SEB5

SK5

JZ5

-Judy Smith

-John Armstrong

5 Jz5

I had a dream

an ocean aflame

the sun relentless

no sign of rain

no food to eat

no plants could grow

or cherished planet

stripped to the bone

-Francis Powell

Libra (dodging Midas amid gold fog)

in response to artwork by Jenn Zed

after Pippa Phillips

Pay attention to the extended hand that hosts a crater. Canyon is Minotaur’s home where frayed yarn has long since singed in obeisance to solar flares. Building caves in this moment will garner irreparable foibles. Your desire for floating galaxies will cause unmeditated merging with discs of residual light — practice haste with prudence. Often times ingenuous dreams morph into dry cacti by fatigue’s eventide. Balance energy on lotus scales; float without touching air of allure.

-Sheikha A.

Phil Hyde

Jz5

Hope in the Horizon

The light spills over the edge of the world,
not in triumph, but in defiance.
It reaches through the wreckage of yesterday,
daring me to move, daring me to believe.

I stand at the edge, breath unsteady,
hands still carrying the weight of what was.
The past clings like a second skin,
but the horizon burns, relentless, unyielding.

Hope is not gentle.
It does not whisper.
It roars in the silence,
pulling me forward,
even when I am afraid to go.


SEB 5

The Hollow and the Echo

There was a time when the wind spoke my name,
soft against my skin, wrapped in voices I knew.
Laughter tangled in my branches,
love carved into my roots.

Then came the silence,
a quiet that was not peace but absence,
a hollow carved not by time,
but by the weight of what left.

Still, the earth holds me,
whispers through veins of wood and longing.
My roots remember the warmth of hands
that once traced their way home.

Above me, bubbles rise,
fragile ghosts of yesterday’s breath,
weightless, yet holding everything
that ever mattered.

And so I remain,
not whole, not broken,
but something in between,
where love once stood,
where love still lingers.


SK 5

Roots and Wings of Love

She stands between two truths.
One that binds, one that frees.

The earth holds her,
weaves into her skin,
calls her back to where she began.
A quiet whisper of roots,
of belonging, of staying.

Yet in her hand, the weight of longing,
not heavy, but vast.
A heart, bold and trembling,
aching for the wind,
for the unknown, for the unreachable.

She does not know which to choose.
Perhaps she does not need to.
Perhaps love is both:
the courage to hold on,
and the strength to let go.

-Rituparna

Artworker Bios

Jenn Zed
Ms. Zed is an artist, writer, and musician who lives in Bath, England, with the ghost of her cat.
She studied art, art history, and design MA at Bath and Cambridge Universities.

Sara Elizabeth Bell

Says:

I’ve always loved drawing. It’s a form of meditation for me and has now become a way for me to find peace and sanity when my world gets too overwhelming, which, as a single mom with a neuro-divergent teen, happens quite often. When it does, I follow John Muir’s quote, “Off into the woods I go to loose my mind and find my soul.”
The results of those trips are  sketches of the forests around me and photos. I work from the photos to create my watercolors and intaglio prints. I hope you enjoy them and can find a place in your home to adopt one or more.

Spriha Kant

Spriha Kant is an English poetess, book reviewer, and digital artist. She has been published in some anthologies — “Hidden in Childhood” and “We Are The Waves,” to name a few. Her poems have also been published in the seventh issue of “Reflections,” the well-known literary magazine “Prosetrics.” She has been the Guest of honor in the award-winning show “Victoria in Verse” (Bloomsbury Radio, London). Her interviews can be read at feversofthemind.com & and brokenspine.co.uk. Her quotes are published as an epigraph and a blurb in Magkasintahan Volume VI & Swiped Right [both books published by Ukiyoto Publishing, Philippines], respectively. Her artwork can be seen in a webzine called “The Starbeck Orion” and on thewombwellrainbow.com.

Writer Bios

Debbie Ross,

Debbie is a poet, author, artist, photographer, and baker. She lives 400m from the sea, in the far north Scottish Highlands, and can be mostly be found in the kitchen, at the beach, or at her writing table.

Matt Guntrip,

Matt Guntrip is a guitarist, song writer and indie musician from the UK. He has published four albums & five singles via CD Baby, available on most channels. He was a nominated solo artist on the New Music Generator Show, Cambridge 105FM.

Through creative writing he explores themes of nature, time, love, loss, rejection, injustice and hope, with a view to learning, improving and thus to writing better songs.

Matt’s writing has been published in The Belfast Review, The Broken Spine,  Fevers of The Mind, Folkheart Press Blog, GAS Poetry (YouTube), The Starbeck Orion (Substack) & The Wombwell Rainbow website.

Donna Faulkner,

Donna  Faulkner lives in a cottage in Rangiora, New Zealand with her husband , two sons and Emily, the black Labrador.  She’s been published in 300 Days of Sun, Havik, Windward Review, Havik, Fieldstone Review,  New Myths, Bacopa Literary Review and others. Her debut poetry book ‘In Silver Majesty’ was published by erbacce press(UK) 2024. 

Instagram @lady_lilith_poet/ Twitter @nee_miller. https://linktr.ee/donnafaulkner

Alan McGinn,

Anish Gupta,

Dr. Anish K. Gupta is an Indian urologist and an impassioned poet who writes mainly in English but also dabbles in Hindi and Urdu. His work seamlessly intertwines the exactitude of medical science with the subtleties of human emotion. Grounded in the complementary realms of medicine and art, his path reflects a profound quest for understanding, healing, and the expression of love and life. In the operating room or on the page, Dr. Gupta delves into the intricacies of both body and soul, approaching each with care, curiosity, and compassion. His poetry captures the subtle epiphanies of daily life, the fragility of the human condition, and the deep connections between love and existence. He goes by the #uropoet on X where his handle is @optionurol.

Phil Hyde,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

Rituparna,

Rituparna Ghosh is an alumna of the National University of Singapore, an AI engineer, and the founder of Whizzstep. With a passion for poetry, she enjoys crafting verses, particularly in the genres of free verse and reflective poetry. A lover of nature, Rituparna finds peace in her walks by the beach, where the tranquility of the ocean inspires both her creativity and personal reflection. Coding is her profession, and she thrives on solving complex problems through technology. She also has a deep love for traveling, reading, learning new languages, and horse riding, connecting with the outdoors in a unique and fulfilling way.

Francis H Powell,

Judy Smith ,

Judy Smith lives in East Yorkshire. Retired from a career in health and education, she is an emerging poet. She has had poems published in several anthologies, including Spelt, 14, Black Bough, Artemis, High Wolds, Dreich, York Literary Review, The Starbeck Orion. She has a passion for wildlife gardening and community tree planting.

Sheikha A,

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her poems appear in a variety of literary venues both print and online, and some of them have been translated into 8 languages so far. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com

John Armstrong,

John Armstrong is a poet whose work blends metaphysical inquiry with vivid, elemental imagery. Drawing from a deep reverence for nature, memory, and the cosmic, Armstrong’s poetry explores dualistic and trinitarian themes of love, transformation, and the spiritual texture of existence.Armstrong sees poetry not merely as a literary form but as a living, animistic force—language shaped by the earth itself. His work is a personal quest, a surrender to the unknown, finding beauty in ambiguity and meaning in the mist between words and life.

Spare time: He grows Cosmos flowers and wills them on way past the first frosts.

Saraswati Nagpal,

SK3

SEB3

JZ3

Jz3

Eyes of Defiance

Night gathers at her feet, murmuring secrets
only the forsaken understand.
She moves like prophecy, carved from silence,
a shadow against the neon glow of a world unraveling.

Beneath the mask, she is not what they believe,
not fragile, not lost, not waiting to be saved.
She is the hush before a storm,
the ember buried beneath cold ash,
the quiet rage of a soul unbroken.

She has walked through ruin,
let it touch her, let it name her,
but never let it take her.
Her scars do not whisper of defeat.
They are inscriptions of survival,
etchings of fire upon her bones.

They will not speak of her sorrow.
They will not name her battles.
But in the hush between their words,
in the weight of their silences,
they will know she was never meant to fall.


SEB 3

What Remains

Beneath the surface, unseen hands reach upward.
They do not beg. They do not call.
They simply remember.

The earth cradles what once was
a voice, a breath, a body that moved through the world
with hunger, with longing, with fire.
Now it rests, yet it does not vanish.

The tree drinks from all it left behind.
It rises, relentless,
bearing the weight of silent echoes.
Flowers unfold where fingers once touched,
branches stretch where arms once held.

Above, the wind moves without memory.
Seasons pass. Faces come and go.
But the roots know.
They hold on when the living forget.
They anchor what time cannot erase.

Nothing is truly lost.
Not love, not sorrow, not the shape of a soul.
It lingers beneath,
feeding the bloom,
becoming the earth itself.


SK 3

The Architecture of Silence

The city hums with unsung prayers,
a scaffold of longing pressed against the sky.
Steel bones remember the hands that shaped them,
each beam holding the weight of whispered names.

We build to forget how fragile we are,
how the earth beneath us trembles,
how silence settles in the seams of concrete,
waiting for the moment we listen.

What is a monument but a pause in time,
a plea to be more than dust and departure?
Yet even the tallest towers bow to the wind,
and the strongest bridges learn to sway.

Somewhere between the rising and the ruin,
between what we reach for and what we lose,
we are neither stone nor shadow,
but the spaces in between,
unfinished, unbroken, alive.

-Rituparna

Battering Ram

-Oormila V. Prahlad

Artworker Bios

Jenn Zed
Ms. Zed is an artist, writer, and musician who lives in Bath, England, with the ghost of her cat.
She studied art, art history, and design MA at Bath and Cambridge Universities.

Sara Elizabeth Bell

Says:

I’ve always loved drawing. It’s a form of meditation for me and has now become a way for me to find peace and sanity when my world gets too overwhelming, which, as a single mom with a neuro-divergent teen, happens quite often. When it does, I follow John Muir’s quote, “Off into the woods I go to loose my mind and find my soul.”
The results of those trips are  sketches of the forests around me and photos. I work from the photos to create my watercolors and intaglio prints. I hope you enjoy them and can find a place in your home to adopt one or more.

Spriha Kant

Spriha Kant is an English poetess, book reviewer, and digital artist. She has been published in some anthologies — “Hidden in Childhood” and “We Are The Waves,” to name a few. Her poems have also been published in the seventh issue of “Reflections,” the well-known literary magazine “Prosetrics.” She has been the Guest of honor in the award-winning show “Victoria in Verse” (Bloomsbury Radio, London). Her interviews can be read at feversofthemind.com & and brokenspine.co.uk. Her quotes are published as an epigraph and a blurb in Magkasintahan Volume VI & Swiped Right [both books published by Ukiyoto Publishing, Philippines], respectively. Her artwork can be seen in a webzine called “The Starbeck Orion” and on thewombwellrainbow.com.

Writer Bios

Debbie Ross,

Debbie is a poet, author, artist, photographer, and baker. She lives 400m from the sea, in the far north Scottish Highlands, and can be mostly be found in the kitchen, at the beach, or at her writing table.

Matt Guntrip,

Matt Guntrip is a guitarist, song writer and indie musician from the UK. He has published four albums & five singles via CD Baby, available on most channels. He was a nominated solo artist on the New Music Generator Show, Cambridge 105FM.

Through creative writing he explores themes of nature, time, love, loss, rejection, injustice and hope, with a view to learning, improving and thus to writing better songs.

Matt’s writing has been published in The Belfast Review, The Broken Spine,  Fevers of The Mind, Folkheart Press Blog, GAS Poetry (YouTube), The Starbeck Orion (Substack) & The Wombwell Rainbow website.

Donna Faulkner,

Donna  Faulkner lives in a cottage in Rangiora, New Zealand with her husband , two sons and Emily, the black Labrador.  She’s been published in 300 Days of Sun, Havik, Windward Review, Havik, Fieldstone Review,  New Myths, Bacopa Literary Review and others. Her debut poetry book ‘In Silver Majesty’ was published by erbacce press(UK) 2024. 

Instagram @lady_lilith_poet/ Twitter @nee_miller. https://linktr.ee/donnafaulkner

Alan McGinn,

Anish Gupta,

Dr. Anish K. Gupta is an Indian urologist and an impassioned poet who writes mainly in English but also dabbles in Hindi and Urdu. His work seamlessly intertwines the exactitude of medical science with the subtleties of human emotion. Grounded in the complementary realms of medicine and art, his path reflects a profound quest for understanding, healing, and the expression of love and life. In the operating room or on the page, Dr. Gupta delves into the intricacies of both body and soul, approaching each with care, curiosity, and compassion. His poetry captures the subtle epiphanies of daily life, the fragility of the human condition, and the deep connections between love and existence. He goes by the #uropoet on X where his handle is @optionurol.

Phil Hyde,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

Rituparna,

Rituparna Ghosh is an alumna of the National University of Singapore, an AI engineer, and the founder of Whizzstep. With a passion for poetry, she enjoys crafting verses, particularly in the genres of free verse and reflective poetry. A lover of nature, Rituparna finds peace in her walks by the beach, where the tranquility of the ocean inspires both her creativity and personal reflection. Coding is her profession, and she thrives on solving complex problems through technology. She also has a deep love for traveling, reading, learning new languages, and horse riding, connecting with the outdoors in a unique and fulfilling way.

Francis H Powell,

Judy Smith ,

Judy Smith lives in East Yorkshire. Retired from a career in health and education, she is an emerging poet. She has had poems published in several anthologies, including Spelt, 14, Black Bough, Artemis, High Wolds, Dreich, York Literary Review, The Starbeck Orion. She has a passion for wildlife gardening and community tree planting.

Sheikha A,

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her poems appear in a variety of literary venues both print and online, and some of them have been translated into 8 languages so far. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com

John Armstrong,

John Armstrong is a poet whose work blends metaphysical inquiry with vivid, elemental imagery. Drawing from a deep reverence for nature, memory, and the cosmic, Armstrong’s poetry explores dualistic and trinitarian themes of love, transformation, and the spiritual texture of existence.Armstrong sees poetry not merely as a literary form but as a living, animistic force—language shaped by the earth itself. His work is a personal quest, a surrender to the unknown, finding beauty in ambiguity and meaning in the mist between words and life.

Spare time: He grows Cosmos flowers and wills them on way past the first frosts.

Saraswati Nagpal,

John Wolf

Creative writing tutor, poet, storyteller for Read To Write. Taught Beowulf, Odyssey, and Troy; Gilgamesh is coming in October. First poetry collection entitled Heroes (Glasshead Press, 2022). New collection, Historia, out summer 2025. Featured on Radio Sheffield, CAST, Little Theatre, Doncaster Ukranian Centre, Artbomb, Doncaster Foodbank Festival, Under Milk Wood and Women of Troy. 

Oormila V. Prahlad

is a widely published Indian-Australian artist and poet. She lives and works on traditional Gammergal land. Find her on Instagram @oormila_paintings

SEB2

SK2

JZ2

SEB2

The empty  nostalgia
…. happily ever after.
What is there
but winter
barbs
and an abandoned nest

JZ2

The morning is blister     popping.
In a  taiso stretch
scorched  black rock
kisses the coat tails
of the rising sun.

Pensive in the water
the day     in revelation.
Origami calm.
Water    holding
fire

-Donna Faulkner

-Phil Hyde

SEB 2



Here they shoot crows

leave nests

empty.

Black masses

mourn


on the wing.

-Debbie Ross

My Own Solitude, based on Artwork by JZ2


A monolith of shadow rises,
trees etched like whispers on its skin.
The lake, a hush of obsidian glass,
stirs only to bleed the sun;
a red wound smeared across its depths.

Silence clings like mist,
the world withdrawing, dissolving,
leaving only the lone stone,
the breathing dark,
and the slow orbit of birds
that know no name for exile.

-Anish Gupta

Capricorn (the red dot on Jupiter)

in response to artwork by Jenn Zed

after Pippa Phillips

Unconcern yourself with star sand on abandoned shores. The warrior sent out with a quiver of onyx arrows is defining another galaxy — point of no return. Fortune levitates in unending loops, moon’s iris magnifying in helium rain. Near afar mount peaks chiselled blunt by destiny’s splint. Favours will be shapeless preyed upon by hunters of grace, navigate layers with acute agility. A fox never goes the distance wearing shoes of premature ingenuity.

-Sheikha A.

Jz2

A Crimson Dusk

The sky is wounded, spilling fire into the water.
The sun does not set. It collapses.
It drags its heavy body toward the edge of the world,
clawing at the horizon as if it dreads the dark.

The mountain watches, unmoved.
It has seen this a thousand times.
The dying of light, the slow surrender.
Time has carved its face into silence.
No grief. No longing. Only the quiet weight of knowing.

The water swallows the sun in trembling ripples.
Its reflection fractures, uncertain.
A ghost of what was, dissolving before it understands itself.
A mirror trying to hold on but failing, as all things do.

Somewhere, in the hush between light and shadow,
something is ending.
A love. A life. A name whispered for the last time.
The air is thick with the scent of loss,
with all that was meant to be said but never was.

And then the night.


SK2

Drifting Away

A heart once tightly woven, now frays,
Untethered, it rises, softly, quietly.
Below, the world becomes distant,
A silent echo, as winds lift without mercy.

The weight that once burdened, now disappears,
Fading into the air, leaving only emptiness.
No walls to lean against, no paths to cling to,
Only the vast, uncharted sky, boundless and cold.

Let go, let yourself dissolve into the unknown,
Where shadows cease to haunt, and dreams take root.
For freedom calls in a voice you can barely hear,
A whisper, trembling, urging you to follow.

Rise, unbound, as the night fades away,
Where truths are spoken in the quiet hum of stars.
In that infinite space, far from the familiar,
There, you will find yourself lost, yet whole.


SEB 2

A Mother’s Hands

She wove the nest from pieces of her own heart,
thread by delicate thread, stitched with the quiet weight of sacrifice.
Her hands, once soft and unmarked, grew calloused,
not from toil, but from holding so gently,
so the fragile things wouldn’t break,
so the tender things wouldn’t fear.

She built the walls from whispers of lullabies,
wove the sky with strands of quiet strength,
taught the wind to soften,
taught the wings to believe in the sky.

Then, one morning, the weight was gone.
The nest, still intact, still whole, stood empty.
She stood beneath the vast sky,
her hands aching with the weight of memories,
of holding, of sheltering,
of knowing that love, the deepest love,
is the one that learns to let go,
even when the heart can’t quite understand.

-Rituparna

Gondola

Empty nest in bare tree, a gondola
that has lost its balloon, fledgling leaves
flown.
The mountain ripples red in the water,
massive red sun floats its stretched plastic blown.

Earth its gondola tethered to its death.
Intricately made-from-chosen-parts home.
Flight fire braids air, water and mountain depth.
Birds find twigs of sky to intertwine, hone.

Carefully placed pictures on a home wall.
Items to be sorted when you are dead.
Treasured, kept, rubbished or charity haul.
Reminders of outside, moments unsaid.

Unremembered stories of how you chose
bought images shelved and arranged in rows.

-Paul Brookes

Artworker Bios

Jenn Zed
Ms. Zed is an artist, writer, and musician who lives in Bath, England, with the ghost of her cat.
She studied art, art history, and design MA at Bath and Cambridge Universities.

Sara Elizabeth Bell

Says:

I’ve always loved drawing. It’s a form of meditation for me and has now become a way for me to find peace and sanity when my world gets too overwhelming, which, as a single mom with a neuro-divergent teen, happens quite often. When it does, I follow John Muir’s quote, “Off into the woods I go to loose my mind and find my soul.”
The results of those trips are  sketches of the forests around me and photos. I work from the photos to create my watercolors and intaglio prints. I hope you enjoy them and can find a place in your home to adopt one or more.

Spriha Kant

Spriha Kant is an English poetess, book reviewer, and digital artist. She has been published in some anthologies — “Hidden in Childhood” and “We Are The Waves,” to name a few. Her poems have also been published in the seventh issue of “Reflections,” the well-known literary magazine “Prosetrics.” She has been the Guest of honor in the award-winning show “Victoria in Verse” (Bloomsbury Radio, London). Her interviews can be read at feversofthemind.com & and brokenspine.co.uk. Her quotes are published as an epigraph and a blurb in Magkasintahan Volume VI & Swiped Right [both books published by Ukiyoto Publishing, Philippines], respectively. Her artwork can be seen in a webzine called “The Starbeck Orion” and on thewombwellrainbow.com.

Writer Bios

Debbie Ross,

Debbie is a poet, author, artist, photographer, and baker. She lives 400m from the sea, in the far north Scottish Highlands, and can be mostly be found in the kitchen, at the beach, or at her writing table.

Matt Guntrip,

Matt Guntrip is a guitarist, song writer and indie musician from the UK. He has published four albums & five singles via CD Baby, available on most channels. He was a nominated solo artist on the New Music Generator Show, Cambridge 105FM.

Through creative writing he explores themes of nature, time, love, loss, rejection, injustice and hope, with a view to learning, improving and thus to writing better songs.

Matt’s writing has been published in The Belfast Review, The Broken Spine,  Fevers of The Mind, Folkheart Press Blog, GAS Poetry (YouTube), The Starbeck Orion (Substack) & The Wombwell Rainbow website.

Donna Faulkner,

Donna  Faulkner lives in a cottage in Rangiora, New Zealand with her husband , two sons and Emily, the black Labrador.  She’s been published in 300 Days of Sun, Havik, Windward Review, Havik, Fieldstone Review,  New Myths, Bacopa Literary Review and others. Her debut poetry book ‘In Silver Majesty’ was published by erbacce press(UK) 2024. 

Instagram @lady_lilith_poet/ Twitter @nee_miller. https://linktr.ee/donnafaulkner

Alan McGinn,

Anish Gupta,

Dr. Anish K. Gupta is an Indian urologist and an impassioned poet who writes mainly in English but also dabbles in Hindi and Urdu. His work seamlessly intertwines the exactitude of medical science with the subtleties of human emotion. Grounded in the complementary realms of medicine and art, his path reflects a profound quest for understanding, healing, and the expression of love and life. In the operating room or on the page, Dr. Gupta delves into the intricacies of both body and soul, approaching each with care, curiosity, and compassion. His poetry captures the subtle epiphanies of daily life, the fragility of the human condition, and the deep connections between love and existence. He goes by the #uropoet on X where his handle is @optionurol.

Phil Hyde,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

Rituparna,

Rituparna Ghosh is an alumna of the National University of Singapore, an AI engineer, and the founder of Whizzstep. With a passion for poetry, she enjoys crafting verses, particularly in the genres of free verse and reflective poetry. A lover of nature, Rituparna finds peace in her walks by the beach, where the tranquility of the ocean inspires both her creativity and personal reflection. Coding is her profession, and she thrives on solving complex problems through technology. She also has a deep love for traveling, reading, learning new languages, and horse riding, connecting with the outdoors in a unique and fulfilling way.

Francis H Powell,

Judy Smith ,

Judy Smith lives in East Yorkshire. Retired from a career in health and education, she is an emerging poet. She has had poems published in several anthologies, including Spelt, 14, Black Bough, Artemis, High Wolds, Dreich, York Literary Review, The Starbeck Orion. She has a passion for wildlife gardening and community tree planting.

Sheikha A,

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her poems appear in a variety of literary venues both print and online, and some of them have been translated into 8 languages so far. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com

John Armstrong,

John Armstrong is a poet whose work blends metaphysical inquiry with vivid, elemental imagery. Drawing from a deep reverence for nature, memory, and the cosmic, Armstrong’s poetry explores dualistic and trinitarian themes of love, transformation, and the spiritual texture of existence.Armstrong sees poetry not merely as a literary form but as a living, animistic force—language shaped by the earth itself. His work is a personal quest, a surrender to the unknown, finding beauty in ambiguity and meaning in the mist between words and life.

Spare time: He grows Cosmos flowers and wills them on way past the first frosts.

Saraswati Nagpal,

https://open.substack.com/pub/the880/p/the-starbeck-orion-issue-8-a-festschrift-fba?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=33jsyn

TWT Wave 2 can be purchased here:

https://shorturl.at/ezFNn

Robert Edge

Discovering dyslexia in adulthood, Robert began an English degree as a “Fuck You” to childhood education. An MRes followed to create: The Fairly Good Samaritan. (a work in progress novel). Poetry informs his prose to develop a linguistical-style allowing shorter snapshots of the world, while evoking emotional responses, whether grief, laughter or ideally both. @robertedge.bsky.social

The Interview

1 How did you decide on what poems to send?

I’ve never written prescriptively so what I sent was exactly what I wrote for the brief.

2 What poetic form did it take, and why?

Free verse, I think I just decide what I want to say and say it. That’s not to say I don’t conform just that conformity needs to be found by accident.

3 How did you use the whiteness of the page in your poem?

I hadn’t considered it, I have in the past whilst studying form but I’m very nature before nurture if that doesn’t make me sound like a pretentious prick.

4 How did you decide on the title of your poem?

The title imagines that the loss of humanity would be the best gift we could give to nature.

Nature is something I feel humans see far too often as something to battle against.

5 Imagery, or narrative. Which was more important to you in writing the poem?

Depends.

6 What do you think of where your poem is placed in the collection?

I’m just happy to have it published.

7 Once they have read your poem, what do you hope the reader will leave with?

An understanding that we are the worst thing that could have happened to nature, that we consume like locusts and very rarely give anything back unless it benefits us as a species. If the reader can see that in themselves, maybe they would be more mindful of their footprints.

TWT Wave 2 can be purchased here: https://shorturl.at/ezFNn

Briony Collins

is an award-winning writer and publisher. She has three books with Broken Sleep – Blame it on Me, All That Glisters, and The Birds, The Rabbits, The Trees – and Whisper Network (Bangor University) and cactus land (Atomic Bohemian). In 2025, her debut novel and two poetry books are forthcoming. http://www.brionycollins.co.u

The Interview

1 How did you decide on what poems to send?

To be absolutely transparent, a lot of my choices with this project came down to time. I’m currently a full-time PhD student coming to the end of my studies, and I have been working full-time across two jobs since March 2024, in addition to running my own press. I went into my drafts folder on my laptop to try and find something with potential for this brief. I was very fortunate in that I found three poems, and spent a weekend revising and editing them to work with each Untamed anthology. I think this is why ‘Ecotone’ sits in conversation with the other pieces I have coming out with Wave 2, so it will be exciting when they can all be read together.
2 What poetic form did it take, and why?

I have moved away from punctuation in poetry lately. I like the dream-like quality that the open-ended lines evoke, each hanging on the page without a clear stopping point. I think it works well with ‘Ecotone’.

3 How did you use the whiteness of the page in your poem?

I didn’t really think about it. By considering how I wanted the lines to sit on the page, the whiteness around them was more a by-product of this than an active choice.

4 How did you decide on the title of your poem?

It’s a cool word! I like using cool words for titles! But, more seriously, I like the idea of a slow transition between spaces that it signifies. It reminds me of waking up and falling asleep — that liminal space between consciousness and dreams.

5 Imagery, or narrative. Which was more important to you in writing the poem?

It’s hard to say. For me, it’s sort of like asking spoon or soup? I need the spoon to eat the soup. I need the imagery to relay the narrative. I spend a lot of time working on imagery in my poems, but I’m also not interested in purely descriptive writing. I want my writing to mean something to me, to say something about myself. Imagery is the tool to achieve this and is essential to narrative in my work.

6 What do you think of where your poem is placed in the collection?

I think it’s perfect. Both James McConachie (before) and Barney Ashton Bullock (after) sit either side of ‘Ecotone’, and both mention fog in their first lines. Fog to me speaks of transition too, and navigating fog can be quite instinctual, as we don’t always know what’s on the other side. I like my poem sitting in the middle of this fog, wondering what awaits.

7 Once they have read your poem, what do you hope the reader will leave with?

The desire to keep reading and re-reading Untamed Nature!

TWT Wave 2 can be purchased here:https://shorturl.at/ezFNn

Robert Frede Kenter

Robert is widely published; a forthcoming book, FATHER TECTONIC, is avail Feb 2025 from Ethel Zine Press. Robert is EIC/publisher, Ice Floe Press. Bluesky: @rfredekenter.bsky.social, IG: r.f.k.vispocityshuffle, icefloe22; Twitter: @frede_kenter Website: http://www.icefloepress.net

The Interview

1 How did you decide on what poems to send?

Through a negotiated settlement with my brain.

2 What poetic form did it take, and why?

Prose poems; in this particular segment of the Whiskey Tree project. To me the concept of nature rewilding lend to a focal lens on a wider horizontal, spiraling cinema of affect, image associations, building blocks of parallel and dialectical revenge scenarios. Revenant ghost takes, afterimages.

3 How did you use the whiteness of the page in your poem?

The blank page absorbs and swirls like a super saturated outtake of the transformation of trees into pulp/ then / paper which historically has led to mercury-contamination of local lakes and rivers.

4 How did you decide on the title of your poem?

Double/entendre…between an emotionally emitted restlessness and the name of a flower.

5 Imagery, or narrative. Which was more important to you in writing the poem?

The narrative is a world(s) built from accretion of relational images: from historical architecture to the spine of my father, entrapment specimen in an interior dialogic relationship.

6 What do you think of where your poem is placed in the collection?

I like where “Impatience” is placed; near the end, with other poems before and after it that seem very much like call-response pieces, though we had not shown each other our work ahead of time; a sort of zeitgeist osmosis in compilation of theme.

7 Once they have read your poem, what do you hope the reader will leave with?

I hope the reader enters the world, and when they leave, find some trace of its materiality affixed to a coat, a favorite trouser leg, a vision on a coffee table, perhaps about to vanish. Robert Frede Kenter is multiple pushcart & BOTN nominee, a writer, editor & visual artist utilizing intersections of form, theme, performance, language, to interrogate historical/personal & cultural issues & deconstruct norms.