The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

Carole Coates

Photograph a woman standing in sand with a coat on. She has left footprints.

Our small Homeric lives

Steven Lovatt reviews Dead Letters by Carole Coates (Shoestring, 2023)
Black text on white reads ‘Dead Letters (xi) by Carole Coates’ with a quarter of a yellow Friday Poem blob over the bottom right hand corner.

Dead Letters (xi)

by Carole Coates — Dear J, // Did we ever talk about papier mache?  No? / Not in fifty years? Not in all our conversations? / Maybe not.  But I did mention Mr Cuthbert surely, / once Lance-Corporal, teaching forty eight-year-olds / after the one year
a watercolour with multicoloured ribbons with arrow shaped ends swirling on a blue textured background. There are some rectangle frames at a variety of angles.

The thing itself

Charlotte Gann reviews When the Swimming Pool Fell in the Sea by Carole Coates (Shoestring, 2021)