Poem
ending on a line by John Burnside
No one on the boats, just cats – thin, furtive.
There’s the blown cry of terns and the wheedling
embarkations of crows, but you will not slip
1.
‘My new persona helped me to make money,’ says the streamer,
but cruel and petty, unhoped for ideal like a hovercraft shimmers
behind a definition of a chair ...
I’d ask you to reappear from behind the wet blanket, Sun,
But the ozone has been eaten by refrigerants
And we can’t take your glare. We are people
Of the skin cancers, tuned by solar flares ...
'101, Taipei' by Nicholas Wong, 'Compass' by Eileen Chong, 'The Abstract Blue Background' by LK Holt, 'Decoding Paul Klee’s Mit Grünen Strümpfen (With Green Stockings) 1939' by Katherine Healy, and 'breather' by Tracey Slaughter.
... (read more)'Dancing with Stephen Hawking' by John Foulcher; 'The Mirror Hurlers' by Ross Gillett; '63 Temple Street, Mong Kok' by Belle Ling; 'Searching the Dead' by Andy Kissane; 'Raven' by Mark Tredinnick.
... (read more)The shortlist: 'My Father's Thesaurus' by A. Frances Johnson; 'Precision Signs' by Lachlan Brown; 'Constellation of Bees' by Julie Manning; 'That Wadjela Tongue' by Claire G. Coleman; 'South Coast Sonnets' by Ross Gillett.
... (read more)ABR is pleased to present the shortlist for the 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize, which this year received a record field of 1,329 entries from thirty-three different countries. Congratulations to those who reached the shortlist: Danielle Blau, Sara M. Saleh, Jazz Money, Raisa Tolchinsky, and Y.S. Lee.
... (read more)ABR is pleased to present the shortlist for the 2022 Peter Porter Poetry Prize, which this year received 1,328 poems from thirty-four countries. Congratulations to those who reached the shortlist: Chris Arnold, Dan Disney, Michael Farrell, Anthony Lawrence, and Debbie Lim. Each of their poems is listed below in alphabetical order by author. For the full longlist, click here.
... (read more)Conveniently located next to Perrache
railway station, the Hôtel Terminus,
Lyon, is distinguished by its extensive ...
I see you then: long and veined with red like the closed
pod of an asphodel bud: if you opened now it would be
with the strangeness of a lily its scent edging between sweat,
and the musk that marks a territory: I have not forgotten you ...