For the next two months, Writing Hour will take place at LUNCH TIME 1-2pm on Monday 7th September and Monday 5th October 2026. Joining info below!

As you may know by now, Suzannah Evans Furnass is holding this space for us!

Suzannah’s work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, and has been described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge. She has published two books with Nine Arches Press, the most recent of which is Space Baby (2022) and her pamphlet Green (2024) is published by Little Betty. She is currently an RLF fellow at Sheffield University.

Septembers theme, aligning with the POTM, will be;

THE VERVE (THE BAND)
Sound. Lyric. Cultural memory. Borrow, respond, distort.

Octobers theme, aligning with the launch of our POEM of the FESTIVAL Competition for our festival taking place 24th - 18th February 2027 at Birmingham Hippodrome, will be;

BELONGING…
judged by non other than Sarah Howe, winner of T.S. Eliot Prize and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award! (more info on this to come throughout Sept!)

VERVE Writing Hour, hosted by Suzannah Evans Furnass, is Verve's monthly online writing session, an hour of quiet, shared writing time guided by prompts tied to that month's Poem of the Month theme. It's relaxed, cameras optional, mics off, and open to all levels.

Your ticket includes a free POTM entry.

Read more

Planes, trains, and auto… sorry, sharks! During August we were looking for poems on the theme of Get Up & Go, and oh, did our submitting poets deliver. Plenty of travel, escapism, migration and wonder in this shortlist, in the form of a pushbike ride, house moves, and even rising from the dead. The flight of these poems takes us where we want to be, even if where we want to be has no destination, but is anywhere other than where we are.

THE WINNING POEM

Recipe for a Long Life.
Sue Spiers

Our winning poem for this month, Recipe for a Long Life, subverts the theme by directing the reader to slower paced marine life providing instructions on being a shark. Sue Spiers lurks through technical identifications, consumption, and mythology (though it was initially believed that eating shark attributes vitality and longevity, the predators are at the top of the marine food chain, and accumulate immense levels of industrial toxins through ‘bioaccumiliation’ thus doing the opposite to consumers) with unique sets of couplets. Every line’s packed with the bite of internal rhyme and purpose, with expert alliteration and enjambement showing us what it means to be a shark. The closing line is the final snap of the jaw as reader becomes shark, undying, preserved in this relatively small poem that does so much in a small amount of time, in opposition to the length of the creature’s life. This is a stand-out piece of poetry.

THE SHORTLIST

From which alone - Jack Westmore
get up and go - Deirdre Parkes
Rare Breeds - Lily Dyu
Wanderlust - Darren Donohue
How I Became A Necromancer - Laura Theis

Wanderlust places you firmly inside a train toilet cubicle with the poet, discovering where the plant sprouting from the sink has got-up-and-gone to ‘in hot pursuit’. The mindful splendour of both nature and travel is captured in a perfect marriage in every stanza, enveloping the reader in the poet’s curious commute; certainly, a beautiful analogy for us humans getting up and going, trying to catch up with nature before the environment around us leaves.

Capturing another side of travelling, Rare Breeds is a poignant reflection on unsolicited comments, but more importantly, what it means to find your place in the world after many stops on the voyage. The way this poem encapsulates the large of places and the little of life’s moments is done so through sharp and succinct imagery and specific place names. We travel all over the place on a little bike, in this little poem telling a big story in a small space, riding you conclusively to a single moment shared between the rider, and a racist.

From which alone, is man vs/is machine through the retired (or rather extinct) Concorde. The juxtaposition of technical language and poetic devices in this poem turn the poet into plane, and us as readers are g-forced to the edge of our seats. Will he make it? It’s clever, hitting on the ultimate performance / maximum gains trends on social media, acknowledging the ignorance of human progression hitting double the speed of light (or is it celsius?), and that person we won’t name trying to blow us into space. Propelling and compelling from start to finish, the reader can learn about shock waves and drag ripple on their own passage through this single stanza.

get up and go, titled from this month’s theme, is the more tender poem in this selection as we move from house to house, never finding home. With nowhere to root, the poet never finds their feet, which is reflected in the form of varying length stanzas, leaving them – and the reader – dangling in despair. Even the cat had had enough of getting-up-and-going somewhere else.

How I Became a Necromancer delivers a get-up-and-go we weren’t expecting - the resurrection of a rat. Through decay and defecation, the cycle of existence is examined through the poet’s lens of becoming omnipotent, able to control these transitions by bringing a tiny soul back from the other side.

SHORTLISTED
From which alone
Jack Westmore

SHORTLISTED
get up and go
Deirdre Parkes

SHORTLISTED
Rare Breeds
Lily Dyu

SHORTLISTED

Wanderlust
Darren Donohue

SHORTLISTED

How I Became A Necromancer
Laura Theis

Thank you for reading. An initial summary on the poems themselves was written by our new marketing assistant, poet Charley McDermott, who supported us with shortlisting this month (what a way to be thrown in the deep end ey?)

Take it easy. Take care of yourselves.

With love, light and joy,

Hayley

x

VERVE WRITING HOUR

Every first Monday of the month, we host an accountability WRITING HOUR, a space for you to commit to practicing poetry. Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by our guest host, in case you need a way in.

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: Monday 7th September 2026 1-2pm!

show up. commit. write.

Hosted by Suzannah, VERVE board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

NEW dates for VERVE Press’s Pamphlet Course »
Pre-Order VERVACEOUS »
Book on our next Online Poetry Workshop Series »
Visit our Poetry Bookshop to support poetry that matters »
Read Previous POTM winning + shortlisted poems »
Become a member with VERVE for LIFE »

Our first poet of the series is Tishani Doshi, and I spoke with her about her new book, Egrets, While War, published by Bloodaxe Books. Our patron, Imtiaz Dharker, describes this book as drawing “on everything from myth and family history to the metaverse, to create a word-weather, a landscape of individual imagery which we apprehend on our skin — an original and sensory exploration of beauty and loss in the environment and in the body.” And I don’t know how I could give it a better introduction.

So we’re going to dive right in. Thank you so much for listening — I hope you enjoy our conversation. Please stay tuned as well, because our next conversation is going to be with the incredible poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama.

Here is the conversation, typed as an interview, should you prefer to read at your own leisure.

Egrets, While War - Tishani Doshi

Hayley [00:00]

Every single poem doesn’t want to turn the other cheek to everything that’s going on, and I wondered if this was a conscious decision that you made, or if the poems called for it themselves.

Tishani [00:00]

It’s hard to know. I mean, the reason I write poetry is, I think, because I’m trying to juggle or navigate several ideas all at once, and there’s something about the form of a poem that allows me to do that without completely collapsing. So I think, for instance, there are certain themes, as you pointed out, right, that exist — I could write, you know, essays. I could write, and I do — I do work in other forms, I write longer prose, I write other things. But I find that there’s something about the poetic form that allows me to just really sharpen and distill, and to make these really, really unlikely leaps. So I could be, you know, if you want to look at the title poem in the collection, Egrets, While War — I’m looking at the egrets in my garden, and they’re reminding me of something dinosaurish and very reptilian and prehistoric. And then I’m, you know, just sort of moving between the past and the present, and trying to think about the future that we’re heading to, which is terrifying to me, and I think to a lot of people at this moment. So I think all of that comes into the poems in different ways. So it definitely works throughout the collection, and I think in individual poems there’s this sense of the contemporary — I do want to talk about what’s happening now, but I’m also sort of looking back into deep time. So not just my own ancestry, but also the earth. There’s a lot of geological stuff that’s going on in the poems, I think, when I think about it, and the images that I’m interested in are also sort of very archaeological, geological images. So there’s something about that that’s really been obsessing me — the sense of layeredness of how we find our place in relation to each other and to this planet. And not just me — when I say “we,” sometimes I’m also just talking about us messed-up human beings.

Hayley [02:25]

I noticed there’s a lot of conversations with rocks, and seeing your image in rocks — I loved that one poem in particular where you talk about the crusts of the earth, the skin of the earth, and there’s a finiteness. There’s a lot of images of blooming flowers throughout as well, which I think was really brave for you to lean into, because blooming flowers are so present in poetry. But the way that you integrate them through the poems is that they mimic the wider finality — and it sounds to me, from what you said, you’ve looked at the egrets out the window, and then you’ve seen their prehistoric nature, and the poem is containing all of those images for you.

I first came across your poems through Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound. At the time I didn’t see the form as an urn until I listened to you speaking on a poetry magazine podcast about your essay in praise of shape poetry. So for me the shape felt playful, even though the content is quite challenging. That poem’s called “Species,” and you can find it in 44 Poems on Being with Each Other. The poem is essentially about us coming to our own extinction — like we all head into the bunker of the earth. Then I realised there’s a lot of poems in this collection that have a similar form, and it was as if our language is the ash in the urns that you’ve shaped the poems into. Was that intentional? Was that an intentional thing?

Egrets, While War - Tishani Doshi

Tishani [04:21]

That’s a lovely way of putting it. I think — yeah, so shape poetry, concrete poetry, is something I really thought about, and I hashed out a lot of things in that essay for the Poetry Foundation. I had been thinking about shape as a way of organising thought, of holding language. In that previous collection, I have a poem about speedos, “The Comeback of Speedos,” which is typeset in the shape of speedos — so there, they’re playful, and I think it does allow you to play and experiment. But I also have a menstrual cup for Pliny the Elder — and people see different shapes. I remember when that poem got translated into Italian, it looked like a volcano to my Italian translator, because the shape got a bit messed up, I guess. And I said, well, that works too, because Pliny went off to see what the explosion at Vesuvius was, and that’s what killed him, and that’s in the poem too. So I wasn’t wanting to make a volcano, I was making a menstrual cup.

But I think a poem in general is really interesting — I’m also very wary of forcing the form, because the poem is trying to move towards its own form, in a way, and there can’t be this intentionality of forcing form onto the poem. But at some point you sense that it is needing to be held in a particular way, and so whether the form is a sonnet — which I also use loosely in this collection — or a sestina, or the shape, it’s just a question of how do we want that language to be held, and why does it need to be held in a specific way. So yeah, I think that has to do with style, and I think that’s a very important question when you’re thinking about how to arrange words on a page.

Hayley [06:40]

My favourite poem in this collection is “A Theory on the Origin of Language,” which speaks about the sound of danger, the call of danger, piercing the still dark with its warnings. The language we may have used, because it feels like a premonition almost, or a guessing game, of how we would have expressed how we love one another — such as “I want to eat your liver.” This violence of devouring, because all we had was “eat,” so it was “to eat,” and the act of consumption being the only way that we could express wanting to devour, or desire, or love another being — which relates to our overconsumption. I didn’t feel that was overtly presented in any of the poems, it’s more this subtle thing underneath all of the poems, as the reason for why we’re coming to our end. But it relates to this ending, this consumption, this ending of life, this danger, and language being contained within these forms as an extinction itself. Do you see — I mean, I just love all of these layers, and I wonder if I’m finding them, or if they’re there for you as you’re putting it all together?

Tishani [08:18]

I love that. I mean, you know, I move around the world thinking I have no idea what I’m doing, and mostly I am in a stage of ignorance about everything. And then the way that I see the project of writing, or making any kind of art, is really to be able to not know something, but just to move towards something, just to work towards it — the way you do with an essay, trying to move towards some understanding. And I feel that even with poems, it’s so mysterious to me where these ideas come from, why am I talking about certain things? But it’s also very reflective of the very dissonant sensation of being alive at the moment. I think a lot of us have quite fragmentary lives, a lot of us rely upon technology, which has done certain things to our brain, to the way that we receive images. One second you’re seeing an image for — I don’t know — some kind of supplement, the next image is some kind of horrible bomb blast, and it’s 24/7. And then there’s also this question of the way that we read, going into a very wide format where we’re reading widely but not so deeply — kind of on a surface level, going in a very wide direction. And I think, in a way, the poem is an attempt to say: stop, and just change the relationship to time, go down deep. And when I’m writing a poem I go down many, many rabbit holes of research, investigating things, and then I may forget all that I’ve studied. Some of it might go into the poem, others just fluff in the wind. But I think — and I hope, and I’m glad that you had these ideas — because I think the idea for me is to create a textured and layered piece of writing that is not just going to say one thing, but that’s grappling with many, many things, and all of those things somehow trying to squeeze into the poem — and sometimes they don’t all stay, and I have to kick some things out. But a lot of the time there are these weird jumps, these weird synapses, these strange juxtapositions that really work for me — and then I hope for the reader too. And again, someone might see something that I didn’t intend, but that’s okay, because I think it’s not so much to do with conveying a particular communication or even meaning, but it’s to do with images and ideas and syllabics and hopping around. So I’m interested in creating that kind of force of language with these ideas and images, and they are very different —

Read more

Bernadette Lynch won July's Poem of the Month with Nuns. Here is our usual poet interview, delivered each month with the recent POTM poet.

THE POEM

SUBMIT TO POTM

Where are you writing from?
I write from a lifetime and an identity that is both of England and Ireland.

I write of the city of my birth, Birmingham, and the village of my childhood holidays, Dysart in County Roscommon in the West of Ireland. I write of the people of those places – the workers, the lovers, the mothers and fathers, the elders, the children.

Literally, I write from my small desk in the front window, picked up at a salvage yard and greatly cherished; I write in my ever-present notebook. I write at the kitchen table in a cottage in the West of Ireland.

I write from my head and my heart and my gut.

I write from over six decades of experience on this wild and wacky planet.

What made you write this poem?
On a wander around Lourdes in the Pyrenees one hot afternoon, I came across a graveyard of nuns with their names carved into a marble plaque along the wall. I couldn’t resist such fabulous names so into the notebook they went to sit there for many a day.

The next stage in this poem’s life was a free writing session in a Caroline Bird workshop where she encouraged us to ‘riff’ on a single topic. I started with that juicy list of nuns’ names and let my mind loose.

It sat in draft for some time but was for resurrected for POTM when I riffed some more and let myself go with the theme ‘Too Much?’ in mind. Can it ever be too much I wonder when the mind gets its chance to flow?

How does this piece sit in your wider work?
It is a typical example of how my poems come into being, often starting when I am on my travels wandering around curiously, noticing what takes my fancy, and capturing it in the notebook just in case it might get a life in the future.

Graveyards are often a wandering place for me so that is consistent with my patterns and, following my Catholic convent school education, it is no surprise that my attention was drawn to the list of nuns’ names. When I came to riff on nuns, all those years of schooling and Catholic upbringing and cultural references of my lifespan came tumbling out.

All of the above is very typical of my writing practice in general.

Who or what inspires your writing right now?
Ireland as ever – I have been 3 times already this year and poems are a-coming I’m also writing a lot at the moment about the workings of the mind - dreams, sleep, processing, emotional honesty, negative thinking etc.

submit to VERVE's POTM

Tell us about your writing practice?
I find myself writing about identity and how much that is informed by place.

As I reflect on this question, I find that I am realising that there are certain recurring emotional threads in my work: restlessness, longing, loss, wanting, searching. I write about people: short, almost pen-pictures, that try to capture a character, a lifetime, a story, a relationship.

I write metaphorically about the interior life: moods, processing, transcendent moments, connection, depression, recovery, healing.

I write about places (often as metaphor for mood), not only those I have lived in but those I have visited: Portugal, Holland, America, Canada, the USA, the Middle East.

My poetry has frequent references or language from the worlds of Catholicism, Irish folklore and practices, working class Birmingham.

What does poetry do for you?
Poetry gives purpose and meaning to my experiences. It provides a channel, an outlet for all the frantic over-observation and over-thinking that is with me every waking (and sleeping) moment. My hypervigilant curiosity is now not a nuisance, but a vital part of my writing life. Each day is a source of material which I can pop into my notebook knowing that it won’t be lost and then I can allow my fertile subconscious mind to start doing the percolation while I go about my business. As the lines of a poem start to come, they can be captured too in my companion notebook until I can sit at my desk and begin the crafting.

What snacks fuels your poems?
It used to be copious amounts of coffee until I was advised to give up caffeine OMG. So now, decaff or, sadly, water. Sometimes Jacob’s cream crackers or Party Ring iced biscuits.

Three words that describe your poetry?
Tenderness. Connection. Gift.

Have you published or performed before?
Published:

• Poems published in anthologies, Poems for Grenfell and Poems for the NHS at 70 (both published by Onslaught Press)

• Poem published in anthology, This is not Your Final Form (Emma Press)

• Forthcoming publication of a poem in 14 magazine

Competitions

• Winner: Cúirt New Writing Prize, Galway Literary Festival

• Winner: SiarScéal Prize (Roscommon Literary Festival )

• Longlisted for the National Poetry Competition

• Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize.

Readings

• Various venues in London, Oxford and Birmingham for Grenfell Anthology

• Aldeburgh Poetry Festival for the NHS Anthology

• Verbatim Open Mic at the Poetry Pharmacy, Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire

• Online for the Galway Literary Festival

• Open Mics in Welshpool, Newtown, Roscommon, Birmingham

Poetry in Public Places

• Clun Museum, Shropshire

• Roscommon Town Library

• On a wall along a canal towpath in Digbeth, Birmingham.

And they have been read aloud:

• on RosFM, Roscommon local radio station

• from the walls of Ludlow Castle.

Why did you send your poem to VERVE’s Poem of the Month?
I am currently focusing on finding publication homes for my poems as I commit to working on publication more generally and hope to get a pamphlet/collection out in the next while.

I have a substantial body of work and am trying to fashion it into poems capable of being recognized in competitions and published in magazines so that I can test the quality of my work before attempting more extensive publication.

When I saw the prompt ‘Too Much?’ I recalled my draft of ‘Nuns’ and thought it might just fit the bill.

Anyone or anything you’d like to shout out?
Shout out to the Border Poets group (Shropshire). I have been a member for the past year and have been given invaluable encouragement, guidance and confidence by these kind and gifted poets.

Got anything coming up?
I facilitate a Poem and Prose group in the Sun pub in Clun Shropshire at which people bring along work written by themselves or others. We listen, share and chat.

Our next meeting is on Saturday 18th September 2026 when our theme will be Fields of Gold.

POTM COMPETITION

More from VERVE Poetry

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The link to access WRITING HOUR Monday 3rd August 5:30pm is included at the bottom of this article for paid subscribers. If you would like to join, become a paid subscriber, or book your place via our eventbrite.

A monthly writing hour with poems, prompts, and time to write in community, guided by the theme of our Poem of the Month competition.

Every first Monday of the month, poet Suzannah Evans Furnass dedicates the day to her own writing, and she’s opening up that last hour to you.

Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by Suzannah, in case you need a way in. August’s theme is GET UP AND GO!

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Become a paid subscriber for access

Book your space via eventbrite

Cameras optional. Mics off. Suitable for all levels.

Sessions are recorded for Substack paid subscribers. Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: First Monday of every month, 5:30–6:30pm

Hosted by Suzannah Evans Furnass, VERVE advisory board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

Become a paid subscriber for access

Book your space via eventbrite

Read more

This article features the winning and shortlisted poems from July’s Poem of the Month.

THE WINNING POEM

Nuns
Bernadette Lynch

This month's Poem of the Month, Nuns by Bernadette Lynch, is a litany; nuns with boys' names and saints' names and dogs' names, nuns drinking doubles at dawn, nuns in Lamborghinis, until the excess itself becomes the point. It's funny and reverent and completely unafraid of contradiction, nuns who "sold babies, saved babies, had babies" sitting a few lines from Edith Stein murdered by the Nazis. The list form lets it hold Audrey Hepburn and the Singing Nun and real martyrs all at once without feeling glib. And that ending lands somewhere entirely different from where it started — "brides of Christ" told to ride their horses high.

Writing Hour Mon 3rd Aug 5:30

THE SHORTLIST

If Only by Celine N. Lee
Lemon by Mary Mulholland
I Go To Onsen by Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana
Nightmare Contraceptive by Kitty Donnelly
bookshop window: orange ghost baby triptych by Erin Clark

None of these poems ask TOO MUCH to make sense, and TOO MUCH turned out to mean refusing to stop where a tidier poem would. Celine N. Lee’s If Only breaks its own syntax open. The words arrive in the wrong order because the speaker cannot say them to her father in his language, and the repeating wish expands relentlessly, pacing the urgency of wanting to make contact through communication. It honours whats lost in translation, and sings, and skips, and expresses tension. They become characters from a Japanese anime in their journey, a fantasy of escape and meaning making.

Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s I Go To Onsen ends where the speaker cannot look away from another woman’s body, having spent the whole poem being looked at herself. The poem exposes culture norms around body image in the exposing intimacy of sauna. We are rooted to place through specific names, and bi-lingual writing, which appears in both Lees’ If Only and Tachibana’s I Go To Olsen.

Mary Mulholland’s Lemon 712 begins with a lemon growing on an orange tree and ends with a woman who would rather die of thirst than watch a second bottle open. It places us in an odd coupling, almost fitting, the lemon is strange but not so strange to be found on an orange tree that you would continue to question it. This poem holds wincing, lavish images, its all too much to realise, consumed by its reationships, environments and stuffed, we’re left in a body, in a relationship that doesnt fit.

Kitty Donnelly's Nightmare Contraceptive asks a doctor, reasonably, for a pill to stop the dreaming. The line "groping around in the dark for an exit" is particularly potent for me as a reader. When we catch ourselves inside a dream we want out of, we subconsciously try to grope ourselves awake.

Erin Clark's bookshop window: orange ghost baby triptych moves through three panels; girl, woman, baby, and lands on a felt busy board: buckles, ties, clasps, velcro, snaps, lace, gears, buttons, zippers. So many ways to connect two opposites while all the world is rending. It's the tenderest object in the shortlist, and the most frightening, because someone made it for a child.

SHORTLISTED
If Only by Celine N. Lee

SHORTLISTED
Lemon by Mary Mulholland

SHORTLISTED
I Go To Onsen by Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana

SHORTLISTED

Nightmare Contraceptive by Kitty Donnelly

SHORTLISTED

bookshop window: orange ghost baby triptych by Erin Clark

Thank you for reading.

Take it easy. Take care of yourselves.

With love, light and joy,

Hayley

x

VERVE WRITING HOUR

Every first Monday of the month, we host an accountability WRITING HOUR, a space for you to commit to practicing poetry. Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by our guest host, in case you need a way in.

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Cameras optional. Mics off. Suitable for all levels.

Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: First Monday of every month, 5:30–6:30pm

show up. commit. write.

Hosted by Suzannah, VERVE board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

NEW dates for VERVE Press’s Pamphlet Course »
Pre-Order VERVACEOUS »
Book on our next Online Poetry Workshop Series »
Visit our Poetry Bookshop to support poetry that matters »
Read Previous POTM winning + shortlisted poems »
Become a member with VERVE for LIFE »

I wanted to write to announce our BRILLIANT NEWS. We have this month received the funding we need from Arts Council England to hold our 10th Anniversary Festival in February 2027! We are an actual festival again!

It’s hard to overstate how brilliant this news is for us. It means we can continue to fund our monthly open mic in Birmingham, can manage to pay someone to help with our marketing, and can get on with planning what will be a special festival for us next February - our 10th VERVE!

I’m SO EXCITED!!

As poets who engage with us in various ways, you have helped us to weather this storm and we are so grateful to you for your support. Many of you have supported us by attending our zoom workshops, entering our Poem of the Month competitions, buying books from our online bookshop, following us here on Substack, joining us at our VERVE Sunday at Ledbury (which was such fun!) and sharing our news with your closest and dearest poetry pals. We really couldn’t have done it without you!

To give you a rough idea of timelines, the programming for our 2027 festival will take place in August and September with tickets going on sale at the end of November. We are preparing a special line-up for you with extra events and new and old faces! Our venue remains Birmingham Hippodrome, and we’d love to thank them for being patient with us during this time and saving our place! As usual, we will bring a lively mixture of readings, performances, workshops, open mic and events for young people. And as always the whole thing will be live streamed for those who can’t join us in person.

Early Bird Full Passes.

We would also like to give you the opportunity to purchase one of a limited number of Early Bird Full Passes to attend our festival in person next February. Next year our Full Passes will cost £80 and have a concession price of £60. Our early bird passes will be £60/£45. (Our full passes get you into all of our events at the festival, but workshops are extra).

At present, and until the end of this month, this offer will only be available to VERVE for Life members and will open to the rest of you from August 1st. There will be plenty but they will be limited.

You can secure your online pass below. I have also put together a bundle offer that combines a full pass with the LIMITED EDITION HARDBACK of our forthcoming anthology VERVACEOUS at a special price which I am unbelievably excited about. Please find payment links below for all of these offers:

• FULL IN-PERSON FESTIVAL PASS + VERCACEOUS HARDBACK for £100

• FULL IN-PERSON CONCESSION PASS + VERVACEOUS HARDBACK for £85

• FULL IN-PERSON FESTIVAL PASS for £60

• FULL IN-PERSON CONCESSION PASS for £45

• VERVACEOUS LIMITED EDITION HARDBACK for £50 plus P&P

NB If you are keen to attend the festival but can only attend online and would like the opportunity to purchase an early bird online pass, please let me know and I’ll get in touch. mail@vervepoetryfestival.com

I hope you are as happy as I am with this brilliant news. I am so excited for February 2027 to come around and hope to celebrate with as many of you as possible as we reach the milestone of our tenth year!

With thanks,

Stuart
VERVE Poetry Director

Other news,

WE HAVE MADE SOME CHANGES TO OUR AUTUMN ZOOM WORKSHOP SERIES.

We have moved our August workshops with Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana, Jane Yeh and Jennifer Wong back to dates in November to counter slower than usual uptake of our August courses.

As part of this process, we have had to cancel our zoom workshop with Roy McFarlane who will return in a future series. Taking the final place in November is a brand new workshop on Sequencing Poetry by VERVE Poetry Press!

Other workshops with Kim Moore, Hannah Copely, Ella Duffy, Daljit Nagra, Rachel Long, Richard Scott and Anthony Vahni Capildeo have spaces but are selling nicely!

We’d love to welcome you along to one or more workshops this autumn, with bundle offers available for three, six or eleven workshops at discounted prices!

Write with us on a poetry workshop

Every first Monday of the month, poet Suzannah dedicates the day to her own writing, and she’s opening up that last hour to you.

This is an accountability WRITING HOUR, a space for you to commit to practicing poetry. Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by our guest host, in case you need a way in.

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Cameras optional. Mics off. Suitable for all levels.

Sessions are recorded for Substack paid subscribers. Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: First Monday of every month, 5:30–6:30pm

show up. commit. write.

Hosted by Suzannah, VERVE board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

Our July Poem of the Month - TOO MUCH - closed for entries yesterday on July 20th with £100 prize-winner and short-list being announced soon.

Being monthly, our August competition is due to open on August 1st and will be open until August 20th for your entries.

Our monthly poetry competition!

OUR ONLINE poetry only bookshop is filled with the books we know you love and contains books from all our favourite publishers!

Books on How to Write Poetry, Exciting forthcoming books, Imported titles and of course our VERVE Poetry Press books!

Any profits from book sales from this site goes straight to support our many community projects and of course will help us bring back our festival in 2027. Have a browse - we know you’ll enjoy it!

Buy a book, support poets!

This Substack is here to celebrate our poets, workshop hosts, participants, Poem of the Month writers, and the wider VERVE community. We’re sharing process, drafts, reflections, readings, and opportunities as they unfold. We have a couple of exciting interviews booked in with published poets over the Autumn, but we’re keeping this secret for now so make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss a thing!

Katie Columbus won June's Poem of the Month with Vision & Flame. Here is our usual poet interview, delivered on the 10th of each month with the recent POTM poet.

The cover image for this post is Choreography for the Spanish dance Cachucha, described using dance notation. The original uploader was Huster at French Wikipedia. - Transferred from fr.wikipedia to Commons by Spoladore using CommonsHelper.

THE POEM

SUBMIT TO POTM

What made you write this poem?
Interestingly it was one of the poems I submitted in my application to the Poetry MA! It’s one of those pieces that I’ve written and re-written since I was in Paris in my early 20s, mooching around as if I was in a Leos Carax film.

I was brought up in a very Catholic family, and there were a few things, like the lack of representation of women in the church as well as growing up through the child abuse scandals of the 80s and 90s that made that inheritance quite difficult for me. But I have always been fascinated by faith, and how much it kind of stays in the body, whichever route you take afterwards, however you go looking for answers or meaning. In France I was surrounded by the kitsch of it – summers in Lourdes, or in Paris – I think the poem started there, in that tension between the tacky and the sacred.

Over years of rewriting it became a poem about memory and nostalgia, and about something bigger than me – a thread that opened up when I started reading more about Joan of Arc. I’d always felt I should, or could, be connecting to something larger than myself; when I was younger I struggled with the what and the how. I think Joan gave the poem its armour and its flames.

Was this poem written specifically for the comp or pulled from your archive?
Archive - when I saw the month’s theme it felt like the poem had been waiting for it.

How does this piece sit in your wider work?
It belongs to a collection that I’m working on and definitely connects to the wider threads of my work: performance and preparation, the body remembering, the rehearsed self versus the real one. I also write across other forms – essays on myth and consciousness, fiction, journalism – and I like it when the borders leak: when an essay wants to be a poem, or a poem behaves like a stage direction.

Who or what inspires your writing right now?
There are poets who I find absolutely mind blowing to read – Natalie Diaz, Joelle Taylor, Ocean Vuong, Caroline Bird and Kaveh Akbar to name but a few. And I kind of read them and go, oh wow, I could never do that! So I just appreciate their vibe, from a respectful distance. And then I quietly go back to a place that’s comparatively different: more internalised, quiet, and observational.

In that spirit I align more with Louise Gluck, Adrienne Rich, Alice Oswald, Ada Limon, Denise Levertov and Jorie Graham. Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry bring me enormous joy and calm. And – I’ll be honest, tho this is something I was always so shy about admitting at Poetry Skool – Pablo Neruda was my first one true love, and that still stands and I think that’s OK.

submit to VERVE's POTM

What themes or forms do you find yourself drawn to?
I seem to be always drawn to thresholds, the moments between different states – doorways, departures; between people, between page and stage. Travel runs through a lot of what I write, as does myth, faith, water and the body. I trained as a dancer in Stockholm before I was a writer and I think that’s where some of the internal rhythm and patterns come from – I think poems are choreographed as much as composed.

What does poetry do for you?
Poetry is often how I navigate things. I work full time, have three children and two dogs – life is often beautiful chaos. Writing poetry helps me slow to a pace where I can see more clearly.

Three words that describe your poetry?
Tidal. Embodied. Attentive.

Have you published or performed before?
I’ve written two books, How To Listen and Pathways which were published by Hachette and I write about the arts as a journalist for places like The Arts Desk, The Telegraph, The i and Good Housekeeping. My poems have appeared in The Frogmore Press, ROSA Magazine, Letters to the Holyland and Dance Art Journal and I’ve been longlisted for a few things like The Fish Prize and the Mslexia pamphlet prize. I was also commissioned as a librettist by the Royal Opera House a few years ago.

Why did you send your poem to VERVE’s Poem of the Month?
I love what Verve does – the festival, the press, the sense that poetry is a live, communal thing rather than a private transaction between poet and desk drawer. The monthly theme is a lovely constraint: knowing other poets are writing toward the same idea at the same time makes submitting feel like joining a conversation rather than throwing words into a void.

What does winning mean to you?
Honestly, so much I barely know how to express it. I like that writing is solitary, but it can be isolating sometimes can’t it, and submitting can be so wild. A win like this is a hand on the shoulder saying keep going, you’re on the right path.

Anyone or anything you’d like to shout out?
The Poetry School, where I did my MA and learned so much – about myself as much as about form. Huge thanks to my marvellous tutors Glyn Maxwell and Tamar Yoseloff, and to my fellow students and alumni, who do such a gorgeous job of lifting each other up and celebrating each others’ shared success.

Got anything coming up?
I’m going to start stacking subs – watch this space. And I would love love love to crank out a pamphlet soon.

What snacks fuel your poems?
In terms of snicky-snacks, there is a plethora of brain fuel at any one of the amazing independent cafes in Brighton and Hove! The Flour Pot is a fave of mine.

POTM COMPETITION

More from VERVE Poetry

Submit to POTM

Book Poetry Workshops

Join our Four Part Pamphlet Course

Subscribe now

The link to access WRITING HOUR Monday 6th July 5:30pm is included at the bottom of this article for paid subscribers. If you would like to join, become a paid subscriber, or book your place via our eventbrite.

A monthly writing hour with poems, prompts, and time to write in community, guided by the theme of our Poem of the Month competition.

Every first Monday of the month, poet Suzannah Evans Furnass dedicates the day to her own writing, and she’s opening up that last hour to you.

Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by Suzannah, in case you need a way in. Julys theme is TOO MUCH?

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Become a paid subscriber for access

Book your space via eventbrite

Cameras optional. Mics off. Suitable for all levels.

Sessions are recorded for Substack paid subscribers. Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: First Monday of every month, 5:30–6:30pm

Hosted by Suzannah Evans Furnass, VERVE advisory board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

Become a paid subscriber for access

Book your space via eventbrite

Read more

The link to access WRITING HOUR Monday 6th July 5:30pm is included at the bottom of this article for paid subscribers. If you would like to join, become a paid subscriber, or book your place via our eventbrite.

A monthly writing hour with poems, prompts, and time to write in community, guided by the theme of our Poem of the Month competition.

Every first Monday of the month, poet Suzannah Evans Furnass dedicates the day to her own writing, and she’s opening up that last hour to you.

Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by Suzannah, in case you need a way in. Julys theme is TOO MUCH?

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Become a paid subscriber for access

Book your space via eventbrite

Cameras optional. Mics off. Suitable for all levels.

Sessions are recorded for Substack paid subscribers. Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: First Monday of every month, 5:30–6:30pm

Hosted by Suzannah Evans Furnass, VERVE advisory board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

Become a paid subscriber for access

Book your space via eventbrite

Read more

This article features the winning and shortlisted poems from June’s Poem of the Month.

THE WINNING POEM

Vision & Flame
Katie Colombus

Katie Colombus’s Vision & Flame is June’s clear winner. Spirit, here, is rehearsal; girl trying on sainthood with cheap Bordeaux and a disco-ball rosary, mistaking performance for devotion until she realises she was “rehearsing for flames all along.” It’s a poem about wanting to be chosen, about faith as costume before it’s anything real, and it never lets the irony curdle into cynicism. The Paris of Metro stubs and neon relics are gorgeously specific in catching spirit.

THE SHORTLIST

viva cummings by James Spencer
Witness by Aeman Abbasi
I Don’t Want to Be a 24 Hour Petrol Station by Syd Meats
Girl Who Refused to Die by Chisom Okoronkwo
Arguments with the Moon by Angela Cheveau

Spirit turned out to mean almost everything except the obvious. We had nearly 200 submissions this month, whittled from a longlist of 16 down to these five. The poems are getting so good, and as cliche as it is to say it, it’s never an easy cut. Here, spirit is what gets transmitted and what gets lost: in translation, a dying man’s last sentence is kept “behind his teeth,”; a daughter inherits five generations of her family’s fear and refuses the sixth; AI scrapes the ghost of human voice for parts. It’s also argued with directly and literally, in a kitchen, with the moon, who turns out to be as haunted by us as we are by her. And it’s reclaimed somewhere unlikely: a petrol station demanding to be a cathedral. Spirit as inheritance, spirit as resistance, spirit as the thing that refuses to be scraped, silenced, or reduced to service. These poems can’t agree on what spirit is, which is rather the point.

THE WINNING POEM
Katie Colombus

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SHORTLISTED

Girl Who Refused to Die by Chisom Okoronkwo

SHORTLISTED

Witness by Aeman Abbasi

SHORTLISTED
Arguments with the Moon by Angela Cheveau

SHORTLISTED

viva cummings, James Spencer

SHORTLISTED

I Don’t Want to Be a 24 Hour Petrol Station by Syd Meats

Thank you for reading.

Take it easy. Take care of yourselves.

With love, light and joy,

Hayley

x

VERVE WRITING HOUR

Every first Monday of the month, poet Suzannah dedicates the day to her own writing, and she’s opening up that last hour to you.

This is an accountability WRITING HOUR, a space for you to commit to practicing poetry. Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by our guest host, in case you need a way in.

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Cameras optional. Mics off. Suitable for all levels.

Sessions are recorded for Substack paid subscribers. Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: First Monday of every month, 5:30–6:30pm

show up. commit. write.

Hosted by Suzannah, VERVE board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

NEW dates for VERVE Press’s Pamphlet Course »
Book on our next Online Poetry Workshop Series »
Visit our Poetry Bookshop to support poetry that matters »
Read Previous POTM winning + shortlisted poems »
Become a member with VERVE for LIFE »

Nia Broomhall won May's Poem of the Month with My Daughter Moves Home. Here is our usual poet interview, delivered on the 10th of each month with the current POTM poet.

THE POET

Nia Broomhall is a poet and co-Head of English at a comprehensive school. She is Poet in Residence at Painshill Park in Surrey. Her debut pamphlet Backalong won the Mslexia Pamphlet Prize and was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2024, and she won the Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Prize the same year. Her poems have been published widely, recently by The North, Atrium and Propel, and she has twice been Highly Commended in the Winchester Poetry Prize. She runs community poetry workshops and inclusive Poetry Nights in her local area. She comes from a long line of West Country women who talk to strangers and embarrass their children.

SUBMIT TO POTM

What themes or forms do you find yourself drawn to?
It’s always places and people, people and places, but lately, I have been drawn to anything that suggests change, of any kind. I’m in my almost-late 40s with children growing up and leaving home, so I suppose that’s to be expected!

What does poetry do for you?
I think it quiets me. In the rest of my life it is loud and busy and chaotic and I flit from one thing to another in a deeply inefficient way, but poetry lets me look at one thing closely and slowly for a long time, and I love that.

What snacks fuel your poems?
Amazing question. It’s always cheese.

Three words that describe your poetry?
What I’d love people to think is that it’s musical, observant and crafted.

Have you published or performed before?
My pamphlet Backalong won the Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Prize and was published by Bloodaxe in 2024. I run inclusive Poetry Nights at the West End Centre in Aldershot with the Poetry for Wellbeing class I teach, and I’ve read at some lovely events recently including the Edward Thomas Festival, The Riverhouse Barn Poetry Night in Walton and Winchester Muse. I’m also frequently at the brilliant Poetry Night at Goldfinch Books in Alton.

Order Nia's Book

THE POEM

What made you write this poem?
I’m writing about my daughter a lot recently – I could never write about my children when they were tiny, but suddenly they’re growing up and all these poems are appearing about them. I was on a fantastic online workshop a few months ago that Caroline Bird did for Arvon and one of the prompts was a list of all the ingredients in the book George’s Marvellous Medicine. We had to choose one and write about what might happen, in a poetic sense, if we gave it to someone in our lives. You should try this prompt – it’s so good! Anyway, my daughter was going through a rough time at that point and that’s where this poem came from. She’s amazing and I’m so proud of her.

submit to VERVE's POTM

Was this poem written specifically for the comp or pulled from your archive?
I wasn’t sure what to do with this one, but then I saw that your theme this month was VIVACITY and I thought yes!

How does this piece sit in your wider work?
It fits thematically, but it’s unusual for me to have surreal elements in my writing. I really enjoyed writing this one though, so maybe I’ll lean into that and see what happens!

COMMUNITY + INFLUENCE

Who or what inspires your writing right now?
Reading, reading, reading poetry. And teaching it. I have a beautiful Poetry Club at school and seeing what they make of poems is an endless source of joy. I also listen to poetry podcasts while I’m driving. I feel like I have to read as widely as I can to avoid falling into a rut and forgetting that there are a million ways to write a poem – oh, I think, yes, you’re allowed to do THAT! I just came back to Grace Nichols after a while and what she can’t do with a last line…

From Passport to Here and There by Grace Nichols, published by Bloodaxe Books, PBS Summer Special Commendation, originally here.

Why did you send your poem to VERVE’s Poem of the Month?
It’s such a great idea, POTM, with one of the quickest turnarounds I’ve ever seen. Poets spend so much time waiting for responses, and we understand why that is, but POTM is great and I always enjoy reading the shortlist when it comes out. Also I know that Verve has an amazing output, including the freshly published Little Bitch by Ellora Sutton, which is beautiful.

Anyone or anything you’d like to shout out?
Caroline Bird for that amazing prompt and my daughter, who in reality is healing herself. If you’re anywhere near Aldershot then keep an eye out for our Poetry Nights – they really are special. The next one is June 25^th. Also let’s big up young poets and young people in general – I took my Poetry Club to the Young Poets Takeover at the Poetry Society recently and the work Cia Mangat and the Young Poets Network do is remarkable – there’s so much talent out there.

Got anything coming up?
I’m working on my first full collection, and taking a break from school teaching next year to focus on that and do more freelance work. I’m excited, and scared. Mostly excited. I’ll be at the Surrey Big Poetry Weekend in August, reading and running a workshop, and I’ll be running workshops as usual at Painshill Park and the West End Centre in Aldershot. Do follow my free Substack and say hi!

Is there anything else you’d like to say to our readers, poets, or the world?
We’ve got to give ourselves permission to do the stuff we want to do.

Find Nia: www.niabroomhall.co.uk, on Instagram as @niaandthepoems, or on Substack Nia’s Poetry Bookshelf.

POTM COMPETITION

More from VERVE Poetry

Join Us! Tickets Here >>

Submit to POTM

Book Poetry Workshops

Join us for Writing Hour

Subscribe now

The link to access WRITING HOUR tomorrow at 5:30pm is included at the bottom of this article for paid subscribers. If you would like to join, become a paid subscriber, or book your place via our eventbrite.

A monthly writing hour with poems, prompts, and time to write in community, guided by the theme of our Poem of the Month competition.

Every first Monday of the month, poet Suzannah Evans Furnass dedicates the day to her own writing, and she’s opening up that last hour to you.

Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by Suzannah, in case you need a way in. Junes theme is SPIRIT.

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Become a paid subscriber for access

Book your space via eventbrite

Cameras optional. Mics off. Suitable for all levels.

Sessions are recorded for Substack paid subscribers. Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: First Monday of every month, 5:30–6:30pm

Hosted by Suzannah Evans Furnass, VERVE advisory board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

Become a paid subscriber for access

Book your space via eventbrite

Read more

This article features the winning and shortlisted poems from May’s Poem of the Month.

THE WINNING POEM

My Daughter Moves Home
Nia Broomhall

Nia Broomhall's My Daughter Moves Home is this month's winner. It is a poem about a mother's love as restoration, and it never once breaks from that conceit. The daughter arrives depleted, falls on the bed like dust, and the poem tends her back to life through the language of floor polish. The structure gives it an almost liturgical rhythm, each day a small returning, until Sunday arrives and she leaves again. The world so bright I can see my face in her gorgeous!

THE SHORTLIST

We Have No Choice But To Be by Jack Houston
Sunny side heart by Eve Xin
when the same word can mean survive & alive by Mary Mulholland
They steal the elections, you and I are still in love by Soledad Santana
day in the life of by Jack Emsden

These poems place what's going on in the world as background noise to relational encounters. Every poem here holds relationships at their core, love and connection keep prevailing, regardless of the chaos surrounding them - elections stolen, walls built, eggshells as arms, and soldiers as frightened birds. Time moves strangely too. We discover Mandarin’s refusal of tense making everything now through language, and later we read the satisfaction of realising numbers crawling round the dial, signifying nothing. The past refuses to stay past. What all five poems build toward, the toaster says plainly: every encounter alters us. Matter, throughout, changes, breaks open and disperses, through crumbs, walnuts, and seeds and yet: you and I are still in love.

VIVACITY is the quality of being attractively lively, animated and full of life. These poems present what persists inside the world as the point, and shifts our perspective towards the art of living together.

Winning Poem

Nia Broomhall

Shortlisted Poems

Jack Houston

Eve Xin

Mary Mulholland

Soledad Santana

Jack Emsden

Thank you for reading.

Take it easy. Take care of yourselves.

With love, light and joy,

Hayley

x

VERVE WRITING HOUR

Every first Monday of the month, poet Suzannah dedicates the day to her own writing, and she’s opening up that last hour to you.

This is an accountability WRITING HOUR, a space for you to commit to practicing poetry. Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by our guest host, in case you need a way in.

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Cameras optional. Mics off. Suitable for all levels.

Sessions are recorded for Substack paid subscribers. Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: First Monday of every month, 5:30–6:30pm

show up. commit. write.

Hosted by Suzannah, VERVE board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

Book tickets to VERVE X LEDBURY festival »
NEW August dates for VERVE Press’s Pamphlet Course »
We’ve just released the poets on our next Online Poetry Workshop Series »
Visit our Poetry Bookshop to support poetry that matters »
Read Previous POTM winning + shortlisted poems »
Become a member with VERVE for LIFE »

Subscribe now

show up. commit. write.

Why Poetry? Why Now?

I’m always asking myself this. I recently tried to write a long-form fiction thing and it was more than my nerves could stand, so perhaps it has to be poetry. But also poetry fits so neatly into a morning or a spare hour, and it brings such a lot of exploration and freedom into that time. I’m a hardened pessimist – I struggle to believe that poetry can change the world, but I’m trying to be content that it might change someone’s day a small amount.

When Did Poetry First Matter to You?

Two things spring to mind. When I was in year four I wrote sponsored poems for 50p a go for a school non-uniform day. I don’t really know where the idea came from. I can’t remember many other students wanting a poem, but some of the teachers paid me for them. Subjects requested included ‘roses’ and ‘being in the Merchant Navy’. The second of those I knew nothing about — I was nine.

I studied Keats for A-Level English, and after a lesson on Ode on Melancholy I happened to comment that it was ‘a bit depressing’ and my teacher said ‘at least it made you feel something’ – and I was hooked from that point on.

A Poet Who Has Stayed With You

I reread Edwin Morgan’s ‘At Eighty’ a few weeks ago and was so galvanised by it that I wrote the first two lines on my office wall:

‘Push the boat out, compañeros,
push the boat out, whatever the sea.’

I am not eighty yet, but the poem spoke to me about the need to keep going, to keep making and writing, that waiting for a perfect moment to do it is like waiting for a calm sea. It felt needed. He is one of my favourite poets for sure – he wrote the best love poems, and the best space poems, and a whole lot of others. His poems have boldness; he was unafraid of trying something different, which is how I want to be as a writer, never pigeonholed, never stuck, never schticky. I also love Selima Hill, for her bitingly dark humour and the way she relates to creatures.

The full poem, Curtesy of the Scottish Poetry Library

Push the boat out, compañeros,
push the boat out, whatever the sea.
Who says we cannot guide ourselves
through the boiling reefs, black as they are,
the enemy of us all makes sure of it!
Mariners, keep good watch always
for that last passage of blue water
we have heard of and long to reach
(no matter if we cannot, no matter!)
in our eighty-year-old timbers
leaky and patched as they are but sweet
well seasoned with the scent of woods
long perished, serviceable still
in unarrested pungency
of salt and blistering sunlight. Out,
push it all out into the unknown!
Unknown is best, it beckons best,
like distant ships in mist, or bells
clanging ruthless from stormy buoys.

Edwin Morgan
from Cathures: New Poems 1997-2001 (Carcanet Press Ltd, 2002)

The Story of ‘Green’

My most recent pamphlet Green was inspired by a desire to connect much more deeply with folklore and specifically that of England. I had read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass which connects indigenous stories with botany and scientific knowledge, and her suggestion is that we all need to connect with our own stories in this way if we can. When I looked into this it appeared that we don’t have a whole lot of folklore about the Green Man, and that someone decided in Victorian times that the little faces we see carved in churches were ‘fertility symbols’. So he became a kind of blank (green) space for me to write about climate anxiety and rage.

One poem from the pamphlet was born from a queasy feeling about ‘stuff’ – the concept of ‘the antique’ and all the objects getting older and therefore more collectible. And, as Suzannah puts it: “There are over 90 bags of astronaut poo up there from various Apollo missions.”

There’s astronaut shit on the moon!
                                                        is the sort
of thought that keeps Green awake at night.
We’ve shored up so much stuff it makes him
grind his teeth. Above his head in low orbit
he feels the creaking halo of space junk
a tinsel of broken satellites and rocket bits
that clank and roll and cinder back to Earth
where the problem’s even worse, all of us
amassing armoires, Laliques, the enamelled
snuff-boxes of our ancestors.
In the pull-down dark of storage units
that stare across abyssal corridors
paraphernalia waits; inhalers retire
with no puff left, old spectacles in drawers
tangle their stick-insect limbs.

enter poem of the month

ON VERVE

I love Verve. I’ve been to every one, except one where I had a flu thing and had to watch online. The lineup is always brilliant, Birmingham is one of the best cities (fight me) and very accessible. I am so happy, too, to be able to support where it’s going – VERVE started as a small festival in a bookshop and has become such a vital place of poetry and community in Birmingham, and a poetry destination for many.

ABOUT THE POET

Suzannah’s work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, and has been described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.’ She has published two books with Nine Arches Press, the most recent of which is Space Baby (2022) and her pamphlet Green (2024) is published by Bad Betty Press. She is currently an RLF fellow at Sheffield University.

Instagram: @suzannahevansfurnass

Join us for Verve Writing Hour with Suzannah, first Monday of each month, 5:30–6:30pm, coinciding with Poem of the Month opening on the 1st.

show up. commit. write.

VERVE WRITING HOUR

Every first Monday of the month, poet Suzannah dedicates the day to her own writing, and she’s opening up that last hour to you.

This is an accountability WRITING HOUR, a space for you to commit to practicing poetry. Suzannah will be at her desk doing the same. Each session comes with prompts inspired by the current Poem of the Month theme, selected by our guest host, in case you need a way in.

Accessing the writing hour provides you with one free POTM entry, because you may as well submit a poem since you’ve started writing one here!

Cameras optional. Mics off. Suitable for all levels.

Sessions are recorded for Substack paid subscribers. Not with us yet? Join to access every session for free, and get a free POTM entry every month with your subscription.

When: First Monday of every month, 5:30–6:30pm

show up. commit. write.

Hosted by Suzannah, VERVE board member, whose work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, described as 'doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge.' Author of Space Baby (Nine Arches Press, 2022) and pamphlet Green (Bad Betty Press, 2024). Currently RLF Fellow at Sheffield University.

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Vanessa Lampert won April's Poem of the Month with Tina Will Choose You a Horse.
She tells us where the poem came from, the poets who influence her, the poets she writes with, how she writes, and what's coming next.

THE POET

Vanessa is a writer, mentor, editor and teacher of poetry. Her work is widely published, recently in Magma, The Oxford Times, The Rialto, The London Magazine, Under the Radar, Oxford Poetry, and Poetry London. She runs workshops nationwide for adults and in schools and volunteers at Oxford Poetry Library. She was a co-founder of The Alchemy Spoon magazine and is a committee member for Poetry in Aldeburgh.

SUBMIT TO POTM

What themes or forms do you find yourself drawn to?
people trying to work stuff out with other people / a dog / stay alive / recover / babies – love a baby / other animals / the sea / the body / a colonoscopy/ a placenta / crustaceans / my Mum / suicide / trifle

What does poetry do for you?
It gets me behind the sternum if it’s good.

What snacks fuel your poems?
A couple of pints of tea the colour of a fox. Keep it coming.

Three words that describe your poetry?
fresh, moving, lobster

Have you published or performed before?
On Long Loan is my pamphlet from Live Canon ‘Say it With Me’ is my collection with Seren. I volunteer at Oxford Poetry Library and in Schools. I run Sevenish poets and have recently read at Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and Buzzwords Cheltenham.

THE POEM

What made you write this poem?
I tend to be moved to write by the funny things people say. My friend Tina said something like “I don’t know how to make orange polenta cake but I can choose you a horse”. It was a gift of a line I just cantered off with it…

Tina Will Choose You a Horse 
Vanessa Lampert

Because she knows how to choose a horse 
Tina will choose a horse for you. 
Regarding a hypothetical horse 

Tina might say, this horse is a crib-biter
and a box-walker. This is not your horse.
When Tina says this is not your horse

you must trust her. When Tina walks away
from a horse you must walk away too. 
You know nothing about horses. 

When Tina says this horse is a Virgo 
with a Taurus moon and mercury retrograde, 
this is not your horse, look away

from its long eyelashes, jaunty ears 
and the way sunlight polishes its bottom. 
Channel Tina saying this is not your horse.

You must allow Tina to find you 
something more scopey, a scopey horse,
an easy keeper, a horse more rideable

for the rider. When Tina says
this horse is an unhappy hacker, a weaver,
a tied up maintenance horse with windgall, 

you must listen. Tina sees your loneliness. 
Trot along behind her. Tina will choose you 
a horse whether you want a horse or not.

submit to VERVE's POTM

Was this poem written specifically for the comp or pulled from your archive?
I had just written it, and it seemed to fit.

How does this piece sit in your wider work?
I think it’s typical of how I write…

We’ve noticed a rise in using ‘/’ in poems and wanted your insight on its use.
Trying to stay down with the kids. It’s a small wall built inside the poem to say ‘Just so you are clear, I’m saying a new thing now…’

COMMUNITY + INFLUENCE

Who or what inspires your writing right now?
Imagine writing like Karen Solie. Now there’s something to reach towards. Gabriella Calvocoressi, Matthew Dickman always.

Why did you send your poem to VERVE’s Poem of the Month?
I really love the festival and Stuart’s so nice. I read in Southampton with some VERVE poets and they were all friendly and cool and such good poets.

What does winning mean to you?
A lot of boasting, lunch with Tina on me, I’m very grateful too and up myself.

Anyone or anything you’d like to shout out?
Oxford Poetry Library is a wonderful place. Please come. Sevenish poets has some amazing names; Rency Raquid, Miles Gibson, Chrissie Dreier, Wayne Brown, Carl Tomlinson, Jacob McKibbin, Iulia Costache, to name but a wee scattering. Watch out for them. Glyn Maxwell is my mentor. Lucky eh? Tammy, Emma, Kat and Ben help me in the big smoke monthly with wine and the occasional cocktail.

Got anything coming up?
A new book next year. If I say more at this stage I might not have one, so there you go… excited now arentcha?

Is there anything else you’d like to say to our readers, poets, or the world?
I think Owen Collins is a really talented poet. Honestly. Please share.

POTM COMPETITION

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VERVE Poetry Press Pamphlet Short Course SOLD OUT for JULY 2026. Tickets on sale for AUGUST via the link below.

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Here, our Poem of the Festival winner Debmalya Bandyopadhyay — a Kolkata-born, Birmingham-based poet whose work moves through identity, boyhood, and the quiet textures of human connection, answers some Q’s about his writing practice. Debmalya talks about the Brooklyn Poets workshop that sparked his winning poem, what it felt like to read that winning email three times, and why translating Bangla poetry is his secret weapon against writer's block. We also have details on our upcoming Online Competition Winners' Showcase and this month's Poem of the Month prompt. Read on.

Name / pronouns / where you’re writing from?
I am Debmalya Bandyopadhyay, my pronouns are he/him. I grew up in Kolkata, India, but have lived in Birmingham for the past few years.

Tell us about your writing practice.
In my poetry, I am drawn to exploring identity, boyhood, and the intimacy of relationships— be it familial, friendly, romantic, or the many shades in between. I like going for long walks and coming back to write, my head full of thoughts. I always carry a resource of words— a notebook or the notes app, wherever I go. A friend and I act as each other’s dream journals, and I sometimes draw images from our shared pot of dreams to sprinkle through my poems.

I love a poem that sneaks in through the back door of my heart and changes something within me, a change that I cannot immediately put my finger upon. Lately, I have been writing a lot of prose poems; it seems to be my new favourite form. I have also been translating poems from Bangla to English, a process that works magically to clear up a writer’s block.

Three words that describe your poetry?
Image, sound, lyric.

Have you published or performed before?
My poems have found a home in various journals—The Bombay Literary Magazine, Wildness, Blackbird, Southern Humanities Review, Chestnut Review, And Other Poems, and Atlanta Review, among others. They have been included in some anthologies such as the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English (2023, 2024) and the Propel Anthology. I have performed in poetry nights around Birmingham. Last year, I was part of the University of Birmingham Uni Slam team, where I was the runner-up in the Coaches Slam.

What made you write this poem?
I wrote this poem in a Brooklyn Poets workshop with Rosebud Ben-Oni last year. The theme of the workshop was ‘Writing Poetry of Peculiar Joys’. For one of the assignments on elation as a craft exercise, Rosebud sent us a photo each to write in response to. Mine was a photo of a small white-haired spider, clicked by Javier Ruperez. I got a jump scare when I opened it because I am usually terrified of spiders. However, this was something different— the more I stared at it, the less I feared it. In the end, I wanted to write a poem about this transformation I felt, the joy it evoked in me, and the poem was born.

Was this poem written specifically for the comp or pulled from your archive?
It was pulled from my archive!

How does this piece sit in your wider work?
I would say it’s a one-off poem; I don’t think I have written many poems with humour and cuteness in their tone. But now, I’m tempted to write some more!

What role does ‘/’ take in your poem?
We’ve noticed a rise in this form and wanted your insight on its use. My poem does not have ‘/’ in it.

COMMUNITY + INFLUENCE

Who or what inspires your writing right now?
I am always inspired by several poets, too many to list here! But the ones that are living rent-free in my head and on my bedside right now are the following. Richard Siken’s I do know some things, Eric Yip’s pamphlet Exposure, Zain Rishi’s pamphlet Noon, Luke Kennard’s Notes on the Sonnets, and Anthony Anaxagorou’s Heritage Aesthetics. The best kind of poem is one that makes you want to write something, and these books are filled with such poems.

Why did you send your poem to VERVE’s Poem of the Festival?
I really love the VERVE Poetry Festival! I have been attending it every year since moving to Birmingham, and I was quite sad to learn that it is not happening this year. The first-ever open mic I read at was the VERVE Open Door. I have always wished to be a part of one of the festival events, and that made me submit to the Poem of the Festival.

What does winning mean to you?
I had to read the email thrice to make sure I was reading it right! It is a massive honour for me to have won the competition. I am thankful to Victoria Kennefick and the entire VERVE team. A poet’s journey can be very lonely; there is always some level of imposter syndrome. But in moments like this, I feel a sense of fruition. I feel like I belong here, in the world of poetry.

Anyone or anything you’d like to shout out?
Shoutout to my mentor Jay Deshpande at the Brooklyn Poets Mentorship Program, and to the rest of my cohort. Thanks to the teachers I worked with in the last year—Rosebud Ben-Oni, Dawn Lonsinger, and Robert Wood Lynn. I am very grateful to all the poets I have met in Birmingham over the past few years, who have had a massive influence on me. Thanks also to Luke Kennard for his kindness and generosity.

Got anything coming up?
Events, books, readings, gigs, Substacks, zines? Plug away. I have got some poems in the upcoming issues of Berkeley Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, and South Carolina Review, that I’m very excited for!

Is there anything else you’d like to say to our readers, poets, or the world?
The world is a strange and surreal place now, perhaps more than ever. I want to thank you all for reading and writing poetry, for keeping up the spirit of this beautiful community, for not going gentle into the good night.

Where can people find you online?
On Instagram as @halfmoonmilkshake

VERVE Poetry Festival Online Competition Winners’ Showcase

Sunday, May 10 from 11 am to 12:30 pm

The Verve Competition on the Theme of LOVE opened for entries late in 2025, judged by the wonderful VICTORIA KENNEFICK. We also opened to competition up to entries from 11-17 yearolds. This online event will feature all the winners and commended poets plus six selected from our 11-17 entries. The poets will read their poems on our subject and help launch our annual festival anthology. The event will be hosted by Victoria herself and will be a fun and lively affair, featuring poets of all kinds and levels of experience.

NB Ticket sales close at 10.30am Sunday 10th May.

Get Tickets

POTM is open and closes on May 20th! May’s *optional theme is;

VIVACITY (ALIVE AND SHOWING IT)
Liveliness. Animation. Not just being alive, but showing it.

£100 for the prize-winner!

We LOVE the excitement this monthly competition has engendered and look forward to seeing your entries.

Submit to POTM

Tell us about your writing practice.
What themes or forms do you find yourself drawn to?
I’m drawn to the extraordinary in the ordinary. Everyone’s life is interesting. I am moved by little moments in the mundane, and how we connect these to our own experiences. My themes are informed by my previous career as a substance misuse specialist in the NHS, as well as my experiences as a daughter and a mother.

What does poetry do for you?
Heaney said it best- poetry fortifies my inner life.

What snacks fuel your poems?
Crisps. Tea. More crisps. More tea.

Three words that describe your poetry?
My husband calls me the ‘Radiohead of Poetry’, by which doesn’t mean that I am a lyrical genius like Thom Yorke, but that my poems are a bit miserable.

Have you published or performed before?
I’ve had poetry and short stories published in various poetry anthologies including the Arts Richmond Changes Anthology and the Chesham Literary Festival’s Chalk Stream anthology.
I have performed at the Farnham Literary Festival winner’s event, the South Downs Festival winner’s event and at Billilit.

ABOUT THE POEM

What’s the backstory, secret, or spark behind this poem?
What made you write it? I was inspired by Richard Siken’s fantastic prose poem Kitchen Window, the opening line of which is ‘Several men were not my father.’ I urge everyone to read it, it is incredibly moving.

Was this poem written specifically for the comp or pulled from your archive?
This poem was pulled from my archive, but is a fairly recent piece that I wrote whilst reflecting on experiences from childhood.

How does this piece sit in your wider work?
Is this a one-off, or part of your poetry practice? This poem is part of a collection of poems I am putting together about my experiences of childhood and motherhood. My poems are partly autobiographical and partly employ narrative voices which, although often sharing similarities with me, may have experiences outside of my own that I am interested in exploring in poetic form.

COMMUNITY + INFLUENCE

Who or what inspires your writing right now?
I’m reading contemporary poets such as Richard Siken and Kim Addonizio, and they are influencing both the style and content of my poems. I also love Rebecca Goos’s collection ‘Latch’ and always enjoy hearing Liz Berry and Luke Wright read their work. John McCullough is using form and theme in really interesting ways.

Why did you send your poem to VERVE’s Poem of the Festival?
I attended the poetry festival last year and thought it was fantastic – both exciting and inspiring, with a great range of poetry events. I entered my poem in the hope of being part of the event, and now I am, albeit online!

What does winning mean to you?
I have come to writing poetry quite late in life, and I still consider myself to be very much a novice. Being placed in a competition with such a huge number of entries is therefore rather startling, and of course, wonderful.

Anyone or anything you’d like to shout out?
I have benefited enormously from the support and guidance of the wonderful authors in my writing group: Juliet West, Hannah Brockbank, and Nicola Garrard. My writing buddies…thank you. As well, being part of the Women Poet’s Network also gives me an opportunity to connect with some brilliant writers around the world who offer inspiration and support.

Is there anything you’d like to say to our readers, poets, or the world?
Thank you for believing in me as a writer. Keep believing in yourselves as writers.

VERVE Poetry Festival Online Competition Winners’ Showcase

Sunday, May 10 from 11 am to 12:30 pm

The Verve Competition on the Theme of LOVE opened for entries late in 2025, judged by the wonderful VICTORIA KENNEFICK. We also opened to competition up to entries from 11-17 yearolds. This online event will feature all the winners and commended poets plus six selected from our 11-17 entries. The poets will read their poems on our subject and help launch our annual festival anthology. The event will be hosted by Victoria herself and will be a fun and lively affair, featuring poets of all kinds and levels of experience.

NB Ticket sales close at 10.30am Sunday 10th May.

Get Tickets

POTM is open and closes on May 20th! May’s *optional theme is;

VIVACITY (ALIVE AND SHOWING IT)
Liveliness. Animation. Not just being alive, but showing it.

£100 for the prize-winner!

We LOVE the excitement this monthly competition has engendered and look forward to seeing your entries.

Submit to POTM

This article features the winning and shortlisted poems from Aprils’s Poem of the Month.

THE WINNING POEM

Tina Will Choose You a Horse 
Vanessa Lampert

Vanessa Lampert's Tina Will Choose You a Horse is the worthy winner of this month's Verve Poem of the Month. Lampert commits fully to the metaphor, and the metaphor commits fully back. Tina is the equestrian guide, the astrologer, the wise woman who knows what you need better than you do, and the poem canters with real oomph through her authority. Particular images dazzle and then deliberately withhold — "the way sunlight polishes its bottom" is pure desire, and the poem knows it, which is exactly why Tina says look away. We find ourselves in the year of the horse, under Tina's guidance, where the astro chart and the paddock are one and the same. The human at the centre of this poem hasn't had a good run. They cannot choose their own companion; they are dazzled by the wrong things, by long eyelashes and jaunty ears, by what glitters rather than what fits. There is breaking here too — the breaking of the wrong horse, and the more tender breaking open of Tina's witnessing of loneliness. Trot along behind her. Reader, you will.

Celebrating a year of POTM

THE SHORTLIST

Galatea- Jane Burn
Isle of Tiles - Charlotte McDermott
Nadine showed me a picture - Angela Cleland
handsaw heart - Priyanka Sutaria
resistance - S Reeson

The Verve Poem of the Month Shortlist

What binds this shortlist together is the act of moulding, the shaping, breaking, and reforming of the human. Jane Burn’s Galatea is itself a concrete poem, its form enacting its subject: a block of marble, a myth, almost ice-cream cold, chipped and sculpted from the very pillar of the page. Pygmalion’s hammer falls in the white space, and line breaks thanks to the poems own architecture. Here a woman is chipped from man’s gaze with stone, into a statue of desire — “he spread his palms across my flesh / fondled me smooth” — and the horror winces through the chip.

Charlotte McDermott’s Isle of Tiles breaks the rule entirely. Where Galatea is still and monumental, this piece gallops with couplets and rhythm you can hear in your ear as you read it. Read this one aloud (in fact, read all of them aloud; poetry is supposed to be heard). It captures the OOMPH of the theme for the month, and that innate in children: that B&Q roam, that contained galloping through aisles with no aim but joy. It makes me as a reader question when and how are we broken into adulthood, corralled into walking whats laid out for us, with one aim in mind?

Angela Cleland’s Nadine Showed Me a Picture answers that question with unflinching precision. This is a horror story, and this is a thing that happens. The child in the newspaper, features melted like wax, becomes a mirror the speaker cannot look away from — “I had a father / a father with paraffin”. We’ve moved from childhood joy in McDermott’s poem toward childhood trauma here. The human mould melts under broken behaviour, and what is extraordinary is how Cleland holds both fragility and strength in the same white space; the unspeakable sentence the speaker cannot say to her father sitting there, italic, alone on the page.

Priyanka Sutaria’s handsaw heart offers something different: not a breaking, but a becoming. The heron does break on the water, yes, but the heart splits open into a lotus flower, over and over through renewal. The heart here is patient, not broken. The heron doesn’t flutter; it beats and swoops like a majestic hum, and the poem holds that same unhurried quality.

S Reeson’s resistance breaks from the political status quo with sharp, controlled fury. Another bird appears, not a heron, but a parrot, squawking beliefs that aren’t its own, that so doesn’t fully understand. “it’s not the person more the concept,” the parrot sings, and the poem refuses to let that stand. This is a shortlist full of things that are done to people — carved, melted, corralled, set alight — and resistance is the poem that turns and says: they don’t get to own me.

Winning Poem

Vanessa Lampert

Tina Will Choose You a Horse 

Because she knows how to choose a horse 
Tina will choose a horse for you. 
Regarding a hypothetical horse 

Tina might say, this horse is a crib-biter
and a box-walker. This is not your horse.
When Tina says this is not your horse

you must trust her. When Tina walks away
from a horse you must walk away too. 
You know nothing about horses. 

When Tina says this horse is a Virgo 
with a Taurus moon and mercury retrograde, 
this is not your horse, look away

from its long eyelashes, jaunty ears 
and the way sunlight polishes its bottom. 
Channel Tina saying this is not your horse.

You must allow Tina to find you 
something more scopey, a scopey horse,
an easy keeper, a horse more rideable

for the rider. When Tina says
this horse is an unhappy hacker, a weaver,
a tied up maintenance horse with windgall, 

you must listen. Tina sees your loneliness. 
Trot along behind her. Tina will choose you 
a horse whether you want a horse or not.

Shortlisted Poems

Jane Burn

Charlotte McDermott

Isle of Tiles

I adored visiting B&Q with my parents,
running down bath-lined corridors
with shower-covered walls,
hiding in dollhouse displays, kitchen models,
taps for days, door handles and wood panels,
towels and flannels, screws and fixtures,
tools and mixtures, toilet seats
in every style, pivoting down the aisle of tiles,
square samples of ceramic cut and filed,
fired and dried, solid and see-through,
but no worker or guardian saw through me,
taking fistfuls of every colour,
jamming them into my child-pockets,
bulging and splitting at the seams,
clinging to a quadrilateral sea of glass dreams,
confessing after years of keeping,
holding onto them to this present day,
but the tiles were free anyway,
carrying my cornered guilt through
gardens of pillow and plant, blue pouch
brimming with childish treasure,
the secret was mine for so long I forgot
how to share, the pleasure of stealing tiles
too much to bear, too sickly, too sharp,
too much memory to let go of.

Angela Cleland

Priyanka Sutaria

handsaw heart

the heron in my chest lake is an elegant
bird-beast, its zigzag pulse squawking

in my zigzag neck. in the ticking wetland
still life, hear its spear bill sibilance.

observe the cryptic hunter’s pose, the wide -
winged spread of a medieval collar playing

shadow games against the water’s glaring.
in that sumptuous split second between lull

and strike, when the mind is one with the thrum
drum blubbering, before the heart is reborn

as a lotus flower, it is possible to see what is
approaching, or that which no longer exists.

S Reeson

Thank you for reading,

H x

NEWS.

We’ve got an online reading event of the winning poets from our POEM OF THE FESTIVAL competition on May 10th.

Book you tickets

POTM OPENS AGAIN TOMORROW - MAY 1st!

Read the themes here

OUR ONLINE poetry only bookshop is filled with the books we know you love and contains books from all our favourite publishers!

Books on How to Write Poetry, Exciting forthcoming books, Imported titles and of course our VERVE Poetry Press books!

Any profits from book sales from this site goes straight to support our many community projects and of course will help us bring back our festival in 2027. Have a browse - we know you’ll enjoy it!

VERVE Poetry Bookshop

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Order the Book

ABOUT THE BOOK

What’s the backstory, secret, or spark behind this book? What made you write it?

My mother’s lung cancer returned when I was twenty-one. I wrote this because I needed a way to tell her how much she meant to me. I didn’t show it to her until a few years later, however, because I didn’t want to upset her. She loved the poems and initially began translating them to share with her friends on WeChat. I asked if I could include her translations in the manuscript, so then she translated all of the poems.

Originally, I had planned to give the book to her as a sort of gift. Now that she’s passed, I’ve realised it was a gift for me all along.

How does this collection sit in your wider work?

It’s a one off in the sense that I will never write anything exactly like this again. I wrote it specifically for my mother, not for a wider readership. However, I think it also marks a shift in my writing career. A lot of my early work involved alter-egos, or donning masks (see Your Turn to Speak!) to express myself. Now, I’m more comfortable sharing parts of my real life without those costumes.

This book also thematically preludes the next collection I’m writing, whose working title is currently A Theory of Relative Grief.

Why did you send your book to VERVE Poetry Press?

VERVE has published fantastic poets! I was familiar with the works of Tim Tim Cheng, Sean Wai Keung, and Roshni Gallagher.

What does being shortlisted mean to you?

It’s my first ever shortlist, so it means a lot. It’s been eight years since my first publication (!) so it’s taken a lot of time and energy to get here. Being shortlisted is an invitation to rest and smell the roses for a minute. Mostly though, having this book shortlisted is particularly meaningful because it feels like a celebration of my mother’s memory. She worked very hard on the translations and always championed my writing. When I perform the Mandarin translations, I can hear her listening in my head, correcting my pronunciation. I know she would be proud of me.

• Foretokens, Sarah Howe (Chatto & Windus)

• Holy Boys, Andrés N. Ordorica (Polygon)

• I Sing to the Greenhearts, Maggie Harris (Seren)

• My Dearest Friend, Lady Red Ego (Verve)

• The New Carthaginians, Nick Makoha (Penguin)

• Why I am not a Bus Driver, Ashley Hickson-Lovence (Bad Betty)

THE POET

Three words that describe your poetry?

Grandiose. Impish. Earnest.

What themes or forms do you find yourself drawn to?

When it comes to literature, I’m always most interested in relationships – how they form, age, decay, transform. It doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship, just a significant one. I like the tension that is, at all times, suspended between two people.

It’s both fragile and incredibly hardy.

I also love writing about time. There’s something so exciting about how art allows us to travel through it, or bend it, or experience it all at once. Doesn’t everything make more sense when you trace it back through its histories, or thrust it forwards into future possibilities?

I think that’s what poetry does for me, mostly. It helps me to make sense of the world around me and the things I’m experiencing. It also grants me authority over my narrative, which is fun. I don’t like when people take poetry too seriously. It is, to me, an intrinsically playful medium.

Have you published or performed before?

Your Turn to Speak! was published by Blue Diode Press in 2023. It’s my first collection and still one of my favourite things I’ve ever written. The Red Ego was my first pamphlet, published way back in 2019 with Wild Press Books. It’s where my pseudonym comes from.

Natural Sugars was my second pamphlet and was published in 2020 with Broken Sleep Books. It was partly inspired by an essay called Shakespeare’s Queer Pastoral Ecology: Alienation around Arden by Vin Nardizzi.

Where you’re writing from?

Glasgow.

COMMUNITY + INFLUENCE

Who or what inspires your writing right now?

I’ve been inspired by Anne Carson since forever. But also currently James Baldwin, Nella Larsen, Octavia Butler, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

I’ve gone through a sci-fi phase which has been really stimulating because it’s not a genre I’ve explored in my writing before.

Anyone or anything you’d like to shout out?

I’m very grateful for the support I’ve always received from the creative communities around me. Thank you for accepting and uplifting me!

Got anything coming up?

Events, books, readings, gigs, Substacks, zines? Plug away.

In addition to my next poetry collection, I’m working on a final edit of my lesbian romance novel, Third Time Lucky. It’s predominantly set in Glasgow, Bute, and Orkney and follows the protagonist through twelve years of her life. It’s sexy, slightly funny, and full of questions – with the occasional answer. I love it to bits.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to our readers, poets, or the world?

Do what you can. Look after yourself. Go for a walk.

Upcoming at VERVE

Poem of the Month is our recurring monthly poetry competition inviting poets from all corners of poetry and culture to submit. So far POTM has provided £1000 to poets and APRIL is a one year anniversary. Opening on the 1st of each month and closing on the 20th with a £100 prize for the winning poem, and publication opportunities for the shortlist, its become a staple offer from VERVE POETRY.

We LOVE the excitement this monthly competition has engendered and look forward to seeing your entries!

Submit to POTM

VERVE Poetry Festival Online Competition Winners’ Showcase

Sunday, May 10 from 11 am to 12:30 pm

The Verve Competition on the Theme of LOVE opened for entries late in 2025, judged by the wonderful VICTORIA KENNEFICK. We also opened to competition up to entries from 11-17 yearolds. This online event will feature all the winners and commended poets plus six selected from our 11-17 entries. The poets will read their poems on our subject and help launch our annual festival anthology. The event will be hosted by Victoria herself and will be a fun and lively affair, featuring poets of all kinds and levels of experience.

NB Ticket sales close at 10.30am Sunday 10th May.

Get Tickets

We’re moving at the speed of community.

We have this Substack, and like many poetry organisations right now, we’re learning how to tend it with the time and resources we have. Our original plan was a storytelling poetry feature where we could pay poets properly for their critique, reflections, and WIP essays about the poetry landscape. That remains our intention.

This Substack is here to celebrate our poets, workshop hosts, participants, Poem of the Month writers, and the wider VERVE community. We’re sharing process, drafts, reflections, readings, and opportunities as they unfold. Subscriptions (£3.50/month). If you value what we do, staying with us here really matters.

Subscribe now