The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

Friday Poems

Concentrated radiance

Concentrated radiance

Steven Lovatt reviews Ceremony for the Nameless by Theresa Lola (Penguin, 2024)
Swirling blue. tinted background looks a bit like sand. There is a flat tree shape possibly made of seaweed and some random shells are lying on the aforementioned gray blue swirly sand stuff.

Grey fank loch

Jane Routh reviews Okapi by Fiona Moore (Blue Diode Press, 2024)
Book cover showing a black background with a watercolour of a hawthorn branch in flower.

The haze of the otherworld

Matthew Paul reviews The Hawthorn Bride by Victoria Gatehouse (Indigo Dreams, 2024)
The outline of a shark in almost fluorescent green on a beige background

The wheeling Maybirds

Tim Murphy reviews The Shark Nursery by Mary O’Malley (Carcanet, 2024)
Hand drawn title 'GUB' in black on a cream background. A beastly mouth is surrounding the 'B'

A tutti-frutti cigarillo wrap stuffed with Alaskan Thunderfuck

Dane Holt reviews GUB by Scott McKendry (Corsair, 2024)
A photograph of a cuckoo with a smaller bird feeding it.

Let us venerate niche and otherness

D. A. Prince reviews Broadlands by Matt Howard (Bloodaxe, 2024)
'Un Amour Désespéré by Stav Poleg' in black text on white with a Friday Poem yellow blob over 'Dése'

Un Amour Désespéré

The Friday Poem on 01/11/2024 The rolling phrases here incorporate and respond to Rimbaud's prose poem 'Ville' (XV of Illuminations).
'Other people's parties' by Martyn Crucefiix in black text on white with a Friday Poem yellow blob over 'eopl' and 'ies'.

Other people’s parties

by Martyn Crucefix — I can’t count the number of times I’ve walked out of / them, not even making my excuses. That we’re apart / from all other things, he says, the mythos ...
“Not my children, not my rats by Natalie Shaw' in black text on white with a small yellow Friday Poem blob over ‘rats’.

Not my children, not my rats

by Natalie Shaw — I have revised my views on the thought police: / actually, they are perfectly lovable guys, // perfectly lovable guys just trying / to do their best ...
"While driving to Ikea for a laundry basket by Heidi Beck' in black text on white with a small yellow Friday Poem blob over the first half of the word 'laundry'.

While driving to Ikea for a laundry basket

by Heidi Beck — we debate the universe. You offer a theory / of infinite multitudes, of other earths / almost like ours...
"Lessons in The Method #23 by Martin Jago" in black text on white with a small Friday Poem yellow blob over the #23

Lessons in The Method, #23

by Martin Jago — The day you stop me on campus, Benjamin, / Bible in hand, asking if I believe and I respond, // pointing to the building I’m walking towards ...
"Party" as Both Verb and Moral Imperative by Katherine Meehan" in black text on white with a large yellow Friday Poem blob over the top right quarter

“Party” as Both Verb and Moral Imperative

by Katherine Meehan — This is a peace my lovelies, you are a goddess / and you are a goddess and YOU are a goddess— / I love you ...