!!!

The geese ate it!

Yes they ate it all!

They had chased me around the park like a bunch of mad-geese For only four pieces of bread!

I ran and ran but there were just too many geese So guess what?

I GAVE UP! I threw the bread at the geese and they scrambled to get a piece.

And that’s how four pieces of bread turned into none.

Geese When that girl first stepped into our territory, She had four pieces of bread in her hand.

But now she has none!

How sad!

I’m not even full yet!

It all started when the girl unwrapped her bread.

My, what good smelling bread!

So my buddies and I followed the girl.

But the girl kept running away from us!

So we chased the girl until she stopped.

The girl glared at us and threw the bread on the floor.

FEAST TIME! I had to push and dodge the other geese to get a bite!

We finished all the bread from this kind girl.

And that’s how four pieces of bread turned into none.

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Chloe Oulahan People watching, part one I sit on the train A man opposite His hair and beard stick out everywhere His hair is ginger He is twice the size of everyone A helmet appears on his head A horn sticks out on either side Slowly his clothes turn into a Viking’s His bag into a shield His bottle into a sword No No No Something different The helmet disappears A lion in his place The lion-man yawns He has very sharp teeth He stands up He walks to the doors on all fours with the bag in his mouth The doors of the train close I watch as he pads down the platform of Baker Street

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Derek Jiu Trying to Tell Your Parents You’re Pregnant at 16 Double-check the second line. And the first, maybe that one’s supposed to be the second. Drink two bottles of p*ss-warm water and try again, even if www.healthline.com says it’s just a phase. What do those guys know?

Brood in the corner of your milky white room, right beside the bed you f*cked in. The blonde ice cream hair boy you’ve only known for two weeks, when your parents went out for a dinner date last night. The flipped over family portrait, bedridden. Sneak downstairs and stamp at your own silhouette—I can practically see that bulging belly from here, grinding against the banister, legs indistinguishable from handrail. We warned you, to bear fruit the way you swallowed his word—spitting back out the seed, froth bound to a hunch, fallen sky bleeding in silvers. Perignon uncorked like loose-leaf. If you’re already a wh*re, might as well be a raging alcoholic and smoker and drug addict too. It sounds like the adoption center is calling for you, and the abortion clinic already left two voicemails; what harm could it do? Yet, the high school yearbook still swirls your name for infinity, and even the low-light kitchen breathes its first breath unanswered. Even the grass laughs under the sunshower, a well-worn phrase. Fuzzy and firm to the touch. It hasn’t been a month since you first picked up the 33

Content warning: strong language

steering wheel, hands 10 and 2 on your midriff. Praying for the inverse, for the leather to reskin itself along the bullseye. I’m sorry the saltless stone of tears leaves blisters along your tongue, how your knees buckle under the weight of the timeless night sky. Your body was made to be this way: sparking anew. In this world, our solitude is indistinguishable from sacrifice.

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Devanshi Sinha Instructions for a Sleep Routine 10pm. Frog-blinking into darkness. “Let the mind wander…” says the Headspace man.

Well, let’s wander. The infernal desert, rogue at 40mph; my rascal horse kicks up sand.

I live in the straight-set, crocodilian, searingly rugged Wild West, Steeped and air-fried in tradition. The saloon doors swing, hazardous.

Would I be happier there? No, comes the answer, I would be dead of heatstroke.

11pm. bedtime. lying then sitting then lying then staring. worrying. worrying about the clock. when i need to hear it, the ticking will stop. that day, the ticking inside will stop, too; time is my last idol left; impartial, eternal, pure; i understand this: the inside beats and if, one day, it stops to catch its breath? in mimicry of the outside, i am the pendulum will not save me then. a reflective surface, copying deafeningly.

11:30pm. Recently, I’ve tried to be interested in British things like Morrissey and saying sorry to automatic doors. I write poems about my heritage with words italicised in Hindi. I feel italicised.

Feeling italicised means, I feel stressed and slightly askew all the time, tightroping the knife-edge of oblivion. I’m leaning over the abyss, Michael-Jackson-style. Things are great, really.

12am. a surge rushing up the throat. i hate this amniotic feeling don’t make me confront it. primeval truths cartwheel in the recesses; i was there, in the belly of the beast. (For nine months, that is. Ha-ha. Sorry, mum. Love you.)

1am. LIFE IS NON-RENEWABLE! SET THE ALARM: TOMORROW AT 4AM – MEANING, TODAY AT 4AM – WE REVIVE A LIFE AFRESH. TOMORROW (TODAY), A WALK, A RUN, THE GYM, THEN WE WRITE, WRITE, WRITE! CREATE, MORE THAN WE CONSUME. IT’S SO FEASIBLE, TANGIBLE. IT IS FIZZING THROUGH MY VEINS. 2am. somewhere, there are crimson lizards in a Sahara, pulsating in sync. there are caterpillars, too, contorting themselves, wretched, spiralling – there is a child that picks up a stick thinking it is a big stick (“Score!”), but actually, it is a huge brown thin writhing Carboniferous caterpillar.

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3am. The inevitable memory: the sleepover where that ginger girl told me 3am is the hour of the horrors. The windchime tinkers, cervine and ghoulish, somehow suffusing its way inside through closed double-glazed windows. God protect me. Something, protect me. The coat thrown onto the chair forms a black cat’s silhouette and that feels protective enough.

4am. turn off that blasted alarm. thoughtfully, select a book you haven’t admitted you hate. read begrudgingly in dim light, worsen your myopia, progress 10 pages; then embrace the book, in your arms like a teddy bear, foetal and hopeful that somewhere in sleep, you both will commune, reconcile, and begin to love again.

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Dorit Greene Sparrows Sparrows brown capped and thin skinned, fleeing from hedge to house.

A giggle on the wind, a swinging stick of song.

They shiver through hard air to safety, tiny hearts tapping in feathered cages, fidgeting under the eaves.

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Ela Kumcuoglu moth bent over hibiscus roots Moth bent over hibiscus roots forgetting / the background, a swath of gaping brown / Fissures rooted in sourwood / a sea of wide pullulating seeds, plump / Spathes subtending its fleshy axis / And maybe in a dream of a white cloud ceiling they are spinning / all the hydrangeas, isoazimuthal around a white spinning disc / and the bottlebrushes and all the floating wild things / will fall into the oblique and chip their wings / For only hell could have split a moth’s wings into two / Split the moth into a sunk-eyed, spindle-legged division / and broken the circle of its escape / maybe the angels didn’t want to share paradise with the beautiful / and so they gave the moths the Earth// And maybe one day a child will fly a kite / or maybe it will be a flying kiss / And maybe he will wonder at himself, why everything is split / and he will look at the sky and the sea, wondering why they parted / Why the butterfly cannot drop down into the estuaries of heaven and kiss the angelfish / Why the mistletoe does not sprout love underwater / why it is that heaven and Earth are split when they are one / why his kite will see so much more than he does of a sky that could have once been his / Looking over at the moth, bent over hibiscus roots, seeing / Those wings that were tattered, like the tidewaters crooning for the love of the stars / that they are split, unless he stitches them together / bringing his hands together, clasping the sorrow out of it until it has stopped wondering / or else a more romantic way of bringing death to the weakest / bringing it home, fingers intertwined like the mountains had they not drifted apart from the clouds / pulling out some scotch tape, cursing the stars because they have never loved the sun like the rest of their brothers / fastening the moth’s wings together until it was as if they never parted / looking at the beauty of the wings now that they were whole / bending over the moth’s triptych, its beautiful body, the wings a perfect circle / forgetting everything for a moment…

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Elise Buckingham Lazell Poem In Which I Imagine Our Future After ‘Things That Could Happen’ by Jacob Sam-La Rose 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

You turn up at my house with a bottle of wine. It is raining.

We drink it in silence.

You turn up at my house with a bottle of wine. It is raining. The bottle, wet and not quite clinging to the grooves on your palms, slips to the ground, shatters. Your fingers, splayed in a V, migrate to my hair. Our feet meet a puddle of Sauvignon Blanc.

There is nothing to ache about. You turn up at our flat with a bag of mundanity – cereal, eggs. You are careful not to let them break as you lower the bag onto the countertop and replace the cloth handles with me, my fingers wrapped around yours like fabric.

I am something. I read my poems to a red velvet auditorium filled with people in crisp white clothes. It is like an open mouth in which each tooth is a wedding topper, all superimposed white smiles.

You sit in a black suit in the front row, don’t you, you idiot. You’re spectral. I missed you. I read them all grinning.

I am nothing. You write books and I collate their dust-collecting covers in a cupboard, signed just to let my hand hold yours, to let the arch of my knuckles sail across the years. I tell my friends I knew you once; but I know you still. I knew the core of you; once it was all bitten away, I knew the pips you hid, the teardrop shape of them.

I think of you forever. The books I read cling to my skin in remembrance of when you touched it. Tori never sings the same words she used to. I harbour a distaste for love poems both because you did, and because your hatred translates into the very love you criticised once the archaeologists find it. Traduttore, traditore.

A song plays at a party five years on and I cry in the bathroom, clutching the edge of the sink. I tidy up my makeup and kiss my boyfriend on the cheek.

I never think of you again. I’m a whirlwind blur of pillow talk and mini dresses. My room is a photobooth filled with old lovers, and you’re just another one.

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8.

You find someone else; she’s prettier, smarter. Laughs at your jokes and tells some back, better.

9. You find someone else; you think of me. Her music is mine. Her eyes are mine, her hair is mine leapt from a locket and morphed into a human. Do I think of you? Maybe. I can’t tell. I’m not a prophet, you know, I’m a poet. Pathological painter, liar, dictator. I invented all of this. I wove the thread.

10. You turn up at my house with a bottle of wine. Hello, Stranger.

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Emma Catherine Hoff My Great-Uncle’s Remedy for Forest Fires Teardrops of water falling from blimps was a suggestion for putting out forest fires – there are very few steps, really.

Connect the hoses to the swollen flying things and, forget the pump, sprinkle in a circle around the flames.

“You can get a discount at Ralph’s if you bring your Book of Mormon.”

There is a crater in the ground – there is a fallen trunk, there is a squirrel, a brick wall, stragglers, rabbits emerging from the brush – “I was forty, in a bank line, and my mom made me get on my knees and bark” – and here are the blimps like superheroes in the sky, here they are, saving the houses on the top of the hill while the water trickles into puddles that are made dark by the smoke and sky. Dark like ink. “Mad cow disease.”

This is what will save us, he will say the same thing to the governor of California. He practices it all on us first; we stand and watch like birds, like cats slowly blinking, like snakes not blinking at all. We watch the man with two fractured ribs – “I fell,” “I tripped over my girlfriend’s ex,” “he won’t try that again.” All he wants to know is the way blimps glide and how he will get water to move perpetually against physics. The clouds collide, left behind in the trail of giant elephants in the sky. He keeps asbestos in the garage – “they’re making synthetic heroin” – and wants to know why his neighbor stole his phone. “I’ve never read a book from front to back.”

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Emma Johnson G.O.A.T. I bleat all night, I eat all day, I am goat, Can you stroke me? You may.

I know I am the best, Really the greatest, I huddle in a paddock of joy, And fashion: well, the latest.

My friends will tell you, I’m very sure, More than a few times, That my looks are to die for.

OI GOAT, That’s me.

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Ethan Kwak like that i. appa shrugs off a metaphorical coat simple and easy like a needle at the doctor’s cold rushes like the caress of white paper gowns i hate the sand but today i am the sand i am the grit under God’s fingernails ii. i don’t want to be in the family photo i am soaked and this history does not want me in it the pictures mounted above the fireplace are a deer’s memory of hunting iii. remove your sunglasses for the afternoon the camera will remember everything for you we were never here on the beach we were just soggy paper cutouts pretending to be dry.

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it’s like that

Eva Woolven Corpus Christi for the ones without teeth can we pick up where we left off at some point i think like how the chapel is cold and soft and bone-metal and chicken-wire, and how we used to go there for sermons as a child when nobody i knew believed in god how soft and lovely it is to kid yourself. what is god if not cornflake packet or lamp-light flare, if you like them enough. i can drink in orange light like whiskey, what does that say about you? we are spectres i say to you but it’s lost on you which it should have been, because it didn’t mean anything. i don’t say much anyway now that i’ve found out you’ve never heard of joy division. round a campfire you tell somebody about a guy you know that i liked but i didn’t much because his name was ugly. here i knew when to stop. that day the sky was big and the moon was round like a grapefruit. i took it in my hands and tried to suck it dead. all the time i miss our corpus christi but i know it doesn’t mean much. at home we eat with our posh silverware all the time. i don’t like being this happy without you here but still. on a train track it doesn’t matter how happy you are because the train doesn’t care. we are always in the chapel again, anyway. can you dance? i say hoping for a 1950s kind of answer like i can dance to jazz but jazz is shit and then i’d know you were real but what is real? closest thing i’ve ever got is staring down at the asphalt or picking pieces of cold chicken soup out of my teeth with metal. that’s so nice because it’s finally free

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Content warning: strong language

Evan Wang Wreck

The only way through is through. Through my parents’ cold marriage.

Through snow. Through the graveyard I dug with my poems until they broke. Through the dead boy I wrote a poem for. Through love. Through love. Through the shower floor. The secret nights I skin. Through stretching it out for dear life. Until I shape it. Through the glint of spit, how I love like a man. Through watching rain break uncontrollably against glass. Through me. Through the tough of it. The trying. The broken planks of it. Through a bookstore. Through the middle-aged man who asked when I will graduate because he thought I was young and f*ckable in the bookstore. Through the bookstore. Through the streets into roads of tired America. Through human gospels trying to tell me something good. Through the family who shouted at my Mom in a language I assume is Mandarin. Through what I understood it to be “Happy Chinese New Year.” Through this new year. Through the school year. Through the GPAs and APs and a teacher too old for his own word—too full of his language. Through aging. Through surviving seventeen. Through swallowing anything that might make me beautiful.

Through a boyhood gone wrong. And kidnapping boyhood. Through vape clouds. Through the hellish fog of it. Through taking first steps in every direction, not giving a f*ck. Through today. This hour. This second.

This ordinary breath. Through the roar of future forcing me down.

Through worship. Through make-believe deaths. Through the blanket and the bed and AirPods. Through asking for respite. For death, too.

Through the waiting. The wailing. Through all of the empty romances I danced alone. Through the midnights spent dancing in my room.

Through my pajamas soaked with sweat. Through the need for sex.

Through life, too. However many ends of worlds needed. Through this.

And that. To my happiness.

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Flora Molnar The Heron His outline marks the centre of the field in the radius of dusk. He stands in equilibrium, despite the exponential swoop of neck growing from his body, a cubic curve amongst our linear paths.

He does not notice us, cushioning the bikes into the grass, putting up soft camp to observe him.

As our eyes adjust, he stretches out, seems to unfold into another shape – a circular triangle; triangular oval, maybe.

Mathematics fails me.

Suddenly, he is up in the air and we have to crane our necks to follow his flight, a cosine wave on the axis of the earth and trees, a scrawl of calculations against the waning white, like my father’s handwriting.

I never understood it, really, his near-mania for birds, outdoors, numbers. But here, I hear him smile and I feel it – We are added together, an equals sign receiving its answer at the other end of proof.

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Harpreet Singh The Sound of the Beach A hot day at the beach Little children depart cheerfully as they play As the sun starts to set The moon takes its shift covering the land filled with grains No noise as her thoughts fill her head like a glass half full The great big waves push, push and pull The longer she stays Her footsteps grow lighter Every wave getting higher and higher When she first arrived her head was heavy Now her head and thoughts feel empty The crowded thoughts start to leave One day was one day at the beach Listen, listen to the sound as she breathes.

Author’s note: This poem was originally written in Braille.

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Hema Iyer family tree – a contrapuntal

Content warning: references to self-harm

I. going nowhere in a ship in the ocean, it tried both, sifting salt and silver rust from my foremother’s sari (now a sail) over the Lethe deep I’ve been craving to lick it clean but my ribs are now a sunken shipwreck, willing urging lungs to keep yourself afloat without failing

fast, down a bottle, as if breathing, swallowing up out the light pummelling a dip-dyed job which runs down like my veins cut up I forget that sprouting a family tree, it takes more than a ‘yes’ and a pair of open legs

II. the heart is just a mother, now a plaything and unless fed always refuse to offer peace,

a muscle and a child’s god both no longer eat because open palms always resemble wooden hulls

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Holly Ellis fireflight sometimes on a dimly lit night the fireflies drive me down they feast upon my shadow and die between my teeth they sing to snapdragons and lead me towards the path of a first blossom; i am brought to their leader the new moon shining a white tree in july

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Honor Giardini Therapists, Larks

Content warning: strong language

After Diane Seuss Therapists are a popular gen z poetry topic, like larks were for dead people. The lark sang, my therapist said—same things. I get fired from therapists for not talking right which is funny because I talk, which I thought to be the only requirement. We share a laugh, then comes: I don’t think this is working, do you want to end early, does something else come to mind, ok, bye! well. okay. bye. I don’t know how to help myself, but my refusal seems wrong. But help yourself is like asking a child, mouth bound in a ditch, to describe how they feel and where they are right now, and if they’re hurt and on a scale of one to ten how ditchy is the ditch you’re in and how can we help you, are you available for rescue on Mondays at 3pm or, would you like a ladder. look wide eyed at the zoom screen which is what I do. think: of course I’d like a f*cking ladder.

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Humayra Vohra baby, you’re so esoteric i’m the moon’s favourite girl she says to me in the dark pinnacle of night, baby, you’re so esoteric in the square of liquid moonlight she casts, spilling tersely over my striped blue bed sheets only mine, no other girl’s window is so blessed to be a portal through which the moon speaks and warbles, loving me for how ugly i am compared to her. there’s nothing you can say about the moon that hasn’t already been said. but i’m her favourite girl, ‘cause i never forget she’s there she pimps me out to her friends and they laugh at how clumsily i open, the redness on my knees and black hair growing from my armpits mortality is so off-putting but so thrilling to play with when you’ve lived for so long darling girl, my favourite girl, i don’t shine on anyone else at night but you. my circus fever is all yours and i’ll make you see spirals, big and silly and drawn wobbly by a child’s left hand whose other was stuck in a pot of glue.

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Isabelle Sheath Cliff of wishes

Content warning: suicidal ideation

I walked along the edge, Waiting for you to appear.

To hide me from this world, The stranger I didn’t fear.

I sent a whisper through the wind, To dance among your thought.

One very simple wish, From a girl that wasn’t lost.

I did not beg for mercy, Nor for a deal to be made.

I asked you to show me the way, To my invisible grave.

One that lies past the surface, Off the cliff that aided needs.

Past the barrier I soared, Stripped of all my deeds.

I glazed the jagged face, Then I was washed out to sea.

Yet in the end, victorious, Was the monster within me.

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Isobel Starks Super Market I stand and wait As our packaged items climb up the plastic conveyer belt.

I look at mine and I look at theirs.

Instantly a family.

The mother is mighty like a rock.

The children brawl like one creature And the noise that is made is a million people in four.

The sharing-sized, family packet An ecstasy and agony at full volume.

A parasite, pulsing to my heart’s surface.

And their section takes up half the belt.

Thick hugs of bread sliced evenly in a careful loaf To be opened and shared. food and food and food that says, as the creature morphs and rears its neediest heads, We love through all its forms loud and large and blindly perfect.

Nothing tastes better when my mother asked for milk and the one lonely bleep is crushed by the checkout as soon as it is sung.

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Izzy Goldberg for the boy who bought me coffee on a monday afternoon we’re chewing tobacco and thomas hobbes on the field where last summer three of your friends spent the night, walked into school with vomit stains like a butterfly on their shirts. james left his watermelon vape somewhere in my best friend’s house. it’s underneath the sofa as we drink smirnoff ice, watching the exit poll come in. we’re drunk as sunderland announce the result, you say something like – ‘howay, lover girl.’ ‘i hope we stay like this forever.’ if i’m still drunk in 2029, i blame you. i blame you for most things. i made a necklace of cigarette ash, lay for 14 hours in your t-shirt which smelt, inexplicably, of cleanliness and weed. i spend the whole summer in a trance, and you become something godless and rotting. noah took us both to synagogue: me, so i could be a nicer jewisher girl. you, so we could forcibly convert you to judaism. there was too much oxygen in the building. it seeps into your pores. i watch you explode from the inside, your blood like a butterfly on my kitchen floor.

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Jake Moss Sometimes I wonder what death feels like…

After ‘Lilies Abounded’ I hope it feels like when you fall asleep in the car and your parents carry you into your bed.

I hope it is the feeling of the perfect spot of sun to sit in on a Sunday; you close your eyes if you’re tired enough.

I hope it’s the feeling between awake and asleep when your muscles fall asleep before your eyes do.

I hope it’s the feeling of the last bell of school; not excited for nothings, but needing less somethings.

I hope it’s the feeling when you are asleep in front of the TV; awake enough to listen but eyelids too heavy to look I want it to feel like looking at an old picture, and suddenly remembering the context.

It is an undercurrent that we sail paper boats over but we never see below the white water which nibbles and gnaws at the hull, water slipping in between any incidental tears.

Bedtime stories tell us of the calm flow beneath and that we will never see it from our fragile boats.

So we fantasise and hope and wait but we never dive like a dog pawing a door open, just to sit there.

I never want to open the door because I know I can never hope hard enough to change the weather outside.

I hope to have the door opened for me and walk through it blindfolded, locking up on my way out and tipping the doorman.

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It is more nothing than any nothing we can see, but we think about it like it’s everything.

It is so transcendentally intangible that we grasp and grab for it in the dark.

I want to know it is coming, but I never want it to come.

I want it only to happen when I’m ready, but I never want to be ready.

I don’t want to overstay my welcome, but I don’t want to leave too soon.

I don’t want to be left alone, but I don’t want to leave others.

Sometimes I wonder what death feels like, not because I’m scared, but because I don’t understand what to be scared of –

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Jasmine Heath mr zacher’s wig When the Kaiser Chiefs stop playing And the lights are turned back on When fake friendships disappear And all contact is lost When prom is a distant memory And we’ve all moved on I know that you will always be there To argue with me About if Mr Zacher wears a wig

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Juliet Capgras messy i pull apart the folds in my skin, reveal a crudely sewn not so invisible zip open it you say no i will fall out i say it’s okay you say the cleaners will come tomorrow morning and no one will notice but it’s messy i say and i should be getting home. my veins and arteries and capillaries are fragile and i will not risk everything and nothing and everything for you and i push back the folds in my skin and you forget.

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Katie Walker The Terror of Zombies Reader, Why are you afraid of zombies?

Is it the sickening way they walk, Their gory insides churning?

Do their low groans make you shiver, Do they?

Zombies, however hard they try, Will always be dead.

Humans, however hard we try, Will always be dying.

Are you upset by their ruthless killings?

Does it tear you apart to see something so terrible?

We are no better than zombies.

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Khadija Bashir The Chai Wala The Chai Wala has feathered lashes, and a brow drawn over bronze skin.

His head is always bowed, and as his eyes flutter to meet the sun’s gentle rays, I can see tears pierce his gaze.

I wave my hands at him, And he saunters over, with all the grace of a peacock, the tears hastily drying at the horizon of his gold irises.

Chai Wala, what is your name? The question rolls off my tongue; the chai flows into the saucer.

He smiles, it’s written in the leaves. How soft his lips look, though they are downturned.

Chai Wala, why do you cry so?

Silence. I drink the tea, the rush of heat scalding my mouth.

Oh, it must be a trick of the light.

He turns away, silk robes fluttering in the breeze. In his absence, I can make out the sound of clucking tongues, and the disapproval etched in every woman’s powdered face.

The Chai Wala smells of tea; his hands are delicate, yet calloused, wrinkled with threads of saffron.

Through the thinness of his white clothes, I can see, Welts of crimson trailing across the small of his back, so much like the stripes of the tigers from his homeland.

Chai Wala, why do you cry so?

He pretends not to hear, but in the answering breeze, I hear.

It’s written in the leaves

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Kyla Guimaraes Moth Haikus for the Person I Loved But Hope to Never Meet Again It happened again.

I left the porch light on but the moths didn’t show.

It happened: aging.

I left the porch light on. The night closed in on me.

I lose happening.

The moths arrive late. The sun smothers the porch light.

Memory happens upon me like dawn and the moths eat it away.

I happen upon your mouth, the imperfect light— full of thinning sound.

I happened to kill a moth once. Its body morphed into your losing.

This happens often.

Tonight I empty the full mouth of cyclic loss.

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It happens that loss is best swallowed undressed, like moths in the morning.

You happen to want morning. You join me to play a game we’ll both lose.

I happen to hate your lightness. It’s easier to forget this touch.

I happen to know your loss. At dawn the moths feed from your emptied mouth.

I happened to hope the moths would not show. Their love waning just like you.

You happen to be the sun. I, the emptying moth, swallow your light.

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Kyo Lee 푸르다 Waiting for my flight you hold my hand & we start the clapping game with the song about the rabbit. 푸른 하늘 은하수 You went to Korea last summer to become beautiful.

Returned brokenly so, double eyelids & sun-skinny. My turn.

My favourite word is 푸름 because i cannot define it except with a world so young & green the horizon moves away as you run toward it. Because it’s an adjective.

Because how can something so complete mean nothing when alone. 토끼 한 마리 The way the children sing it there are three rabbits: one fried, one steamed, one escaping to the west. i hate this part. i’m sorry. i’ve worn my green card like a rain coat. i’ve warmed myself on fires that killed. i abandoned shame three choruses ago tongue on tender rabbit meat. 가기도 잘도 간다 서쪽 나라로 Lost count of the lives i’ve wasted trying to be 푸름.

Let’s start again.

The flight is boarding.

Let’s sing the rabbits home.

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Author’s note: lines are taken from the children’s song 반달 (1924), written and composed by 윤극영 (Yoon Geuk Young).

Lara Antelo-Miles Airplane tangy lemon torte Mass production’s sickly sweet poster child Bears an ingredient list requiring advanced education to comprehend In a litter of thousands, weaned off pre-measured modified milk and Bred only on free-range factory conveyors directly to your tray To eat half; or a third and then discard – A high infant mortality rate.

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Laura Russell Lamb

Content warning: graphic imagery

Oh, cry lamb! Soul of child. As the crow digs Into your eyes. His claws search for the veins – Into the fetid jelly. Red streams halt At the edge of the iris. It seems like The tarnished plates, thrown aside by the wild Barbarian in a berserker’s trance.

Oh cry lamb! Sad. Curls just anointed, cry Whilst quite eyeless. Try weep for the blind pain.

To know so little of soft arrows from the Sun and to walk a life predestinate For death. Breath pulled from sockets and – wait.

As the lamb’s wool uncurls it’s greying, cold, Dry. Its elastic joints turn to stiff sticks.

Tough flesh, softens to clay. Edible mud.

The crow. The worms. The flies. All feast. Eat! Eat! The ewe doesn’t know. Eyes vacant. She steps.

Hooves soft as cakes. There is something, something.

A tangibly vague thing. Not in her heart, Her thinking, her dull sub-thought. It rests in Scooped space between her sides. The odd vacuum Where life has lain and then broken out free.

The ewe cannot know the voice of her lamb.

Oh, cry lamb! Cry no more.

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Leah Katz homecoming at last I. we ate oranges under smoky skies, the cloying taste lingering on our breath, like a wish forgotten. the seraphic ichor trickles down your ochre-smeared lips, tracing an intricate constellation of your hometown. in apricity, the oranges are a topology of golden suns, each one pulsating with bittersweet nostalgia, just like you.

II. back home, your brother can’t understand your yiddish accent. mottled by the delicacy of sunlit poppies, your tongue can only utter the dichotomy between here and home. there, the stars flicker like wildfire, framing misshapen half-moons. here, they are asphyxiated, outshone by yellowing crescents.

III. at the dinner table, my uncle tells you to go back home. i think of the words you ask me how to spell in secret, a bird with broken wings. somewhere, an autopsy is being performed on an immigrant dream. next to me, a pink-ringed planet implodes. the doctors say we’re sorry, we’ve tried everything. mother says they didn’t try hard enough.

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IV. by your empty hospital bed, orange peel lies torn, mutilated exoskeletons of rotting universes. knee deep in a wailing storm, i’m an unclaimed sacrifice, why won’t you listen and take me, already? thrashing lightning, the delicacy of a mayfly’s spine, leaks into my bones. your ruptured heartbeat bleeds onto the streets of your hometown, dawn lacing the persimmon stains.

67

Leena Tageldin An Abstract of Paradise

Content warning: suicidal ideation

the stars are rioting. see your deformed reflection in the beer-bottle shards on the floor. ink-tears stain your hot cheeks. the sky is humming a warning from lucifer: lock the car doors before they get you! there is too much risk in doubting even the devil’s caution. can you hear their chorus?

DIES IRAE – they will kill you. the heavens are burning. the ground is splitting. the once mirthful capriccio becomes a seething requiem. their raging god hides behind the tender moon, waiting for the morning: to pierce your passion and your pride and your pleasure. feel the sting of the searing earth beneath your feet. step into the road. see the headlights: red and white, smeared across the fatal canvas. they look like imitations of the instruments above.

68

can you hear the whispers? step into the road. the stars will be satisfied. step into the road. so quick and so easy. step into the road. is it god or the devil singing softly to your heart? it is so difficult to hear a difference.

69

Lewis Corry God to Justo Martínez on the evening of his death In early 2018, I came across an article in a local paper about an ex-monk building a cathedral in Mejorada del Campo, just outside Madrid. For almost 60 years, with no help or architectural expertise, Justo Gallego Martínez had been constructing a cathedral that was almost the size of the Sagrada Familia, using waste and recycled materials. – Matthew Bremner

Scrap metal king, patron saint of human spirit, martyr to the endeavour of devotion, put down your trembling hands.

Leave the plaster and tin cans unattended.

Let the scaffold and newspaper clippings sway in the wind.

You who claimed the sky with ladders of sticks and string, you who built what empires pray to become with nothing but your hands and your Lord’s.

For you I will send down my kindest angel.

Aglow with filament scrap and christmas lights guided by a halo of crackly headphones they ensure every street-urchin is fed tonight, and will walk with a new pair of sandals plucked from the flurry of her plumage.

He will join you, in the eaves of your soul, gently creaking.

70

In these halls of concrete and iron and fibreglass steel sculpted from the tremendous frailness of human things, he will help you paint one last bottle-wall before he carries you down to rest on her chicken wire wings.

71

Content warning: grief

Lillia Hammond Ask Me About Grief

Ask me about grief, and I’ll tell you of chess matches, of lucid dreaming, of plethoras of unintelligible code. I’ll tell you of a hummed tune which loosely resembles childhood, and being given sloppy, soggy forehead kisses, that are wiped off seconds later.

It is everything my father loved, or everything which he left behind.

The smell of freshly mown lawn, along with his smile. Playing tennis.

Homemade bolognese, the fact it still tastes like my time with him to this day.

I’ll tell you of the fact I have two ethnic parents, yet can only speak English. And of my father’s anger, which I hold on to, which I wear like a hand-me-down, though it doesn’t quite fit.

I’ll tell you about the presence of his absence; that although he won’t walk me down the aisle, he still has existed once, and I find him in everything. And that my teacher wears his cologne, and my best friend has his stubbornness, and he’s in more places than he was when he was here. I notice him so much more now. Ask me about grief, and I’ll tell you that my father is more alive than ever.

72

Lily Brady nevada-style clams the ambrosial garland collects at my fingertips. there is fragility hidden among the canyon. a truck-stop in nevada tells me all i need to know about the fallacy. we pass people selling clams, and i tug at your arm. each man weaves a con, spins a tale of golden pinpricks of light among the caliginous sky. each bite is bitter, each bite is symbolic. with each bite so dies my expectations, so do my feet scuff in the murky existence of the nevada dirt and discarded cigarette butts. each bite is spliced between an existence and a gentle metronome. each bite is cloying, burning my taste buds with a subtle ember. two dollars each, and you fished them out of your pocket, traced george washington’s worn face with each of your calloused fingertips. i think you might have used a portion of our gas money, i think your shoulders might have heaved. with a grunt, you passed on to me a token of fatherhood, and for a crisp second, the sky splintered, and god looked kindly on the both of us. i think you remember it with a deep abyss of sentiment. i think you sit in that diner five miles down the road, and you order the clams. you call them ‘nevada style’ and your dollar bill might be crisper now, george’s face sporting a look of subtle prosperity but i think that your hands are still calloused and your cheeks are still lined with the lingering imprints of a softly faded smile. i think that you remember the clams, the nevada zephyr. i think that i remember you. and that you remember me.

73

Lucy Edmunds finity what you must understand is that you will never be enough—you will watch the shivering skeletons of the trees (not the forest) and you will know every letter in the alphabet by silhouette, but only the first of them matters when the stars flecking the peach-peel sky are nothing to one reddening your love-thirsty essay. you will ache all of the time, you will feel it in the marrow of your bones and it will gnaw at you, you, the communion of your own ambition, but you are no god, you are merely not-quite-average, hanging onto the pretence of your genius by a spidersilk thread; you might eat yourself alive but you will, you will burn for it. you will know that you are broken in some fundamental way and your fissures will drink up the starshine mica you tip into them to paint yourself gold, and you know it is kintsugi because you know your words but not well enough to fill your paper skies with red-ink stars and the letter that matters. i want to be everything that ever was and everything that ever will be, i want to be the tangerine mist 74

blanketing wannabe galaxies with disillusioned youths traversing the pallid asphalt, i want to be the electricity hurtling through the dead matter of a dead girl drowned in womanhood, i want, i want, i want

75

Maama Affaidu i say goodbye in steps i

There comes a day when your refuge becomes the old sixties home Chitchats thinning Split ends uncorked and straightened Into the final blanks of womanhood As you swirl your velvety wine, Taking sips of memories and maybes

ii

You pause. And then remember The blur of brief human existence coated in alcoholic tendencies Distorting nostalgic embodiments embossed into your heart Time could never help determine Whether you feel grateful or alone, Or should let a feeling let go

iii

Between the peels of faded wallpaper In dusty crevices, away from the treasures infused into thought Dark portraits inspect the girl, frozen in time Her bloodshot eyes seep into yours If her smile shines as bright as a burning star, Know it is a cry for help.

Her airy, effortless floral dress fills your lungs But her flesh is baggage, Flowers embellish her scars

iv

Old sixties homes carry the weight of time I leave it when it reminds Me of being trapped in the same body that cannot defy life Home is not old, rather enduring

A hangover is carried by the clouds, back into deceiving comfort One Two Three Four. Retreat.

76

Mallik Arjun Ahluwalia i had something to say but a rich man said it first Chock full of God, the tongue droops under the weight of father’s memory/ 2:27 am and this is where children come from/ The secret of life is understated – I unearthed it on a Saturday as I strolled into burning men on orphan streets when a stranger’s mouth full of light broke me free/ There is no mantra, nor secret/ Only dollars, cents, dimes against Roosevelt’s sharp corners/ I was speaking to Kerouac again in my dreams and he poured me a Diet Coke to make me forget everything.

Memory is a fickle God; he wants me dead. Amma, Your God wants me dead – choose a man of us two.

Craigslist lover, one for two for the price of maternity – Bring me to your lips and set me wobbling and free – apple to the molar – clean decapitation – clean crunch I have nine ways to pronounce my death – my love is holier than at least two.

I cannot remember the remainder/ Holy Mother of Fever/ So I do not choose and live and die in the second/ Little Phoenix I am bored of being born again and again – It is all the same – the black and white binary – Man, Woman, and outlaw Child Change, Currency, a Man claims to know the end Holy Godly Divine Liar, a Man wins the Nobel Peace Prize for bombing my orphaned race that asked for rights – He is a real Patriot the Nation’s Son and Savior/ I have no affiliations—mother mother listen I have no one to pick me apart with teeth cut me through the limbs and pronounce my mouth temporary.

Holy God of Annihilation/ I am in bed like a conscious invalid with silence violence and life savings of guilt and passed down underwear – I will leave it in your name/ I had a word to vomit but a rich man said it first/ Now I am an ordinary man with nine lives and nine broken ribs – eight more lives to go/ and a love that manifests only during the Recession/ No apartment complex complex/ So I make love to a communist and my tongue belongs to everyone/And all is forgotten like father’s blood.

Vile Divine Malign Juvenile I am a sick man/ My mouth is full of your vitriol/ Forgive me, God, I haven’t called in so long/ I have eight more lives to go.

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Mariya Ali Hot Girl Summer!

Content warning: graphic imagery

You’re making fruit salad for a garden party, Because outdoor living is fun when it’s a choice and your friends are full of life, You picked out a new dress for the occasion, Thin gauzy white fabric seems the latest fashion on the television News screen.

It’s “hot girl summer” in the land of plenty, Hotgirl-picnicgirl-partygirl-ignorantgirlOnly-cares-about-what-will-affect-her-girlYou added pomegranate earlier, ripping it open in mutilated chunks of a seven-year-old terrorist shredded by a bomb, Peeled away the thin layers of pock-marked skin Only to find it mostly full of rotten corpses, like the car a little girl was trapped in.

You dropped a piece on the floor, falling like ashes mixed with brown skin and debris But thank God its red trail didn’t stain your white tiles.

They cost you an arm and a leg though whose you’re unsure – you couldn’t quite see over your consumerism.

The table’s already been set and the first course laid out, You’ll let them eat cake for desert as well as the fruit you’re cutting, So you’d better hurry up and finish your task And be done with your greatest hardship.

So you slice into a watermelon And it bleeds All over your hands.

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Maryam Zeshan You said My sister, you would say we’d have this together and so we would.

The autumn breeze swayed around us, Our brown eyes hinted at everything.

The little poems I kept – I finally let you read that.

I’d finally let you braid my hair.

You braid it into two braids that flow.

We got our cups of hot chocolate, The alluring smell poisoning the air.

Best view tickets to the play of Little Women, The ducks at the pond were quacking from one to ten.

The TV at home blares out a reporter’s heart.

You end up doing the same but to fight with the screen.

You could win an award for your rants.

Then we go out upstairs with oil pastels to paint out our minds The whole thing ends up in colourful faces, We leave them and go outside for a minute, My cold hands on your warm ones.

The umbrella blocks out the rainfall, It likes to listen to our conversations sometimes.

The memory could be stitched into my heart, If only my hands and my heart were warmed.

As I will be forever wrapped in my cocoon, My feet cold, my lips nipped frost.

Hands – red, tied and dried.

I’ll be looking for ‘home’ on the map.

Ask mother where it is and she mentions the wind running.

The streets and kids run free with it.

But the lights delicately glow them up.

Ask father where home is and it’s where the trees usher people.

Where intriguing conversations are sparked and knowledge is shared.

Life is quiet but there are celebrations of happiness.

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Matilda May Wiggins Almost definitely wrong A middle-aged man.

At a children’s birthday party.

Wearing. just. a codpiece.

I fit in Like a giraffe in a doll’s house best friends cat and mouse Gays in a Catholic school French newts in a swimming pool Stone-age peasants in an English class A fridge magnet made of solid brass I fit in Like Skis in Barbados Milk containing fructose 13 on a clock face Teddy bears on a mace Headphones on a worm A teenager who wants to learn A meow from a dog A palace in a bog I fit in Like Mars on the earth A husband’s opinion on birth A camera in a washroom A dry slide on a log flume A wedding ring on a first date A time management class running late The beautiful duckling A decapitated head chuckling I fit in

80

Max Cooke The English Language Confuses Me Loquacious labyrinth lagniappe lavish luscious and lyrical, Luxurious loofah loggerhead, luxe likeable and legendary.

The English language confuses me, Makes me smile, Makes me snivel.

Peak means maximum height, peek refers to looking and pique gets your interest.

Rain is water that falls from the sky, reign is a period of time and rein is a leather strap.

The English language confuses me, Makes me smile, Makes me snivel.

If a “.” is a full stop And “)” is a bracket, Then surely a “,” must be a full bracket stop, But no, it’s a comma.

If a “-“ is a dash Then surely a “=” is a double decker dash, But no, it’s an equal sign.

The English language confuses me, Makes me smile, Makes me snivel.

The English language makes me cry, Makes me chuckle, Makes me smile.

It inspires me and makes me write, Prose, plays, And poems like this one.

Author’s note: Stanza three is a text from Writer’s Digest.

81

Max LeMaitre Nugent I am playing with fire twice My mother is good at sewing.

Daughter of a tailor. She won’t let me tell her some parts are hard to stitch up yourself, like the swoop beneath your wingbone, or the centre of your lower back.

It’s from these places I bleed (expectorate) darkish drops, weightless on my fingertips and it’s fine, honestly.

At least by the last quarter there will be less heart for my ribs to wrap around.

82

Maya Le Her Inside a Glass Lung Let me know how you are when you go.

Call me from the telephone box that no longer exists At the end of your street. Dial a code From the cold and dark, glass pressed Against your knuckles, your breath Clouding the insides of a glass lung.

I want to hear the ringing in my ears.

I want to hear you – happy/sad, Sweet/bitter – all your agonies, Held for so long inside a glass lung, As you spun the wheel, pressed signals, And let it unwind again. Call me From the end of your tether. Call me With the bottle empty at your feet. Call me In foul weather, call me with your wallet empty On the corner of the street. Call me Faithful/faithless, beautiful/pitiful, Call me from a lung full of denial – Call me when you can’t Call yourself okay, honestly.

83

Michelle Masood Desires From a New America After John McCrea I want a diet coke & someone to tell me they love me every morning. I want acclaim. I want a clean bedroom. I want to read 300 books a year.

I want an impressive shoe collection. I want a designer bag for each shoe. I want a handgun for each bag. I want the sun to finally blow open the clouds. I want a long drive on an empty highway. I want wind blowing my hair perpetually back. I want a beach, a tan, a long summer.

I want a clear view of the city, of the moon, the flueve St. Laurent.

I want smoke breaks. I want a cold shower with steam venerated, rising thick & fast like smoke. I want a short skirt & a long jacket. I want a hot mouth small & puckered like it’s making its way around a kumquat. I want it to hurt. I want a body with a peephole the size of a rib. I want a rib removal. I want a peephole big enough for God to see through. I want something smaller. I want a BMI ten lower than right now. I want revivals for anything that died before I could shrink to fit it. I want the original sin. I want the rest of them, too. I want it hard & fast & French. I want it now. Bad. Can’t you see how bad I want it?

84

Nabeeha Hoque Archaeologist for Myself My fallen teeth fill a little blue box hidden away in my art drawer– lumps of pearly white, old blood lodged between the peaks.

Nobody wants to see them, which is understandable, I suppose.

But, in my eyes, they are the only tactile remnant of a girl I used to know.

She was blurred into backgrounds, timid, and ignored.

Lingering in my mind and only escaping at certain moments.

Like yesterday, I noticed an ant burrowed in heaps of moss.

I haven’t seen an ant in years.

But my little girl did just yesterday.

Families of hundreds, she’d sustain them with honey, watching their ways for hours while the sun hung high.

Looking into a mirror, I notice all her teeth grew back.

Of course, there were gaps amongst her gums, but there are certainly no gaps in her memory.

In my memory.

85

Olivia Mandache confessions of a sick girl My uterus is a tomb My tongue is a ticking time bomb My thumb, hard as a nut and twice as sharp, Rubs the hollow white bottle like it will grant me three wishes.

Content warning: references to self-harm

The label peels like my blueprint skin Like the naked crackling of the paint on the wall (under the bed with all of your other dirty secrets) That first you finger, then peel, then massacre You know it will upset your mother but you do it anyway There’s something about revealing those wet pink walls that make you hack at your skin like you’re your own worst enemy, or rather critic, Lugging hot red string Scarring cork board flesh like it will solve your problems, Give you answers.

I shed my joys like exoskeletons and collect them like bottle caps I count cuts like battle scars and battle scars like coins But there are no prizes for the highest contender, no round of applause, There are no winners when you’re at war with yourself.

86

Patrick Yates Hole in the Duvet I hadn’t thought about the duvet in a while.

Tracing my fingers quickly over the sheets for five minutes.

Like usual. Till I didn’t really need to go.

The sheets were in the wash when I noticed a hole in the duvet Down and feather, wounded pouring out, slowly. Stained with silence, disrupted by a slowing monitor. My wrists had only then become inflamed.

And I spent more time with my duvet. Sleeping early and waking up too late. The slow years rushed to hours, ingraining my ears with the loudening blow of eyelids crashing onto skin.

Maybe I thought I could show a lifetime’s worth of love in a few days.

So I slip my fingers softly into each crevice of my sheets. Until the linen numbs my fingertips and darkens my eyes. Stroking the scars that I hadn’t noticed, before I pray the vigil with dusted rosary beads.

My duvet hollows in my hands, so now I sleep cold.

87

Poppy McSweeney In this beautiful woodland In this beautiful woodland The birds tweet a song In this beautiful woodland The crickets sing along In this beautiful woodland The little creatures so hidden In this beautiful woodland Their tiny footsteps quicken In this beautiful woodland How could it get any better In this beautiful woodland I am writing this letter In this beautiful woodland The trees are so big In this beautiful woodland I heard a snapping twig And the feeling so warm I need a gentle yawn So maybe this is my home But sadly to say I’m from a different biome So this home I cannot stay

88

Radian Hong Father / Translator You are the second person of this trinity. Your words are Thank God for this chance You are not you.

You are a waiting bowl, a sieve. Grandfather’s hands are on our necks, fingers twisting in our hair, swallows nesting.

I can’t see his face.

Just feel his thumb on my cranium, his breath moist on my skin.

Hear his disembodied voice re-embodied in you, filling you to the brim.

In this prayer, we are children kneeling at the door, listening to words not meant for our ears through a keyhole – knees aching on the hard floor.

Grandfather’s voice rumbles like a plane on a runway.

Your voice cuts in, crackling, the captain over the intercom.

In Korean, there are two ways of saying goodbye – one for leaving, one for staying behind.

89

Rina Yoshikawa Inside My mouth opens.

I try to close it, but it won’t.

Unrecognizable sound comes out.

Along with the sound of rapid breathing.

Some say, dying walrus.

I wonder how many have actually encountered one before.

Anyways, my heart beats faster.

My body is shaking.

I don’t know what’s funny anymore.

I don’t remember if anything was funny ever.

I’m laughing.

It can’t stop laughing.

There is a monster inside me.

And it’s having a nice time.

90

Roberto Bravo Single Mother, Older Brother Finally paid the rent, My car has a dent.

Miercoles.

Where’s my sister’s book?

Crap.

Oh right it’s there, look…

Quiero descanar, Pero hay que trabajar.

Finally on the bus.

Can’t fall asleep, though, Gotta stay awake.

Finally, ahí está, Con su hermanita.

There’s mum, She has a big grocery bag.

Por fin. Finally.

We’re here.

What a long day we had.

91

Sarah McCready Prom Night An end or a beginning: I don’t quite know – only sure it will never be enough.

I can already feel it: the vague joy of a memory, the way that time lurches forward.

So I clutch to it – clammy hand clasped to cold bathroom sinks, as the girl you’ve known forever smiles at you in the mirror; a twinkle in your eyes that you had dressed as Cinderella aged just three.

Youth tastes like sweat and smells of syrupy spirits, the sharp taste of innocence on the tongue of the young, in dresses, that glitter in the bright reflection of a future: not shared (not any more) later stained with the evening’s mistakes: that one too many, the person not to be kissed, a secret.

In the sticky summer heat, corridors narrow so the other door opens.

Dare to step through it. a final hug, a whispered goodbye reflected in the gentle light of the stars at night, above the party.

I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you. I miss you as the sun starts to rise.

92

Shani Dicks 8:45 The girls take the 8:45 train.

Fall asleep on the way, music and the rocking sway of wheel on rail. Cheeks pressed against shoulders, Just shy of black bikini straps under thick hoodies.

Braided hair ready to war with wind, beanies firmly pulled over ears.

The last stop – disembarking, and mooching around the city; confident in a successful ditching, into a jewellery shop.

They will come back for matching blue bracelets at the end of the day.

However for now, the inevitable pull of wet air forces them down the hill, towards the break in the road over the horizon to offensive rocks, and offending tide. * A temporary wind breaker, four towels flapping, flashes of white calf. Shivering naked but for wide eyes behind sea misted glasses, fetters of weaved embroidery thread, and beanie. Elastic snapping against skin barely heard over the roaring thunder of waves.

One by one, all united in uniform, sharing an eagerly nervous look, pursed yet smirking lips and grabbing hands. Find the familiar place of palms, lines kissing lines.

Squeezing tightly – for a moment, before setting off at a brisk jog towards the dusty Blue – gaining momentum just before the crash; Icy waves lick at ankles, then up backs of knees.

Gasps as the water floods swimsuits, an Oh my god floating up beside the rhythmic laughter of the sea.

Lapping at necks now, darkening stray fly-aways.

They kick and grin and squeal, pale skin

93

Bruising blotchily under the attack of temperature and the violent affection of the sea; before surging forwards to shore, stumbling onto rocks.

As the tide spits them back out, onto the beach.

94

Shmayam Shahid the olive branch is wilting, mohammad After Langston Hughes ‘The Weary Blues’

Content warning: graphic imagery

He pet the dog as it mauled him.

The dog mauled him as he pet it.

In Gaza, the blood of the dead is just another piece of the chessboard.

The numbers mean nothing.

Anything means nothing.

Now, the poem will end, gently as it began.

The dog mauled him as he pet it.

He pet the dog as it mauled him.

95

Simone van der Schaft The nail (the hammer) You have been bent and beaten into the wood in which you live. The smell of cedar stings. You will be melted down, eventually, to make the shape of your father with your fingerprint.

96

Síomha Gallagher Charlton on first times and broken wings the first time the world ends, i am 11 years old staring up at my mother as we sit on the kitchen floor, tap on full blast. i wince as she washes the cuts on my hands, cross-legged and wide-eyed she tells me what her mother would say, how jesus washed away our sins, his blood seeping into the ground, and with it our evil. she cuts her finger as she clips my nails: so you can’t keep biting them she says it is a nasty habit, whilst red pours out of the gash. i ask if that makes her jesus, her blood for my gain? she laughs. she grew up catholic, but time has stolen her faith, as it steals so many things. the window opens, and a wasp falls in, heavy rain pulling it down. i scream, but its wings are broken by the fall. outside, a tree loses its last leaf and the rain does not stop. my mother says goodbye, but tears do not well in her eyes. she has been waiting for the end. death is slow, kind – i suppose i have been waiting too. i open my eyes, and i’m standing in an empty field in a torn dress, football in hand, grass at my feet. i am called back inside: dinner is getting cold, and my mother is waiting.

97

Sophia Irwin Voices After c!Wilbur Tired of losing Fired up by the Voices I hear By the whispers in my ear What do they say?

It’s hard to tell They speak of prophecy They speak of you and me And time again, I’m told It was never meant to be.

Always losing hair over you Always pacing, wondering what to do But hey, I’m getting tired of holding myself Together Feels like I’ve been chasing you Forever

98

Sophie Mauritz oven chips They Blu-Tacked butterflies on the wall wings curling, laminate splintered apart. This felt-tipped feeble life on paper suffocates a plastic death.

The room is rock. I slide down the wall fold myself against the floor. The floor, the door, the wall, the chair. There is nothing. There is never nothing. I fall like a magnet. Put my hand to my head but my hair clips were taken – Restricted and Banned Items List No. 22.

Fingernail keratin puckered purple I rot like an apricot orange fur fused to the stone my intestines are red origami creasing my crying is cornflakes as we swallow the screws in our cereal bowls But still I laughed at Mr Kellogg curing America’s sin my printed photos on gloss paper slip like butter in August, the faces melt to empty – someone is telling me about a dream. I don’t relate to the dream anymore when the oven chips are stale and wilting and flaccid on my fork What’s the time Mr Wolf?

I wanted Goldilock’s porridge my brain fills with stinging bicarbonate as I puree potato between my teeth And hate myself for it.

99

Tabitha Giddings Freak The English Dept. sit round a table.

They are wearing shawls – in summer? and discussing my propensity for freaky babies. What is it about them you like so much, Tabitha?

The way they crawl and spit, that hairline fracture of wrongness (objection: they don’t have hair).

I say nothing. I do not say it is because they hold up a mirror, and the mirror is a hammer – is that it? – with which to beat my own head. I am tobacco and wet paint. A fresh start in a council estate. I refuse to rhyme.

I crown in my own ugliness and crawl out of my own womb.

This is a whole new kind of story and the midwives have started to scream.

100

Tilde Hall Shirley and I Go God-hunting She wanted to give him a piece of her mind.

I told her I did too.

But when no one’s looking, I thought I’d like to take him home, Keep him in a shoebox under my bed for when I needed Someone to talk to. A warm organ beating away beneath me as I slept.

We searched the creek as if something so holy Could share a bed there with the fish Milky-eyed and blind. Where our fingers met Amongst the mud and the weeds And all the dirty forgotten things.

We searched the woods. We peered under logs.

Slow and nervous as with a new lover.

We shone a flashlight down, down into the well, Our foreheads converging wordlessly over that dark chasm.

Holding our breath. Waiting for our hearts to hit the water.

One second…two…three….

We racked our brains for new possibilities.

We got creative. We grew desperate.

We dug holes in her father’s carefully manicured lawn Only to come up empty and covered in ant bites.

No – not empty. Her scarecrow smile gave her away. All teeth and no caution.

She grew flushed, I grew quiet like a fly wrapped in silk.

The fire ants turned to scorch marks under our magnifying glass.

Our own miniature reckoning.

Dusk crept up on us, The shoebox discarded, abandoned in the grass.

But that night as I lay in bed turning over, over in that smile.

A familiar rhythm worked its way into my dreams.

101

Usmi Sohoni How would you paint if you couldn’t see?

Blue Feels like a papercut, Sounds like the trickling river down your sink after you brush your teeth Smells like mint, but without its piquant bite White Tastes like the skin of your lips Smells like fresh paint, the flecks on your t-shirt, standing in front of your easel.

Feels like birth, or perhaps death – the hook at the end of a fishing line.

Gold Sounds like the strings in ‘Everywhere’ Tastes like sweet liquorice Feels like the warm sun on your face, like seeing your parents kiss and learning something about who you are.

Pink Feels like childhood.

Tastes like bubbly lemonade and poolside air Smells like sleepover candy and cherry lip gloss And it feels like holding a hand, thinking you’ve uncovered every secret in the Universe.

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Red Sounds like ambulance sirens Smells like the bursting flowers of love after a midnight tryst, a heady rush, a new chapter, Feels like cartwheeling from planet to asteroid to planet again, like a little warrior, unstoppable Green Sounds like rustling pages, Feels like sand grains swimming through your fingers Smells like petrichor And feels like nature, earth, everything, all at once.

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Vanessa Niu Traditional Fishing Methods Along the Yellow Sea Coast Here. I hold the fish down by its fins while you point the cleaver, flat side down.

Our people really don’t know how to fish.

All you need is a Swedish husband to teach you.

Down goes the cleaver. One fish eye turns upward with milk. Your eyes reflect in it.

Its blood drains into the synthetic fiber of rope, coiled at our feet. I stay silent, look at the stern, the ribbon dance of waves, so as to not disrespect death. Our rudder leaves white, bubbling into deep blue. The bleed always reaches it, so I don’t have to look when you do it. You think I watch for the reddening of the water as a sign of the soul having left the body, but I feel for it. The fish never goes slack – it tightens, as if constricted by the soul, and I never say that when you ask me to rub your shoulders, your back feels the same way. I never say that the last time you asked was a decade ago, and I don’t ask where you’ve been. Every fisherman will tell you that when night arrives starless, when the sea becomes the same black as the sky, and there is nothing but the groan of water pulling and pushing against the underbelly of the boat, you become just another fish.

Slick with oil, flapping around the deck to the companionway, scared of what might come out of the darkness. The same way I am scared of your Swedish husband and how you have learned to kill.

A prolonged hammering with the blunt end of the cleaver, instead of quick and blade-forward. It’s the right way

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to do it. You’ve gone for too long without holding the sea in your palms and now it burns, doesn’t it? Forgotten how to swim, what it means to be alive as part of the water and a thousand other creatures. I think of tonight, how starlessness will swallow our boat like a whale feeding on krill. You run the fish through the current and watch the red ribbon into blue.

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WYR Clueless of Clouds When do I ever think of clouds?

Under thunder-bashed skies Or over fields plucked and ploughed When the rain crackles in the solemn tenor of the night As they grieve aloud When the day is dumbed to darkness They are the breastplate of the sun And they ride the sky at dawn Amassed in a ton They’ve shadowed great wars And have seen the land below disfigured The pangs of the Earth As it longed to be transfigured They’ve soured buildings with their acidic touch Sponge fillings wrung of their excess baggage Yet infant seeds are blessed As it rains down in fruitfulness As they appease their damage They shape the imagination of young minds Do they look like a dog or a kite?

Amorphous and ill-defined They are drawn onto paper With disregard for their size or height When do I ever think of clouds?

When I find myself asking why Why things are the way they are As the world walks on by

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Yarema Yakobchuk Mountains, ergonomically A fond look back propels a trance As Sir Scendental swerves With his Renault he hit a cat, Alas, the world mews on.

Each morning wasted waking up, Each afternoon is soaked In expectation of the builder’s tea That gets him through it all The red-headed receptionist Litters his commute With strange, grotesque depictions of almost human cats And in the cubicle the sir Is met with phantom itching, As if the hair still lingers The tea will get him through it all Alas, the world mews on.

And yet, oh lo, a hill!

The dearest of protuberances Like mountains, ergonomically Comparing man to ant While faux idiosyncrasies Just push him further outward And not even the tea Will get him in the end The world does not mew on, For it is not a cat, scratch that, In fact, the world holds onto all Who take a step on it, instead Of crying for its gobbling nature Take a step right off the edge, get rid of any trivial meaning… … …Glirble-Shmlargled Kitter-Cat. 107

Yeshe Rai Mayday I said there’s only one way to go now, keep your eyes shut.

The sky is fragmenting, stiller than ever in the static. I said picture me and frame the picture. The scattered outlines of daffodils around our hands. I said stop trying to turn your sorrows into gardens. Stop asking where we’re going, find the window and follow the clouds.

Your ear pressed to the pavement, too slow. Always missing exactly what you need to hear.

Prettiness without autonomy. You’re prettier a year ago, thinking without a head.

Then the car door opened and light blessed the undesirable. He sat in penance but forgot the motions of mouth. A dead girl, near-expiration boy. Hambone, short for Hamlet, but we aren’t good at making things easy now, are we? His hair rained right through the suncatchers. Corks, ladybugs of late fall, dried-up worms hugging the street. The plane’s going down now, but hold on. At least the clouds.

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Ziyi Yan how prophecy was invented where mist collapsed into a child’s abdomen when there were too few patterns where there was a warm body to bite into when there were too many children to bear where the river’s anger was ours to drink when cleaving was softer than closure where nobody shuddered at the beast’s grin when our invitations were always to run where our land had not split into squares when we had never walked where we pounded ourselves to shadows when the cave closed its mouth where i first lied that my palms were red when there was no word for your plunder because you wanted a god who could birth himself when it did not rain for twelve days where a stone came in place of the baby when cries cascaded on the thirteenth where blood burst upstream of the uterus when you asked the gods for oil and a gift where there was a body trying to live when smoke rose no higher than the stake where red was as close to blue as to orange when the wishbone spasmed on splitting where my nightgown hung on the crucifix when you mistook the birds for angels where i had already found my home when the wings we built were a covenant where forgiveness was every girl’s synonym when the need for air strangled into birdsong where it spilled, gluttonous as water

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The Poetry Society The Poetry Society is the leading poetry organisation in the UK. For over 100 years we’ve been a lively and passionate source of energy and ideas, opening up and promoting poetry to an ever-growing community of people.

We run acclaimed international poetry competitions for adults and young people and publish The Poetry Review, one of the most influential poetry magazines in the English-speaking world. With innovative education and commissioning programmes, and a packed calendar of performances and readings, The Poetry Society champions poetry for all ages.

The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is at the core of The Poetry Society’s extensive education programme, and it plays an influential role in shaping contemporary British poetry. Achievements of some of the previous winners in 2024 include: Phoebe Stuckes’ debut novel Dead Animal was published by Hachette; Jade Cuttle was named a BBC New Generation Thinker; Imogen Wade won the National Poetry Competition, Troubadour International Poetry Prize and E.H.P Barnard Prize; Ananditha Venkatramanan was named Warwickshire Young Poet Laureate 2024/25; Cia Mangat won the Poetry Business New Poets Prize and Charlie Jolley was commended; Maya Little won the Platinum Award in the Creative Future Writers’ Award Poetry category. poetrysociety.org.uk

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The Foyle Foundation The Foyle Foundation was established in 2000 as an independent grantmaking trust to distribute grants to UK based charities (primarily arts and learning) and schools. The Foundation’s long planned spend down and closure takes place in December 2025, by when it will have distributed over £180M in total, including a number of legacy projects with long-term benefit. The Foyle Foundation has invested in the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award since 2001, one of its longest partnerships, during which time it has developed and grown to become one of the premier literary awards in the country. The Foundation has recently awarded a major legacy grant to The Poetry Society to support the continued delivery of the Award over the next ten years. foylefoundation.org.uk

Help young writers thrive The Poetry Society’s work with young people and schools across the UK changes the lives of readers, writers and performers of poetry, developing confidence and literacy skills, encouraging self-expression and opening up new life opportunities. Support us by donating at poetrysociety.org.uk/donate

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About the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award Established in 1998, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is The Poetry Society’s flagship education programme. In 2024, we received over 17,000 poems from over 6,600 poets from 113 countries. The competition’s scale and global reach shows what a huge achievement it is to be selected a winner.

Every year, 100 winners are chosen by esteemed poets who are passionate about discovering new voices. Winners receive a range of brilliant prizes, including a selection of poetry books donated by our generous supporters, and talent development support, such as mentoring, performance and publication opportunities, throughout their careers.

Alongside the competition, the award supports poetry in schools. Free teaching resources, including the winners’ anthologies, are distributed to schools worldwide, and The Poetry Society arranges poet-led workshops in culturally under-served areas of the UK. Each year, we celebrate ‘Teacher Trailblazers’: individuals who have shown outstanding commitment to poetry in the classroom. In 2025, we are delighted to work with Margaret Vos from Darrick Wood School, Kent and Gavin Husband from Dronfield Henry Fanshawe School, Derbyshire to share their enthusiasm for poetry with the wider teaching community.

The award has kick-started the careers of many well-known poets. Former winners regularly go on to publish full poetry collections and are often recognised in significant national competitions for adults. We are confident that the most recent winners will reach similarly dizzying heights, and we look forward to discovering yet more fantastic young poets in years to come.

If you’re a young writer, enter the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2025 and you could follow in the footsteps of some of the most successful poets writing today.

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Further Opportunities for Young Poets Young Poets Network is The Poetry Society’s online platform for young poets worldwide up to the age of 25. It’s for everyone interested in poets and poetry – whether you’ve just started out, or you’re a seasoned reader and writer. You’ll find features, challenges and competitions to inspire your own writing, as well as new writing from young poets, and advice and guidance from the rising and established stars of the poetry scene. Young Poets Network also offers a list of competitions, magazines and writing groups which particularly welcome young writers.

In the past year, our writing challenges have invited young poets to reinvent myths, think about the link between sound and nature, use tools including rhyme, metre and stanzas, imagine a better world through poetry, and draw inspiration from food, the ocean, and the world of cinema. We’ve also published articles including insights from previous Foyle winners on how they wrote their poems and a playlist of poems by LGBTQ+ poets for Pride month, as well as how-to features on editing poetry, doing a freewrite and starting a poetry club at school. Young Poets Network also partnered with the T.S. Eliot Foundation to run the Young Critics Scheme, offering ten emerging poetry reviewers the chance to develop new skills around reviewing and share their thoughts on the T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist.

For updates about poets, poetry, competitions, events and more, like us on Facebook and follow us on Bluesky, Tiktok and X, @youngpoetsnet and Instagram @thepoetrysociety Join the Young Poets Network mailing list to be part of this vibrant community of poets and continue your poetry journey. Sign up by visiting ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk

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Further Opportunities for Schools Download free poetry teaching resources, lesson plans and activities on our resources site, Poetryclass. Covering all ages and exploring many themes and forms of poetry, each resource has been created by our team of expert poet-educators and teachers. resources.poetrysociety.org.uk Book a poet to visit your school through our Poets in Schools service.

Poets can deliver one-off workshops, long-term residencies, INSET sessions for staff, and poet-led assemblies. Online and in-person options available. poetrysociety.org.uk/education School Membership connects your school with all that poetry has to offer. School members receive books, resources, posters, Poetry News and The Poetry Review (secondary only), as well as discounted access to our Poets in Schools service. poetrysociety.org.uk/membership Cloud Chamber is an online network for poets and teachers delivering poetry in the classroom to come together and discuss ideas, experiences and best practice. Meeting regularly on Zoom, each session considers a different theme. A presentation by an experienced poet-educator is followed by discussion time, and an accompanying resource is circulated afterwards. It is free to attend and is open to anyone with an interest in poetry in the classroom. Find out more at bit.ly/CloudChamberPoetry Sign up to our schools e-bulletin by emailing educationadmin@ poetrysociety.org.uk You can also follow The Poetry Society on X and Bluesky @PoetrySociety, and on Facebook and Instagram @thepoetrysociety

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Acknowledgements The Poetry Society is deeply grateful for the generous funding and commitment of the Foyle Foundation, and to Arts Council England for its ongoing support: together they have enabled us to grow the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award into one of the world’s most prestigious writing competitions for young people. In 2024, we are also indebted to the Thistle Trust, which has supported talent development for former winners, and to Sue Dymoke for the legacy which allows us to build on our work with teachers.

Thank you to 2024’s judges, Vanessa Kisuule and Jack Underwood, for their time, passion and support for the competition and The Poetry Society. Thanks also to the dedicated team of poets who helped the judging process: Aliyah Begum, Helen Bowell, Ella Duffy, Keith Jarrett, Rachel Long, Maureen Onwunali and Joshua Seigal.

Thanks to The British Library for providing a venue for this year’s awards ceremony. We thank Bad Betty, Candlestick Press, the Emma Press, Faber, ignitionpress, Macmillan, Out-Spoken press, tall-lighthouse, Forward Arts Foundation, Carcanet, Poems on the Underground and Divine for providing winners’ prizes. Thanks to Arvon for hosting the Foyle Young Poets’ residencies.

Our thanks go to Marcus Stanton Communications for raising awareness of the award, and to James Brown for designing the Foyle Young Poets anthology artwork. Thank you to our network of educators and poets across the UK for helping us to inspire so many young writers.

Finally, we applaud the enthusiasm and dedication of the young people and teachers who make the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award the great success it is today. foyleyoungpoets.org

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Now YOU can be part of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award Aged 11–17? Enter the competition by 31 July 2025 Judges: Colette Bryce and Will Harris Enter your poems – change your life! The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2025 is open to any writer aged 11 to 17 (inclusive) until the closing date of 31 July 2025. Poems can be on any theme and must be no longer than 40 lines. The competition is completely free to enter.

Prizes include poetry books, mentoring and the chance to develop your talent through publication, performances and writing opportunities. If you are selected as a winner, you will join a vibrant community of young poets. The award has shaped the careers of many well-known poets writing today.

How to enter: please read the updated competition rules, published in full at foyleyoungpoets.org. You can send us your poems online through our website, or by post. If you are aged 11–12 you will need permission from a parent or guardian to enter. You can enter more than one poem, but please concentrate on drafting and redrafting your poems – quality is more important than quantity. Entries cannot be returned so please keep copies. For more information, visit foyleyoungpoets.org School entries: teachers can enter sets of poems by post or online. Head to foyleyoungpoets.org for instructions and to download the submission form. Every school that enters 25 students or more will receive a £50 discount on our Poets in Schools service. Want a FREE set of anthologies, resources and posters for your class? Email your name, address and request to fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk Find out more and enter online for free at foyleyoungpoets.org.

Remember, you must be aged 11–17 years on the closing date of 31 July 2025. Good luck – we can’t wait to read your poems!

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‘Amongst these young poets are the future stars of the poetry world.’

– Vanessa Kisuule Judge of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2024