Jason Irwin is the author of the forthcoming collection The History of Our Vagrancies (Main Street Rag), A Blister of Stars (Low Ghost, 2016), Watering the Dead (Pavement Saw Press, 2008), winner of the Transcontinental Poetry Award, and the chapbooks Where You Are (Night Ballet Press, 2014), & Some Days It’sA Love Story (Slipstream Press, 2005). He has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. He lives in Pittsburgh. http://jasonirwin.blogspot.com/ Sparrow or Crow Hope the weather’s okay for yous, your voice lilts, holding the ous  the way you held on to life: a quiet authority hiding all the pain.    Hard to … Continue reading Jason Irwin

62 year-old prize-winning* poet and recovering actor Ken Cumberlidge was born in Birkenhead and cut his performance teeth on the Liverpool pub poetry scene of the 1970s.  His work has appeared variously in print and, more recently, in numerous online journals.  Since 2011 Ken has been based in Norwich, but can be lured out of cover by good company and an open mic – a proclivity that has led him to become an habitué of the fetid underworld that is the slam poetry/spoken word scene.  He likes it.  A lot. Ken’s poetry on Soundcloud:  https://soundcloud.com/ken_cumberlidge_poetry Ken’s YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrEPf1MlegfAJyKDA5-wNqQ * … Continue reading Ken Cumberlidge

Julia McNamara is an emerging writer and poet from southern Ireland who received her BA in English and Psychology from University College, Cork. When she isn’t writing she is applying make-up as a form of inexpensive therapy/temporary disguise, while ruminating on where it all went wrong. Her favourite whiskey is Jameson. @JuliaMcNamara_x Rescue After seven months I Tricked myself into glancing At the ugly red scar stretching Garishly across my lower pelvis It’s sly half smile mocking my Body dysmorphia – I brought the tips of my Fingers to meet the scarlet trench, To trace its route from left to … Continue reading Julia McNamara

Claire Loader is a New Zealand born writer now living in County Galway.  Her work has appeared in various publications including Crannóg, The Cormorant & The Cabinet of Heed. Afters Cymbals ring like gas escaping a tin of coke and you wish yourself anywhere but here.  Fascinators bobbing in their pastel hues, they take to the dance floor as if preparing for tribal warfare. If only it were that interesting. “God, I think I’d kill myself if this was my wedding.” Danny snorts beside you.  “Ah now, sure what’s wrong with an ol’ show band?” The tenth wedding this year, you watch … Continue reading Claire Loader

Chitra is a New Delhi-based journalist by profession, a social development communications consultant by profession and a creative writer by choice. Her work has been published by Celestial Echo Press, Black Hare Press, Me First Magazine, Reedsy Prompt, 50-word stories, Friday Flash Fiction, Terror House Magazine, Unpublished Platform, Literary Yard, Truancy, Spillwords, Fleas on the Dog, Literati and Runcible Spoon, among others. What this life is meant to be I live by the seasons of death. I transact with the un-living, their stiffened death rattles, as they burn on bright-red embers releasing a spiral of thick black smoke. This on a daily … Continue reading Chitra Gopalakrishnan

Books lead to other books. Read one and you’re reminded of another. New publications refer to past ones, famous and obscure. Genres cross over, involving similar concepts, tropes, devices. Writers lift, pay tribute, re-imagine, claim as their own and take it a step further in their effort to tell gripping, original stories. Pick up the trail and we end up making extraordinary connections. Welcome to Connection Degree Three … The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead is a story of slavery and escape, abjectness and redemption. Its main character, Cora, flees her cruel master to claim her freedom and identity, if … Continue reading ON THE PSYCHOPATHY OF THE DISAFFECTED

Philip Dunkerley is an active member of open mic communities in Peterborough and Stamford. He is the Poetry Society representative for the Stamford Stanza and runs a U3A Poetry Group in Bourne, where he lives. His poems have been published in Magma, Orbis, Dream Catcher, The Fenland Reed, Ink Sweat and Tears, Obsessed With Pipework, The Blue Nib, and elsewhere. His translations from Portuguese and Spanish, and poetry reviews, have been published in Orbis. His work has appeared in several anthologies, including Poems for Peace with a forward by Benjamin Zephaniah. Chaos Theory And when the butterfly flapped its wings … Continue reading Philip Dunkerley

In these uncertain times where we are stuck at home Ruthie Adamson has a poem to help prevent us from getting in a lather. Timed to be 20 seconds long its the perfect hand washing companion for those of you tired of singing an extract of ‘God Save the Queen’ or ‘Happy Birthday’. Find her reading the poem ‘Lather’ – here Award Winning and published performance poet Ruthie Adamson, AKA Wonky Wordsmith, is wonky because it wasn’t her fate to be straight so she is homosexual and asymmetrical and a wordsmith because she wows with words about those things and … Continue reading Ruthie Adamson (AKA Wonky Wordsmith)

Ilhem Issaoui is a 27-year-old Tunisian researcher and writer. Some of her poems and short stories have appeared both online and in print.She is also the author of a collection of poems entitled Fragments of a Wounded Soul. On Hell Hell is that black smock emerging from one’s eyes Saddened choleric colours coming out of tubes An artist can never be trusted with her own soul, her own hands, her own body They are someone’s material Someone’s brush and world, own world When outside is eaten with boredom And everyone is devouring someone else The artist is aloof, devouring herself Isn’t he the most … Continue reading Ilhem Issaoui

Chad Norman lives beside the high-tides of the Bay of Fundy, in what is known as the hub of Nova Scotia.  He has given talks and readings in Denmark, Sweden, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, America, and across Canada. His poems continue to appear in publications around the world and have been translated into Danish, Albanian,  Romanian, Turkish, and Italian. His latest collections are Selected & New Poems ( Mosaic Press, Oakville, Ontario, Canada), and Waking Up On The Wrong Side Of the Sky (Grant Block Press, Truro, N.S., Canada). A new collection, Squall: Poems In The Voice Of Mary Shelley, is … Continue reading Chad Norman