“I let her zigzag the room in the lazy circles that earned her the nickname. Her statement was not directed at me. It was part of the process, part of the figuring out.
I let myself wonder how she died. Painful or quick? Her own fault or no-one’s?”
By David Hartley.
“not one person in the office knows/ that Henderson keeps a panther in his spare room at home…” By Neil Elder
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“Father dies during the appetizers. Mother/ keeps on eating. How’s work? she says. I/ pour more wine…” By Tania Hershman.
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“I am on the roof when the bridge falls into the river – the concrete buckles in stages/ bits of road slip towards the two-mile wide water, as men and women in suits/ screech and jump from their cars, running uphill to the river bank;/ an exercise they had been training for on the treadmills at Goodlife…” By Julie Morrissy.
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“Looking out, I see blind night behind/ & racing in front, the singing wings/ just visible, purposeful, making/ last dashes before the big light goes out…” By Stuart A. Paterson.
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“And after, well fed-up but famished, I knashed at th bare bakside/ of an apl csh csh – -/ nd an appl &/ another apple – and felt non the better for it, only old…” By Camille Ralphs.
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Close readings of five poems from the Saboteur 2016 Best Pamphlet shortlist.
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“I can remember a time/ my father pulled me onto his shoulders/ telling me/ Everyone will hurt/ you. Don’t forget that”
Weekend poem, by Alexis Groulx.
“When we were strangers — remember? — it was bliss because I didn’t need much to imagine/ And now? We don’t meet — having met a few and futile times — but discuss only a forever-rain.” Weekend poem, by Nabina Das.
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“One of Humpadori’s organising principles might be the deceptive kookiness with which it expresses its existential concerns; its aesthetic gaudiness at first seems brash and colourful, but over time seems increasingly oppressive and threatening…” Dave Coates reviews Vidhu Aggarwal’s debut collection.
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