A Sampler

A small sample of poems and extracts from Longbarrow published poets. A new selection of poems will be added to this page every month.

Propositions 1 | Kelvin Corcoran

On the Xenophone label
crackling late at night
from the outpost  barbarians in the hills
at the beginning as one

Extract from ‘Propositions 1′ in On the Xenophone Label (2009).
Also available: Madeleine’s Letter to Bunting (2009)

My Warm Bedding Cools To Moor | Mark Goodwin

but I am not unsheltered    nor chilled    this little
bothy condenses    its weight    of stone blocks 

wooden beams    slate tiles    the bothy clings to
land under wind    it is bravery    in it & from in it

Extract from ‘My Warm Bedding Cools To Moor’ in Distance a Sudden (2009).

Songs to Make & Mend (#25) | Andrew Hirst

I’ve little to say on the infinite
- it’s midsummer, night rushing toward 
its end before it’s hardly even begun. 
The time of the peonies’ brief flowering
is soon over and like the single word, alone.

From Songs to Make & Mend (2008). Also available:
Frome I-XII (2007), Frome XXIV (2008) 

The Don Potters’ Carousal | Rob Hindle

A hot day and a hot night
and here are two rolling home,
half-drunk, late;
in the morning they will swear
temperance again, rue
their roasted skin.

From ‘The Don Potters’ Carousal’ in The Purging of Spence Broughton, a Highwayman (2009)

The Gulls of Camden | Alistair Noon

Above the gulls the stately
rise of the public jets, the hectic
jog of the government helicopter.
The troubled line to the north
rumbles deep and late.

Extract from ‘The Gulls of Camden’ in Animals and Places (2010).
Also available: The Bronze Horseman (2010)

Edgelands | Matthew Clegg

Drunk, he lags through the city
At night, contemplates a fall
Into each of three rivers.
He sings the names of three lovers
To whom he lost his way back home.

From Edgelands (2008). Also available: Officer (2007), Nobody Sonnets (2008), Lost Between Stations (2011)

Miniatures (ix) | Chris Jones

We come on those born sleeping by the gates,
gravestones tended by solitary dates
dressed with stuck-eyed dolls, tissue frills
for flowers, a paper windmill
I let you spin until it purrs,
before we seek out butterflies and spiders.

From Miniatures (2007). Also available: Cells (with Paul Evans, 2008)

Dark Peak (Sanctus) | James Caruth

Heaven and earth
run to one in the day’s end.
A wind picks up
and dusk hugs the hills.
This is a time of gathering,
a time of disposal.
I take the path for home.

 From Dark Peak (2008)