TTTT
BB25

Dandenong blossoms (OVP25)- The Winnow magazine

SFM25

AB25

Finding an empty packet of rizla on a teenagers bedroom floor (BB25)

You can learn a lot from a discarded feather
stranded in the straw on a bed of dried dust and stones:
the condition shows a relative age, bitemarks and blood;
stress lines mark ill health, untreated; the colour of sex.
Send this remnant of a keratin suit to the lab
and DNA chains will be unlocked and opened;
secrets of parentage, drug use,
microbes and disease spill out onto blotting paper.
But you’ll never know exactly where the rest of the bird is:
tripping high on currents,
vodka coursing south for winter,
ecstasy twisting through contrails.

Jamie Woods

Pre-history

All images

The forest is so old, so green,
sometimes it seems to encroach,
crouch in its green skirts, limbs hid,
and birds flit like flies,
old stone flakes into slippery slabs
and our feet find no purchase

~moss being of the time before history~

the forest did not grow for us,
has no use for us.
We try to catch falling blossom
snatched by the wind,
find only discarded feathers
we gather like treasures.

Jane Dougherty

Black Feather (BB25)

Stony ground resists
the dark ethereal weight
of the black feather.

Stones (AB25)

The stones are dishevelled,
as if laying where dynamite
had flayed them from their true place.
They are moss-greened, touched
by the North Wind’s icy brush,
winning a game of hide and seek
with the sun.
There are ferns here, ancient
as the rocks. Trees have come
and gone in the aeons since ice
covered this land. Since all of earth
was one, since the time of stones.

Tim Fellows

Blossom Haiku

OVP25

Lone white blossom tree.
Words and music set the scene
in a field of green

Frank Colley

All Around Us

Inspired by AB25 and BB25

Blue-feathered sky
above the treetop green
reflects the earth below

where jays flitter
and robins sing,
and each puddled rock

holds worlds within,
swimming in light,
hidden in umbra,
minuscule creatures
dream boundless dreams.

Merril D Smith

Cuckoo’s Nest

IMAGE BB25

I’m no ornithologist
nor am I a twitcher.
I don’t do Twitter
I am an antisocial median.

But today I did see
one fall out of the cuckoo’s nest
there, write there, in front of me,
a black bird’s quill.

Maybe it wasn’t a cuckoo’s nest
but I like that thought and the title too.
Does it sound familiar Mr Kubrick
in a ‘ Terrys Clockwork Orange ’ kind of way?

Paul Dyson

Haiku (AB25, BB25, SarahFM-25)

Time shimmies at night
Iridescent feather falls
Tickles the starline

Lynne Jensen Lampe

Bios and Links

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

is an Indian-Australian painter, poet, and improv pianist. She is a self-taught artist who has been painting and exhibiting for over 20 years. Her work has been featured in several journals including Amsterdam Quarterly yearbook, Pithead Chapel, Two Thirds North, Kissing Dynamite Poetry,  and Stonecoast Review. She has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net. She lives and works in Sydney on the traditional lands of The Eora Nation.  Find her @oormilaprahlad and www.instagram.com/oormila_paintings

Sara Fatima Mir

Born on the 26th of July, 2007, in Islamabad , Sara Fatima is a Pakistani of Kashmiri origin. Gifted by nature with an inborn aesthetic sense, she is passionate about art. It is not just a hobby for her, rather it is a well settled heart and soul, way of life which inspires her to visualize the fine beauty and form in the world around. She has won numerous art competitions at school level. She is a natural artist and has completed the following two Courses : a) Graphic Designing -2020 b) Resin Art Skills -2022 from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Finishing School, Islamabad Capital Territory Pakistan. This learning has further enhanced her artistic skills . International Participation in Art and Poetry Project: Rucksack A Global Poetry Patchwork 2022 A Poetry Project by Ms Antje Stehn of Italy and Mamta Sagar of India. Sara made a Teapot with the help of dried teabags. A requirement .Its image is on display at the Poetry Museum Italy. Sara Fatima Mir believes Art connects people by portraying their lives. Different people, different drawings, different stories. Using all sorts of mediums, she flaunts her amateur talent and aspires to learn more to become the best version of herself. Please Follow her on Instagram @sketchfilez

Beth Brooke

is a Dorset-based poet and her writing is grounded in the Wessex landscape and history. Her debut pamphlet, A Landscape With Birds was published by Hedgehog Poetry in July 2022. Her second pamphlet, Transformations, will be published by Hedgehog next year. The poems are all inspired by the work of Dame Elisabeth Frink, the sculptor and artist.

Aaron Bowker

based in the United States is a super self-critical Virgo, walking a path between worlds while dabbling in art, photography, and poetry. Poems have been featured in Failed Haiku, Cold Moon Journal, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Heterodox Haiku Journal, with art featured in The Hooghly Review, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Black & White Haifa/Haisha. Special thank you to Jerome Berglund for being my mentor and pushing me to limits otherwise unexplored.

Robert Frede Kenter

is a writer, pushcart nominee & visual artist with work in many venues, on line and in print, incl: Storms Journal, Anthropocene, Fevers Of, Acropolis Journal, CutbowQuarterly, Anti-heroin chic and many others, as well as books including EDEN (2021) a visual poetry collection, and Audacity of Form (ice floe press, 2019). Work in anthologies: Book of Penteract (Penteract Press, 2022), and Seeing in Tongues, an anthology forthcoming from Steel Incisors (2023). Robert is publisher & EIC of Ice Floe Press, www.icefloepress.net.

Jamie Woods

Swansea-based Jamie Woods is poet-in-residence at the charity Leukaemia Care. His work has been published in Poetry Wales, Lucent Dreaming, Ink Sweat & Tears and more. Jamie’s debut pamphlet Rebel Blood Cells is out in June, and can be pre-ordered from https://www.punkdust.com/shop
https://www.jamiewoods77.com

Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

Paul Dyson

is from Swinton, Rotherham, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
He says –

“We all have an urge to be creative
whether it’s art, poetry, music . . .
or just putting together flat pack furniture,
being creative keeps us alive and feeling human”

Paul gave up his day job 5 years ago to dabble in art, poetry and music, and hopes the passion in his Art reaches and touches the hearts of fellow humans too.

Merril D. Smith

lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in journals including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Acropolis, and Humana Obscura, and anthologies, such as the recent Our Own Coordinates: Poems about Dementia (Sidhe Press). Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, was published by Nightingale & Sparrow Press, and was a Black Bough Poetry Book of the Month.

Twitter: @merril_mds  Instagram: mdsmithnj  Blog: merrildsmith.org

Tim Fellows

is a writer from Chesterfield in Derbyshire whose ideas are heavily influenced by his background in the local coalfields, where industry and nature lived side by side. His first pamphlet “Heritage” was published in 2019. His poetic influences range from Blake to Owen, Causley to Cooper-Clarke and more recently the idea of imagistic poetry and the work of Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.

Lynne Jensen Lampe’s

debut collection, Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022) concerns mother-daughter relationships, mental illness, and antisemitism. Her poems appear in many journals, including THRUSH, Figure 1, and Yemassee. A finalist for the 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize, she edits academic research in mid-Missouri, where she lives with her husband and two dogs. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com; on Twitter/Spoutible @LJensenLampe; or Instagram @lynnejensenlampe.

Frank Colley

lives in South Yorkshire and has been writing poetry all his life. He is an active member of the Read to Write Group and has performed his poems at a wide variety of venues including CAST in Doncaster. His poems have appeared in several anthologies.
He is an admirer of Edward Thomas. His collection “The Story of Soldier A” was published by Glass Head Press in 2022. His self published pamphlet “The Nantcol Sonnets” both are available on eBay.

Kushal Poddar

The author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages.

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

 

AB24

BB24

Dryad (OVP24)- published only on social media

SFM24

Petals

Sara FM24

She loves me, she loves me not.
We planted Forget-Me-Nots on the day we wed.
He loves me, he loves me not.

He loves me, he loves me not.
We spread Rose petals all around our bed.
She loves me, she loves me not.

She loves me, she loves me not.
We grew Ox-Eyed-Daisy around the house.
He loves me, he loves me not.

He loves me, he loves me not.
Soon the pitter-patter of tiny feet.
She loves me, she loves me not.

She loves me, she loves me not.
We called her Rosemary.
He loves me, he loves me not.

What if out love does not last.
What if our love runs out.
She loves me, she loves me not.
He loves me, he loves me not.

Frank Colley

Love

IMAGE SFM24

The ochre of the soil
a fertile place
beneath our feet.

And some fall on stony ground
others nurtured by nature
she is a good mother, Earth.

The flower reaches out
towards the light
pushes down.

Green shoots of spring
turning leaves
into blossom.

Petals tumble down
return to the ground
feeding immortality.

Flowers – a metaphor for life
love never falls far from the tree,
there’s enough for all of us –
it will never run out.

Paul Dyson

Now

Nothing lasts forever,
not roses or trees,
cathedrals, pyramids
or wind-sculpted monuments,
not rivers, not rocks
old as the world, lapped
by the waves’ rough tongues to sand.

Nothing lasts forever,
not sorrow, not love or hatred,
certainly not happiness,
not even pain,

so I will cherish this moment
of soft rain, the black, white and red
rat-a-tat-tat woodpecker in the hornbeam,
the cheery-chappy calling
of the oriole pleased to be home,
because this moment
is all that matters
now.

Jane Dougherty

Robert Frede Kenter

Confounded Sight

Inspired by all 4 images

The flapping flight of damselfly,
a flitting ballet to human views,
but compound eyes, a survivor’s look,
they were here with dinosaurs—

what if we saw as they do,
multi-imaged with iridescent hues,
or if we flew

through space to perch–
each cherry blossom, a universe
of twinkling pollen to a bee–

and what of rivers, or oceans,
do fish tell stories of what they see,

or wonder at the human folly,
the treasures roped-rigged and hauled
from watery depths,
when all we have to do is fall,

un-winged,
into love.

Merril D Smith

Fishing

The cool summer wind
toys with the line, hook and bait;
no fish bite today.

Dragonfly

You catch our eye in summer,
iridescent, flashing, darting lights.
Your thousand eyes,
your two sets of wings performing
aerobatics in the evening sky,
dipping to the water before speeding
you out of our sight.

Tim Fellows

 Every Second Saturday (BB24)

In the redundancy of obsolete industry
the boy dutifully takes the rod from his dad
he baits it with animation
casts without expectation
he worries that if he does catch something good for once
then they’ll be back in the car driving home
the road and radio stealing his father’s attention again

Jamie Woods

Bios and Links

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

is an Indian-Australian painter, poet, and improv pianist. She is a self-taught artist who has been painting and exhibiting for over 20 years. Her work has been featured in several journals including Amsterdam Quarterly yearbook, Pithead Chapel, Two Thirds North, Kissing Dynamite Poetry,  and Stonecoast Review. She has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net. She lives and works in Sydney on the traditional lands of The Eora Nation.  Find her @oormilaprahlad and www.instagram.com/oormila_paintings

Sara Fatima Mir

Born on the 26th of July, 2007, in Islamabad , Sara Fatima is a Pakistani of Kashmiri origin. Gifted by nature with an inborn aesthetic sense, she is passionate about art. It is not just a hobby for her, rather it is a well settled heart and soul, way of life which inspires her to visualize the fine beauty and form in the world around. She has won numerous art competitions at school level. She is a natural artist and has completed the following two Courses : a) Graphic Designing -2020 b) Resin Art Skills -2022 from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Finishing School, Islamabad Capital Territory Pakistan. This learning has further enhanced her artistic skills . International Participation in Art and Poetry Project: Rucksack A Global Poetry Patchwork 2022 A Poetry Project by Ms Antje Stehn of Italy and Mamta Sagar of India. Sara made a Teapot with the help of dried teabags. A requirement .Its image is on display at the Poetry Museum Italy. Sara Fatima Mir believes Art connects people by portraying their lives. Different people, different drawings, different stories. Using all sorts of mediums, she flaunts her amateur talent and aspires to learn more to become the best version of herself. Please Follow her on Instagram @sketchfilez

Beth Brooke

is a Dorset-based poet and her writing is grounded in the Wessex landscape and history. Her debut pamphlet, A Landscape With Birds was published by Hedgehog Poetry in July 2022. Her second pamphlet, Transformations, will be published by Hedgehog next year. The poems are all inspired by the work of Dame Elisabeth Frink, the sculptor and artist.

Aaron Bowker

based in the United States is a super self-critical Virgo, walking a path between worlds while dabbling in art, photography, and poetry. Poems have been featured in Failed Haiku, Cold Moon Journal, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Heterodox Haiku Journal, with art featured in The Hooghly Review, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Black & White Haifa/Haisha. Special thank you to Jerome Berglund for being my mentor and pushing me to limits otherwise unexplored.

Robert Frede Kenter

is a writer, pushcart nominee & visual artist with work in many venues, on line and in print, incl: Storms Journal, Anthropocene, Fevers Of, Acropolis Journal, CutbowQuarterly, Anti-heroin chic and many others, as well as books including EDEN (2021) a visual poetry collection, and Audacity of Form (ice floe press, 2019). Work in anthologies: Book of Penteract (Penteract Press, 2022), and Seeing in Tongues, an anthology forthcoming from Steel Incisors (2023). Robert is publisher & EIC of Ice Floe Press, www.icefloepress.net.

Jamie Woods

Swansea-based Jamie Woods is poet-in-residence at the charity Leukaemia Care. His work has been published in Poetry Wales, Lucent Dreaming, Ink Sweat & Tears and more. Jamie’s debut pamphlet Rebel Blood Cells is out in June, and can be pre-ordered from https://www.punkdust.com/shop
https://www.jamiewoods77.com

Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

Paul Dyson

is from Swinton, Rotherham, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
He says –

“We all have an urge to be creative
whether it’s art, poetry, music . . .
or just putting together flat pack furniture,
being creative keeps us alive and feeling human”

Paul gave up his day job 5 years ago to dabble in art, poetry and music, and hopes the passion in his Art reaches and touches the hearts of fellow humans too.

Merril D. Smith

lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in journals including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Acropolis, and Humana Obscura, and anthologies, such as the recent Our Own Coordinates: Poems about Dementia (Sidhe Press). Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, was published by Nightingale & Sparrow Press, and was a Black Bough Poetry Book of the Month.

Twitter: @merril_mds  Instagram: mdsmithnj  Blog: merrildsmith.org

Tim Fellows

is a writer from Chesterfield in Derbyshire whose ideas are heavily influenced by his background in the local coalfields, where industry and nature lived side by side. His first pamphlet “Heritage” was published in 2019. His poetic influences range from Blake to Owen, Causley to Cooper-Clarke and more recently the idea of imagistic poetry and the work of Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.

Lynne Jensen Lampe’s

debut collection, Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022) concerns mother-daughter relationships, mental illness, and antisemitism. Her poems appear in many journals, including THRUSH, Figure 1, and Yemassee. A finalist for the 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize, she edits academic research in mid-Missouri, where she lives with her husband and two dogs. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com; on Twitter/Spoutible @LJensenLampe; or Instagram @lynnejensenlampe.

Frank Colley

lives in South Yorkshire and has been writing poetry all his life. He is an active member of the Read to Write Group and has performed his poems at a wide variety of venues including CAST in Doncaster. His poems have appeared in several anthologies.
He is an admirer of Edward Thomas. His collection “The Story of Soldier A” was published by Glass Head Press in 2022. His self published pamphlet “The Nantcol Sonnets” both are available on eBay.

Kushal Poddar

The author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages.

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

 

The Shrew

It isn’t the one performance I’ve seen,
open air, gender-swapped, abridged,
that comes back to me
as I read it for the first time
in twenty-one years,
well as I remember that,
at Fountains Abbey, the day after
my final exam. Sly was Scottish,
they messed up the ending,
Bianca disappeared as the actress
was playing Petruchio as well.

Nor is it Burton and Taylor,
though I can just picture them now.

Katherina’s voice for me
will always be that of Margaret Leighton
on the Harper Collins recording
I had on two white cassettes
and wish now I had kept,
or got it on CD instead.

Go get thee gone,
thou false deluding slave
was the only line I thought I remembered,
as it’s printed on a postcard
I use as a bookmark
in my book of Brontë poems.

It turns out there are hardly
any lines I have forgotten.

Peter J Donnelly

Eighteen Lines that mention the Eighteenth

As I re-read Shakespeare’s sonnets
I’m reminded I last read them
nine years ago in a B&B in Bristol.
Was it the hardback book itself
that made it come back to me?
A free gift with the Daily Express
though given to me for my birthday, I think.
I don’t know why I read them then
or how I remember I did
as I didn’t take in a word except
‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’
though I can see the room, more like a bedsit,
where I drunk Scotch and water from a tooth mug –
not too much, as I recall the next morning.
Tea and toast at the dressing table,
coffee in the docklands,
finding Christmas Steps
like finding hidden treasure.

Peter J Donnelly

Bio and Links

Peter J Donnelly
lives in York where he works as a hospital secretary. He has degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing from Lampeter University. He has been published in various magazines and anthologies including Obsessed With Pipework, Dreich, Atrium, Southlight, One Hand Clapping, High Window, Black Nore Review, Ink Sweat and Tears and Fragmented Voices. He came second in the Ripon Poetry Festival competition and the Buzzwords open poetry competition. His first chapbook ‘The Second of August’ has recently been published by Alien Buddha Press.

SFM23

AB23

BB23

Outside, it is glorious (OVP23)- Amsterdam Quarterly

Transitions

Another day, another view–
the same trees with slight slant cast
different shadows
in this glance–
now cock-eyed robin
with sunset breast on a bough
where pink blooms dance—
only yesterday it was white
and my hair brown, overnight
shadows scant-seen slowly
slope, a slight slant light,
a transitory smile.

Merril D Smith

Wandering

I have seen endless sunsets and sat on many beaches.
Alas, non-compare with those we shared together.
I wander alone in vain seeking your spirit.
Why have you forsaken me? Have you found another,
to share those moments with? I can’t go on much longer,
in the hope that we will be reunited in a better place.
To sit on our chairs and watch endless sunsets.

Together.

Frank Colley

Time passing

Here, the spring is almost over,
blossom gone, flown, leaving nests
full of soft-petaled chicks.

The winds have grown tender,
a mere murmur among new leaves,
and the nights are full of stars.

I watch the bustle of life, the bird-comings
and goings, hare-dance and deer grazing,
colours in the grass growing,
and I listen to all the singing of this earth.

I watch through the window,
from the first pale gold to the deep pink of evening,
the turquoise inking deeper dark,
the first stars swim to the surface of the sky,

and listen as the last bird finishes his song,
thinking of you, wherever you are.

Jane Dougherty

IMAGE OVP23

Maison de Soliel

Claudio calls it his summer house
it’s actually a man-cave
where he plays his forte piano
composing orchestral music
in this crucible of creativity.

Manuscripts adorn the walls
rustic French pots strewn across the floor
music polyphony colours
the aroma of stale Gallois
and the Maestro has the formula for love.

He vents the windows in summer
music escapes over the orchard
into the cottage
and the kitchen dances
and Maria begins to sing.

So the music is written,
the composition complete,
the commission is done.
They think it’s all over –
now that fat lady’s sung.

Paul Dyson

March 2020 to Present Day (OVP23)

Come outside
dark black branches beckon
their cherry blossom immune
from dutch elm disease
bark sheilding strong
enough to withstand sneezes
until the fall
aerosols will penetrate
eventually droplets absorb
and the twigs will weather and crack
and you’ll wish you’d stay indoors

Jamie Woods

Calm Before the Storm: Pastoral

A drawn palm tree on top of technicolour sunset hill.
Waiting for morning song, the cockerel-shaped particulates.
At the window of a spring orchard, a cocker spaniel.
Cherry blossoms falling – bark-bark-barking, the dog wants
To go in, wants to come out, dreams paws scratching in the trunks.
O, robin redbreast screechy soul singer — what else do you
see – a worm in the ground, material for a nest,
a fast-food wrapper, French fries dropped
from a packet, a possible mate. There goes Mr.
Johnny Appleseed, out of work, walking stick in hand
thinking thoughts of rivers, streams,
rainforests, orchards, mountains.
Wandering, head full of image-memories,
All the changing seasons of younger days.
Later it shall rain, the wind shall blow ferocious.

All four images used.

Robert Frede Kenter

Island (SFM23)

Fiery sun, withdraw;
leave behind a painted sky.
Take away shadows.

A Robin is for Life (BB23)

The familiar hopping style,
puffed out chest, flash of red
incongruous in the green of spring,
the heat of summer and the damp fog
of autumn. The bird cocks its head
and looks at me quizzically,
as if to admonish me for assuming
it would only be visible at Christmas.

Tim Fellows

Bios and Links

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

is an Indian-Australian painter, poet, and improv pianist. She is a self-taught artist who has been painting and exhibiting for over 20 years. Her work has been featured in several journals including Amsterdam Quarterly yearbook, Pithead Chapel, Two Thirds North, Kissing Dynamite Poetry,  and Stonecoast Review. She has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net. She lives and works in Sydney on the traditional lands of The Eora Nation.  Find her @oormilaprahlad and www.instagram.com/oormila_paintings

Sara Fatima Mir

Born on the 26th of July, 2007, in Islamabad , Sara Fatima is a Pakistani of Kashmiri origin. Gifted by nature with an inborn aesthetic sense, she is passionate about art. It is not just a hobby for her, rather it is a well settled heart and soul, way of life which inspires her to visualize the fine beauty and form in the world around. She has won numerous art competitions at school level. She is a natural artist and has completed the following two Courses : a) Graphic Designing -2020 b) Resin Art Skills -2022 from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Finishing School, Islamabad Capital Territory Pakistan. This learning has further enhanced her artistic skills . International Participation in Art and Poetry Project: Rucksack A Global Poetry Patchwork 2022 A Poetry Project by Ms Antje Stehn of Italy and Mamta Sagar of India. Sara made a Teapot with the help of dried teabags. A requirement .Its image is on display at the Poetry Museum Italy. Sara Fatima Mir believes Art connects people by portraying their lives. Different people, different drawings, different stories. Using all sorts of mediums, she flaunts her amateur talent and aspires to learn more to become the best version of herself. Please Follow her on Instagram @sketchfilez

Beth Brooke

is a Dorset-based poet and her writing is grounded in the Wessex landscape and history. Her debut pamphlet, A Landscape With Birds was published by Hedgehog Poetry in July 2022. Her second pamphlet, Transformations, will be published by Hedgehog next year. The poems are all inspired by the work of Dame Elisabeth Frink, the sculptor and artist.

Aaron Bowker

based in the United States is a super self-critical Virgo, walking a path between worlds while dabbling in art, photography, and poetry. Poems have been featured in Failed Haiku, Cold Moon Journal, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Heterodox Haiku Journal, with art featured in The Hooghly Review, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Black & White Haifa/Haisha. Special thank you to Jerome Berglund for being my mentor and pushing me to limits otherwise unexplored.

Robert Frede Kenter

is a writer, pushcart nominee & visual artist with work in many venues, on line and in print, incl: Storms Journal, Anthropocene, Fevers Of, Acropolis Journal, CutbowQuarterly, Anti-heroin chic and many others, as well as books including EDEN (2021) a visual poetry collection, and Audacity of Form (ice floe press, 2019). Work in anthologies: Book of Penteract (Penteract Press, 2022), and Seeing in Tongues, an anthology forthcoming from Steel Incisors (2023). Robert is publisher & EIC of Ice Floe Press, www.icefloepress.net.

Jamie Woods

Swansea-based Jamie Woods is poet-in-residence at the charity Leukaemia Care. His work has been published in Poetry Wales, Lucent Dreaming, Ink Sweat & Tears and more. Jamie’s debut pamphlet Rebel Blood Cells is out in June, and can be pre-ordered from https://www.punkdust.com/shop
https://www.jamiewoods77.com

Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

Paul Dyson

is from Swinton, Rotherham, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
He says –

“We all have an urge to be creative
whether it’s art, poetry, music . . .
or just putting together flat pack furniture,
being creative keeps us alive and feeling human”

Paul gave up his day job 5 years ago to dabble in art, poetry and music, and hopes the passion in his Art reaches and touches the hearts of fellow humans too.

Merril D. Smith

lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in journals including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Acropolis, and Humana Obscura, and anthologies, such as the recent Our Own Coordinates: Poems about Dementia (Sidhe Press). Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, was published by Nightingale & Sparrow Press, and was a Black Bough Poetry Book of the Month.

Twitter: @merril_mds  Instagram: mdsmithnj  Blog: merrildsmith.org

Tim Fellows

is a writer from Chesterfield in Derbyshire whose ideas are heavily influenced by his background in the local coalfields, where industry and nature lived side by side. His first pamphlet “Heritage” was published in 2019. His poetic influences range from Blake to Owen, Causley to Cooper-Clarke and more recently the idea of imagistic poetry and the work of Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.

Lynne Jensen Lampe’s

debut collection, Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022) concerns mother-daughter relationships, mental illness, and antisemitism. Her poems appear in many journals, including THRUSH, Figure 1, and Yemassee. A finalist for the 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize, she edits academic research in mid-Missouri, where she lives with her husband and two dogs. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com; on Twitter/Spoutible @LJensenLampe; or Instagram @lynnejensenlampe.

Frank Colley

lives in South Yorkshire and has been writing poetry all his life. He is an active member of the Read to Write Group and has performed his poems at a wide variety of venues including CAST in Doncaster. His poems have appeared in several anthologies.
He is an admirer of Edward Thomas. His collection “The Story of Soldier A” was published by Glass Head Press in 2022. His self published pamphlet “The Nantcol Sonnets” both are available on eBay.

Kushal Poddar

The author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages.

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe