ALAN BAKER
Alan Baker was born and raised in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and has lived in Nottingham since 1985, where he has been editor of the poetry publisher Leafe Press for the last twenty years, and editor of its associated webzine Litter.
His previous poetry collections include Variations on Painting a Room (Skysill, 2011), Letters from the Underworld (Red Ceilings, 2018) and Riverrun (KFS, 2019).
He has translated the poetry of Yves Bonnefoy and Abdellatif Laâbi.
His latest pamphlet is A Journal of Enlightened Panic (Shoestring Press, 2020).
Today The Snow Today the snow, and tonight it lies on my car, and on all the roads that she must go. To be in a warm hotel in midwinter, isn't that enough comfort? Today the snow, tomorrow I will save you from the rest of your life, or is it mine? I would like to help someone to live after my death - eyes, liver, kidneys, pancreas left on the fields of morning while I'm in a dreamless sleep. What could be more idyllic than an exhibitionof the latest luggage? Are your shoes clean, young man? One believes so. And who are we? To argue, that is. I earn a living, recount colourful episodes from my past, swell my feet on crystals of white. Isn't that enough? But no. 'Our researches must continue' and there are language courses yet to be complete. The latest adult films to be watched. Slide softly into the bed of white. Protect the night, snow, and don't allow yourself to be fooled.
“Today the Snow” originally appeared in the pamphlet February Hotel from Bamboo Books.
TUESDAY SHANNON
https://twitter.com/tuesdayshannon
About Tuesday Shannon
Tuesday Shannon has an AHRC-funded PhD from Nottingham Trent University where she now an associate lecturer.
Her work has been featured in Soundswrite Press’s ‘Take Three: Volume One’, Left Lion, P.N. Review and others.
https://wildcourt.co.uk/new-work/two-poems-by-tuesday-shannon/
‘HOPE’
Between a boarded-up chippy and a boarded-up florist second- or third-hand fridges lean to attention. But there are no passers-by, no eyes to catch and tempt – just fallen leaves, empty buses, artificial light. In the shelter of a closed shop door a teenager tugs at his hoodie, lifts a cigarette with his left hand, shakes a cannister in his right.