For the first time this year, The White Review Poet’s Prize was open to poets based anywhere in the world. Last month we announced a shortlist of eight poets. ...
The cat’s paws brush through the letterbox, looking for some jellied meat or an opening in the family. Cat...
Thanks for joining us today Please, take some time to catch your breath Had you been running to get where you now are?
Just give me a minute I’m such an idiot, I came this close to missing my flight You can’t see, I’m marking a sliver with my index and thumb I arrived at the airport well in advance, strolled towards the departure lounge, telling myself I could take my time They’ve redone that bit when you get through the security checks, to make it just like all the other airports around the world The long snaking path forces you to walk by all the boutiques, where shop attendants hold out trays with perfume samples or plastic cups with shots of whisky It was 10 am, my stomach felt sick at the thought I remember looking up at the sign marked ESCAPE LOUNGE, thinking to myself, escape, yes please, that’s what I’d like to do I was drifting slowly, zoning out, under the glare of the artificial light, the clashing rhythms of the different pop songs as
The women in her family have always shown dogs. They keep pictures of the dogs on the wall beside...
Dear Sir,
I think about that smile you gave me in the sun and I wanted to explain why I had dirt on my face
The night before at 11 pm my husband, sitting on the sofa, had said there was a bird in the chimney and/but/and he wasn’t going to do anything about it
(When I say the chimney we live in a rented house and instead of a fireplace we have a thick piece of board which is painted over and stuck down with gloss paint)
I looked it up on my computer and it gave the two obvious choices: get the bird out or leave it to die The option of leaving it to die was gone into in some detail and how long it would take to decompose and the specifics of the smell I went to bed and immediately fell asleep
In the morning the children woke up and I took them down for breakfast (I should say the house is very small so breakfast is right by the boarded-up fireplace which contained this bird) By this point I could hear sounds like a person’s coat when they stop right outside your front door, before they knock
shwww shwww
Or if they’ve stopped there for another reason and aren’t going to knock
I put on the radio and got the children ready, and then we walked to school
On the way back I did think that if I saw you I might just confess the whole thing But what could I say to make it sound appealing? Watch me smash something then perhaps we could have a little walk
sir
When I got home the bird was moving in the still house, living in the wall, my husband having already left for work In the basement I found a broad flat tool like a metal version of an ice- scraper for a car windscreen and I used this and a hammer to slowly break in the edges of the board
While I was doing this I thought of a book I had read in which the writer remembered her mother rescuing
