Day 23

Shopping with Nan

-John Law

-Jane Cornwell

Magic is afoot

-Kerfe Roig

Magic Is Afoot, God

(Inspired by Kerfe Roig’s 23rd Painting – Magic Is Afoot)

I tilt back my head until my nape hurts,
and the pain feels oh so Godly,
and then the doors open and show me
those things still alive, walking, keeping
pace with death jogging
in the jungle of jingly-jangly thoughts.

Alive, you whisper the vesper
the way a desperate woman does an evening –
more verses than ever required.
You may be in my head, but alive, afoot,
and we visit the nighttime market
to buy some cabbages for your mean sauerkraut.

God is living on my tongue.
God is living in your vesper uttering tongue,
you – alive in my head.
Soon, moon will rise, and tattoo the trees with ancient signs.

-Kushal Poddar

The point is magic

On the gardener’s hand a beetle has arrived. Strut legs
cushion the touchdown – a tiny Mars rover. There is a puff
of skin flakes, a fine drift of compost, an unheard cheer
of victory. The visitor is beautifully shielded
against the conditions on this planet, her cladding shiny
as tinfoil, but vibrant green – emerald so astonishing
the row of new seedlings far below the horizon clamour
jealously in their earth bed. The woman who has become
all new terrain raises it to eye height, the hand
and the ship of the beetle, and when the familiar tremor
grips her, she pauses. An astronomical body
becomes vastly patient, even with her own treacherous weather.
The magical vessel –the beetle, although you could be forgiven
at this point for thinking this referred also to the gardener–
does not react. Custom-designed hooks have already grappled
into the great fissures of brown rock and it is as steady,
in the earthquakes it was trained to expect, as in any solar wind
in space. She breaths aeons of gas on the carapace
and somewhere a creation myth is written.
There are minutes so taut with an ordinary act-
become-suddenly-significant that time hiccups a bubble
into the glass, suspends it forever. This was one. At some point
the ship left and the planet realigned herself
with the earth, at some point the sun wavered great shadows
through the garden, at some point the seedlings
sprouted and gave their own young
to the solar winds, and at some point
all trembling stilled, and the map, in relief, was finally complete
for the next surveyors. What was the point–the point was
it happened. The point was the spell, not the ingredients.
The point is ridiculously
small, the point at which two insignificant universes
collide. They do it over and over again, until the point where
something changes forever. Where everything
turns out just the same.

-Ankh Spice

(inspired by KR23)
Giò’s fingers drip day-lit sparks of luminescence
from below, scaled sea dragons eye the surface
effort
effort
the sail lifts away from the water
and suddenly
and silently
all is air and the future

-Simon Williams

Inspired by all three images

Every Day is Earth Day

There’s magic held in ordinary things–
the robin’s song, the light it brings
in rosy dawn, when the world is silent
save its song

a remnant of the ancient tunes—
the ones that drift from stars and moon
to rest in Grandma’s smile and hands–
both soft and strong

their movement deft, her knowledge a gift
a time-shifting swift,
a songbird that sings–
you belong,

words not needed, as with doggy grins and kitty purrs
the soft whinny of a favorite horse—all stir
the magic of this wondrous world
as light around a shadow long–

so, watch, listen, see—it floats, rests, soars on wings,
this quiet, splendid magic of ordinary things.

-Merril D Smith

Floating Around Everywhere
I
There’s magic in the air
floating around
everywhere

Making hearts ignite and flare
love abounds
anywhere

Leaving souls exposed and bare
astonished sounds
everywhere

People find they do care
for our home round
floating in space somewhere
II
There’s change in the air
floating around
everywhere

Of the dangers let’s be aware
before the ground
is lifeless both here and there

We musn’t give up and despair
our guilt compound
by hiding scared

Of our faults we’re now aware
let hope be found
everywhere
III
There’s evolution in the air
floating around
everywhere

We must accept there’s no time to spare
the alarm has sounded
everywhere

Voices lift in solemn prayers
let healthy nature be found
anywhere

Minds meld and wishes share
heal Earth’s wounds
everywhere

-©RedCat

Tanka for Irish Horses – Written on the 6th Month Anniversary of our Arrival in Ireland
(inspired by JC23)

He moves like the wind
gallops across green pastures
to find me waiting
I stroke his velvety cheek
Gentle eyes welcome me home

-Susan Richardson

Happy Shakespeare Day!

Magic

Spins in blackness
Eye of newt
moon on fire
and toe of frog
in a circle of light
wool of bat
and raging desire
and tongue of dog

Adder’s fork
she speaks in tongues
and blind-worm’s sting
when night quells day
Lizard’s leg
her heartbeat slows
and owlet’s wing
he’s going to pay

When shall we three meet again?
Him, and her, in endless pain…

-Tim Fellows

Nan

When I am Nan, I will be great and grand,
Not the pinnied, cupboards-full-of-sweeties kind,
And when we cross the road they’ll take my hand.
When I am Nan, I will be great and grand,
And if I teach one thing, they’ll understand
All life, from fish to child, is intertwined.
I will be Nan, the wise, the great and grand,
Not rosy, pinnied, but, I hope, the kind.

-Jane Dougherty

Magic is afoot

Through three windows eyes sweep past
Clusters of stars, shimmer of space
Fireworks displays of nebulae
To the furthest archway, to the dapple beyond

One stands framed in the light from pinprick piercings
Of the great tent of this old universe
Stands winged in halos, arrayed in auras
Seen through archways and windows in eternity

Winged and haloed, caparisoned and bare
Lifts arms in gestures, voice in chant
Words of power, steps that shape
Wears the starred expanse like a cape

Smallest figure in this eternal scape
Swaying in power, rhythms apprehended
Shadow of you strides in sky-guise
Will of you becomes universal, or always was.

-Jayaprakash Satyamurphy

“How Much

is that in real money?” , Nannan would ask.
Stumped as half way through school they’d swapped us on
to decimal currency, Nannan passed
her finger down a line of figures sum

added in her head as she went. Money
for her were pounds, shillings and pence,florin
if tha were rich. The past were magical
to me.
A mysterious, kindly alien.

Grandparents are living history, packed
with how it was. Gentle now there’s tender
Subjects they wiii not talk about, shame racked,
bairns born outside wedlock, their abuser.

To see Nannan ever more sleepier
was to see my future in sepia

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

-John Law

“Am 68. Live in Mexborough. Retired teacher. Artist; musician; poet. Recently included in ‘Viral Verses’ poetry volume. Married. 2 kids; 3 grandkids.”

-Jane Cornwell

likes drawing and painting children, animals, landscapes and food. She specialises in watercolour, mixed media, coloured pencil, lino cut and print, textile design. Jane can help you out with adobe indesign for your layout needs, photoshop and adobe illustrator. She graduated with a ba(hons) design from Glasgow School of art, age 20.

She has exhibited with the rsw at the national gallery of scotland, SSA, Knock Castle Gallery, Glasgow Group, Paisley Art Institute, MacMillan Exhibition at Bonhams, Edinburgh, The House For An Art Lover, Pittenweem Arts Festival, Compass Gallery, The Revive Show, East Linton Art Exhibition and Strathkelvin Annual Art Exhibition.

Her website is: https://www.janecornwell.co.uk/

-Kerfe Roig

A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new.  Her poetry and art have been featured online by Right Hand Pointing, Silver Birch Press, Yellow Chair Review, The song is…, Pure Haiku, Visual Verse, The Light Ekphrastic, Scribe Base, The Zen Space, and The Wild Word, and published in Ella@100, Incandescent Mind, Pea River Journal, Fiction International: Fool, Noctua Review, The Raw Art Review, and several Nature Inspired anthologies. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/  (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/, and see more of her work on her website http://kerferoig.com/

-Tim Fellows

 is a poet and writer from Chesterfield whose poetry is heavily influenced by his background in the Derbyshire coalfields – family, mining, politics, and that mix of industry and countryside that so many mining areas had. People can email me at timothyjfellows@gmail.com for a copy of the pamphlet or visit http://timfellows13.blogspot.com for recent poems

-Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

is a writer based in Bangalore, India. His books include the novella Strength Of Water (2019) and the poetry collection Broken Cup (2020). He used to write horror, but now it’s anyone’s guess. 

-Anjum Wasim Dar

Born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir,Migrant Pakistani.Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi. MA in English MA in History ( Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert.of Proficiency in English Cambridge UK. -Dip.TEFL AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan.Writing poems articles and stories since 1980.Published Poet.Awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal 2000 USA .Worked as Creative Writer Teacher Trainer. Educational Consultant by Profession.Published http://Poet.Author of 3 Adventure Novels (Series) 7 Times Winner NANOWRIMO 2011- 2019.

-Jane Dougherty

writes novels, short stories and lots of poems. Among her publications is her first chapbook of poetry, thicker than water. She is also a regular contributor to Visual Verse and the Ekphrastic Review. You can find her on twitter @MJDougherty33 and on her blog https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/

-Redcat

RedCat’s love for music and dance sings clearly in The Poet’s Symphony (Raw Earth Ink, 2020). Passion for rhythms and rhymes, syllabic feets and metres. All born out of childhood and adolescence spent reading, singing, dancing and acting.

Her writing spans love, life, mythology, environment, depression and surviving trauma.

Originally from the deep woods, this fiery redhead now makes home in Stockholm, Sweden, where you might normally run into her dancing the night away in one of the city’s techno clubs.

Read more at redcat.wordpress.com

-Merril D Smith

is a historian and poet. She lives in southern New Jersey, where she is inspired by her walks along the Delaware River. She’s the author of several books on history, gender, and sexuality. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale and Sparrow, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Fevers of the Mind.

-Tony Walker

By day Tony climbs the greasy pole of clinical hierarchy. Not yet at the top but high enough to feel the pole sway and have his grip challenged by the envious wind of achievement. Looking down on the pates and gazes of his own history, at times he feels dizzy with lonely pride. By night he takes solace, swapping scalpel for scripts and begins his training and climbing again, in the creative world of writing. His writing is an attempt to unify the twenty-four hours. @surgicalscribe seeks to connect the clinical and creative arts of surgery, science and writing. Hoping to do for medicine and surgery through creative writing what Prof Cox has done for physics with television.

So, he practices his art.

-Ankh Spice

 is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa. His work has been widely published internationally, in print and online, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He’s a co-editor at Ice Floe Press and a poetry contributing editor at Barren Magazine. You’ll find him and a lot of sea photography on Twitter @SeaGoatScreams or on Facebook @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry.

-Simon Williams

lives and works in Edinburgh, where running clears his head and creates space for ideas. He publishes short stories and poems on www.simonsalento.com

Paul Brookes

Paul is a shop assistant, who lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His first play was performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull.  His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms  (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Had work broadcast on BBC Radio 3 The Verb and videos of his Self Isolation sonnet sequence featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley. He also does photography commissions and his family history articles have appeared in The Liverpool Family History magazine.

This is Dai’s original bio, before he revised it:

-Dai Fry

Fry is a poet living on the south coast of England.

Originally from Swansea. 

Wales was and still remains, a huge influence on everything.

Published in 4 issues of Black Bough Poetry, The Hellebore Press and Re-Side.

A regular contributor to #TopTweetTuesday 

He spends most of his time honing his craft.

Fascinated by the Pagans of Albion, quantum physics and the synchronicity of the universe.

seekingthedarklight    Twitter@thnargg

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

I wrote my first poem two years ago,  it was a strange and slightly uncomfortable experience. I picked up a pen and a notebook and wrote a poem – just like that. Although I read all the time, I didn’t often read poetry and certainly had no plans to write any.
Looking back it is less surprising….
After 40 years working in social care (mental health), there was a big gap in my life. For a long time I had been searching for a way to channel my thoughts and feelings, to speak about what was important. Above all I wanted to paint.
I spent a lot of money – well more than I could afford, on paints and brushes. The trouble was I couldn’t paint. I knew it all along. Even a kind, non-critical soul would turn away from my efforts.
But poetry is a wonderful medium. If you have the imagination and can hear the song, you can do what you want with it. So I started to paint with words – films and pictures, landscapes and emotions. 
From the beginning I decided that the most important thing for me was to have my own voice, so I struggled on through, building on my mistakes and making my own way. 
I have no problem with learning from others, but I worried that if this happened too early in the process I might lose my way. So for the first year I deliberately refrained from reading any poetry then, as my confidence grew, I started reading other poets’ work and everything opened up for me.
Finding Black Bough Poetry on Twitter was a milestone and I started to submit my work to them. Matt Smith (editor) was very helpful and encouraging. As a result my work was lifted to another level.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

For a start school in the 60’s was very different from now. For me it was not a place of learning, but more like a boxing ring with no referee. Poetry, like other learning, was of the self service variety. My parents loved literature of all kinds. There was a large bookcase in the corner of our living room holding books of and books about poetry. War poets, political poets, classical poets, romantic poets, modern poets, angry poets and nonsense poets.

My two favourite books when I was very young were The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carol and Nonsense Poems by Edward Lear.  My Dad read them to me late at night (7pm!), I lay in the shadows  just out of the light. The combination of beautiful illustrations and the funny but scary poems has never left me. The power of poetry to transport you to other lands holds equally well for the the very young and the old. 

3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

As an older poet only recently taken to the writing scene, I am very struck by the turbulence and excitment washing through the online poetry community. All types of writers – young and old, angry and calm, complex and basic, exist and interact together.

Like the music scene in the 60s and 70s convention is being ignored and writers are expressing themselves through a variety of experimental poetry. Now we can see the personalities and differing approaches that form the basis of a lot of modern writing. Some poets are experienced, published and confident while others tentatively post their early efforts. The ability to self publish, enter competitions and send poems to an ever growing resource of online magazines means that communities coalesce around different publications and forums each with their own cultures, rules and mores.

I would hazard a guess that mainstream poets who are published and recognised by a wider society still have a heavy presence, but I believe that this is in decline with smaller ‘zines are having an enormous influence. The internet and its influencers mean that people who would have been pursuing more solitary paths are now more dominant and their influence the greater for it. Rules are being routinely broken, and conventions ignored. 

What appears to be far more persuasive are issues pertaining to sexual rights, mental health and other groups who have been traditionally disadvantaged in society. We now live in such interesting times where individuals can join with like minded groups and publish their thoughts and ideas as poetry, photography, prose and art where otheir very presence is a statement of who and what they are. 

So, in answer to your question, I believe that the former influence of older more established poets is in slow but definite decline.          

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Having spent many decades as a manager in an extremely fraught and pressured working environment, I have completely abandoned any hint of routine. In this aspect I am now a free spirit and writing poetry is part and parcel of this new freedom. I capture ideas or odd lines from wherever they present. I then desperately try to remember them until I can write myself a note. After that when I have a free moment I will start to sketch out a story line. Depending on the subject I may do some research and that adds to my notes.

I work the rough poem until it has some shape and I can see where it is taking me. Poetry has a life of it’s own and goes where it will. I rarely end up with the poetry I was expecting and sometimes I get very unexpected results. Music and place always add to the mix. Myth and story are also great influencers. There are times when the flow is right and the process is quick and relatively easy. Other times every word has to struggle out. I find that however finished the work is, it always has to cook for hours or days. Sometimes for weeks. Then the edits become more obvious to my thinking and my writing process. If I read an old poem I always end up revising it. I spend a lot of time thinking and writing. If I am caught up in a strong poem, I can spend hours working on it. So no routine but a very recognisable process.

5. What subjects motivate you to write?

I am especially drawn to the eternal mysteries of time and space, origins and the nature of all sentient beings.  I have written a lot about our pagan times. This is because I sense a closeness to the land and its seasons, which most of us have now lost. 

What fascinates me is that we have an imperfect history covering the last 5 thousand years or so, but modern humans have been here for over 250,000 years. So if you think that the Neolithic farmers were ancient then you’re barely scratching the surface. 

All that time a tiny population of humans travelled the world, vulnerable to disease and predation. Living through the extremes of heat and ice they prospered and endured. And they settled in such diverse habitats, adapting and crafting their myths and legends.  

Poetry is a vehicle that will carry the deepest or most mundane of thoughts onto the page. The smell of rain on dry grass, a few bars of music or the edge of a passing conversation. A TV programme or the news. 

So I say, write about everything, explore your emotions and in the process try to seek an inner peace. 

We live amidst mysteries that would break us apart, if we just began to suspect a fraction of the truth that’s out there. 

I am coming to the conclusion that the universe itself is probably sentient. 

So if you don’t yet understand trees or the other creatures that we share this planet with, then the stars will have to wait.

*******

This was the final question he answered. In a later DM to me on Twitter he told me:

BTW The interview isn’t dead in the water. I’ve been having a serious struggle with not believing in my work and so it follows that I have little of relevance to say. I’m getting over that now and would like to continue if that is ok with you. Sorry this was always a self confidence thing Dai

We never did continue, to my ever present shame.

A Message From Margaret Royall

Hello Paul,

how very sad to hear of Dai’s passing. A great loss to the poetry world. I have always admired his imaginative writing so much. At least his book Photon Crowns has been published recently – that is a wonderful legacy. I send my condolences to his family, friends and to those in the poetry community who knew him well in person better than me. His brilliant words will be greatly missed!

Sincerely, Margaret Royall

*******

Here is a link to Part One: “My pen is my brush” Tribute to the late Dai Fry. Part One of Three. This covers his contributions to the May 2020 Ekphrastic, most have his audio, too. I often feel that the mark of a great ekphrastic writer is that their piece holds up even without the artwork. There is a moving tribute to him by Ankh Spice at the end of this post. | The Wombwell Rainbow

Day 22

Salad

-Kerfe Roig

Old Lady who’s homeless who goes into Spoons on an evening for a coffee

-John Law

-Jane Cornwell

Word Salad

The lad was sad, so sad
Because vegetables was all he had
Grow on the sill to his tiny pad

He wished, oh how he wished
He had some coin for meat or fish
Something to make a filling dish

But his mind was set, firmly set
He would give something to the homeless old lady he’d met
She smiled like his nan and called him pet

So he gave her a salad to eat
Then offered his bed, so she wouldn’t sleep on the street
Don’t want to burden, she said, but thought him sweet, so sweet

-©RedCat

Crepuscular rays

If it takes you, I want it to be like this
whet-glass morning on the water.
What just split the old belly
of the clouds out there is a scalpel
as sharp and as silver as the one
tucked up asleep not yet knowing
your name. The well-honed sun knows you
and renames you as she has done
for thirty thousand mornings slipping
her needles of I am into the dark
tunnel of your eye, gate just creaking. We flare
back into ourselves each time we crack
the ark. Some days you might need a reminder
that isn’t about waking up, but is, and you see
that alchemy on the boardwalk usually
after rain. From the tight grey sheet spills
a streaming, sudden gout
of light. At the slice, all hunch untethers
from a spine, there’s a sharpening
of resolve. Someone pauses, bathed
in a squint of bright, then steps on quick
I am I am I am I am
not even knowing they’ve been cut.
If it takes you, I want it to be like this.
-Ankh Spice

Apparition

(Inspired by Jane Cornwell’s 22nd Painting)

The foggy street
scurries beneath their feet.
Two of them walking,
the daughter in cardigan
and pullover and jeans,
and her hands bunched in
and pendulating as one,
her father quivers,
an apparent apparition.

The morning looks for more people,
albeit this, a plague year,
the emptiness is full of people gone,
inverted hallucinations of those who live.

I know them. I must be one of them.
I call my daughter, “Holla. It is
okay to feel sad before the day reels.”

-Kushal Poddar

Tracing Footsteps
(inspired by JC22)

He was dressed every morning
in running shoes,
comfortable pants, a jacket
and his signature leather belt,
ushered to a breakfast he never ate,
set free to roam.

Most afternoons I knew
he could be found
pacing the halls,
searching for an escape hatch.
We walked together,
checking the same locked doors,
again and again,
looking for secret passageways.
He was notorious for setting off alarms.

The promise of ice cream
or music
served as temporary distraction,
but he always returned to his search,
tracing footsteps through hallways
that never became familiar.

Every visit, he would ask me,
“when are we leaving?”.
I would tell him thirty minutes.
It was a lie I told him to keep him happy,
a lie that chipped away pieces of my heart.
He would never go home again.

-Susan Richardson

They walk away

(JC22)

Two of my own species, seen from behind
Down a grey corridor- a little light reflects here
They walk away, what they leave, what they find
What they lose, what they approach, nothing is clear

The man, the woman – is it two women though?
Dressed in everyday drab. No season for style
Who will await them, where will they go?
If I saw their faces would they know how to smile?

This grey corridor is closed, it is empty like a heart
In a world, in this world, in a year, in this year
They walk away, together they seem, but also apart
One holds the bag they give you to carry memory and a tear

Two of my own. Grown weary with departure
They walk away. Walk wary, this is a year of rupture.

-Jayaprakash Satyamurphy

Inspired by Jane Cornwell’s image, JC22

The Walk

The morning glowed, spring-scented,
the air seemed full of promise, contented
they talked of ordinary things, the commonplace–
conversation as comfortable as their pace–
the children, the news, that new restaurant—Thai–
that they never got to try–

Yet does he walk beside her—
there where the branches stir?
The pace still comfortable, the air still aglow?
There’s a sparkle on the water, catching the flow
of currents and light. Yet only one shadow, no talks–
the birds keep her company on her walks.

-Merril D Smith

Strange

It’s strange

to know that you’re not there
at the end of the line
with comforting words
and questions about the children.

I wish that I were eight again,
looking round and thinking
you had gone, then a wave
of relief as you re-appeared.

There’s no magic number
of seconds that can tick over,
after which it won’t matter any more.
No soothing words of comfort

when you don’t believe in afterlife.
It makes you envy those who do.

Now that is strange.

-Tim Fellows

Salad days
Inspired by all three artworks

Salad days, green and full of sap,
and all the summer stretches
through green boughs to a mellow field
of buttercup sun at sunset
and again at morning.

Colours fade and loves;
we wilt in the heat and the frost bites.
No ruse can stop the slide into the dark,
but if we keep tight hold of the best of days
and the heart of things,
we can slide together
with grace
and just a hint of regret.

-Jane Dougherty

A Salad

is all it was. After he ate salad.
The light struck him on the head.
Homeless. Salad made her lose, made her mad,
so nights into Spoons for coffee and tea.

Lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes killed
him as sure as this bench is a good bed.
They attract the light you see, filled
his head with it so no room in his head.

She will never eat salad again. Would
not have it in loved marriage home they shared.
Salad made her lose home. As if grief could.
Times she told them at work, till work declared.

Odd we don’t want to see it as it is.
Blame is placed on seeming slightest distress.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

-John Law

“Am 68. Live in Mexborough. Retired teacher. Artist; musician; poet. Recently included in ‘Viral Verses’ poetry volume. Married. 2 kids; 3 grandkids.”

-Jane Cornwell

likes drawing and painting children, animals, landscapes and food. She specialises in watercolour, mixed media, coloured pencil, lino cut and print, textile design. Jane can help you out with adobe indesign for your layout needs, photoshop and adobe illustrator. She graduated with a ba(hons) design from Glasgow School of art, age 20.

She has exhibited with the rsw at the national gallery of scotland, SSA, Knock Castle Gallery, Glasgow Group, Paisley Art Institute, MacMillan Exhibition at Bonhams, Edinburgh, The House For An Art Lover, Pittenweem Arts Festival, Compass Gallery, The Revive Show, East Linton Art Exhibition and Strathkelvin Annual Art Exhibition.

Her website is: https://www.janecornwell.co.uk/

-Kerfe Roig

A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new.  Her poetry and art have been featured online by Right Hand Pointing, Silver Birch Press, Yellow Chair Review, The song is…, Pure Haiku, Visual Verse, The Light Ekphrastic, Scribe Base, The Zen Space, and The Wild Word, and published in Ella@100, Incandescent Mind, Pea River Journal, Fiction International: Fool, Noctua Review, The Raw Art Review, and several Nature Inspired anthologies. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/  (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/, and see more of her work on her website http://kerferoig.com/

-Tim Fellows

 is a poet and writer from Chesterfield whose poetry is heavily influenced by his background in the Derbyshire coalfields – family, mining, politics, and that mix of industry and countryside that so many mining areas had. People can email me at timothyjfellows@gmail.com for a copy of the pamphlet or visit http://timfellows13.blogspot.com for recent poems

-Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

is a writer based in Bangalore, India. His books include the novella Strength Of Water (2019) and the poetry collection Broken Cup (2020). He used to write horror, but now it’s anyone’s guess. 

-Anjum Wasim Dar

Born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir,Migrant Pakistani.Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi. MA in English MA in History ( Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert.of Proficiency in English Cambridge UK. -Dip.TEFL AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan.Writing poems articles and stories since 1980.Published Poet.Awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal 2000 USA .Worked as Creative Writer Teacher Trainer. Educational Consultant by Profession.Published http://Poet.Author of 3 Adventure Novels (Series) 7 Times Winner NANOWRIMO 2011- 2019.

-Jane Dougherty

writes novels, short stories and lots of poems. Among her publications is her first chapbook of poetry, thicker than water. She is also a regular contributor to Visual Verse and the Ekphrastic Review. You can find her on twitter @MJDougherty33 and on her blog https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/

-Redcat

RedCat’s love for music and dance sings clearly in The Poet’s Symphony (Raw Earth Ink, 2020). Passion for rhythms and rhymes, syllabic feets and metres. All born out of childhood and adolescence spent reading, singing, dancing and acting.

Her writing spans love, life, mythology, environment, depression and surviving trauma.

Originally from the deep woods, this fiery redhead now makes home in Stockholm, Sweden, where you might normally run into her dancing the night away in one of the city’s techno clubs.

Read more at redcat.wordpress.com

-Merril D Smith

is a historian and poet. She lives in southern New Jersey, where she is inspired by her walks along the Delaware River. She’s the author of several books on history, gender, and sexuality. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale and Sparrow, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Fevers of the Mind.

-Tony Walker

By day Tony climbs the greasy pole of clinical hierarchy. Not yet at the top but high enough to feel the pole sway and have his grip challenged by the envious wind of achievement. Looking down on the pates and gazes of his own history, at times he feels dizzy with lonely pride. By night he takes solace, swapping scalpel for scripts and begins his training and climbing again, in the creative world of writing. His writing is an attempt to unify the twenty-four hours. @surgicalscribe seeks to connect the clinical and creative arts of surgery, science and writing. Hoping to do for medicine and surgery through creative writing what Prof Cox has done for physics with television.

So, he practices his art.

-Ankh Spice

 is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa. His work has been widely published internationally, in print and online, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He’s a co-editor at Ice Floe Press and a poetry contributing editor at Barren Magazine. You’ll find him and a lot of sea photography on Twitter @SeaGoatScreams or on Facebook @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry.

-Simon Williams

lives and works in Edinburgh, where running clears his head and creates space for ideas. He publishes short stories and poems on www.simonsalento.com

Paul Brookes

Paul is a shop assistant, who lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His first play was performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull.  His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms  (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Had work broadcast on BBC Radio 3 The Verb and videos of his Self Isolation sonnet sequence featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley. He also does photography commissions and his family history articles have appeared in The Liverpool Family History magazine.