ANNOUNCEMENT: Lana Guineay wins the October WWWC!

We’re pleased to announce the winner of the October WWWC: Lana Guineay! Lana’s response to the prompt ‘beamish boy’ draws inspiration from literature and language. On her inspiration for her entry, Lana writes: ‘When I read this month’s competition prompt, the word “beamish” was new to me. While I could infer its meaning I wasn’t familiar with the term, and what was its association with “boy”? One Google later I found that the phrase is from Jabberwocky…

POETRY SPOTLIGHT: ‘Courtier’ by Aidan Coleman

This week’s poetry spotlight contemplates the poem ‘Courtier’, from Aidan Coleman’s vigorous collection Mount Sumptuous. Post written by Polly Grant Butler Picking up this collection by Aidan Coleman, I was delighted to be greeted with lyrics from the Silver Jews on the acknowledgements page. I’m not usually one for describing lyrics as poetry as I believe they are two distinct mediums (and no, I do not believe a certain singer-songwriter should have won the Nobel Prize in…

POETRY SPOTLIGHT: ‘Farewell to a Colleague’ by Julian Zytnik

This week’s spotlight shines on an early volume in the Friendly Street series, Friendly Street New Poets 5. Working in the Wakefield bookstore, with hundreds of books laid out before me, I am often in the position to judge the books by their covers, searching for the most interesting looking ones to flick through and sometimes (often) buy. The cover image (shown above) was why I picked this particular book off the shelf, and I was surprised to…