Light Work

I have just pressed send and dispatched the final version of my new collection of poems. Light Work, to the printers. It will be published by Shoestring Press in November.

As a reader of contemporary poetry, I always have a look at the acknowledgements page of any collection I am reading. I really enjoy seeing where poems have been published- the litany of magazine names- new, old, venerable, punky, defunct etc.

This morning. for example, I looked at the acknowledgements pages of Greta Stoddart’s ‘Fool’ (Bloodaxe, 2022) and David Morley’s ‘Passion’ (Carcanet 2025), two books that I have recently acquired.

When it comes to submitting poems to magazines, we all have our favourites.
UK institutions like The North and The Rialto are two of the places I am grateful to
for having published some of my poems over the 15 or so years since I began sending them out. Where to send is a matter for the individual poet - why send work to magazines whose contents don’t generally appeal?

Despite the limited number of poetry publishing outlets, there are magazines, both in print and online, I haven’t and probably wouldn’t submit to. Some, because I have never seen a copy, others because I don’t fancy their name, style or editorial content. There are one or two magazines and newspapers that I would not want to have work in due to longstanding political alignments that I disagree with.

Sometimes, partly due to intermittent impatience with the (often understandably) glacial pace of poetry magazine publishing, I will send some poems to a small online magazine or perhaps a blog where I know I will receive a swift response. Once or twice I have been asked for a poem by an editor, which is very nice.

Back to the new book. Light Work has been gathering itself since the last collection, ‘The Great Animator’, was published in 2017. I can’t quite fathom where the time has gone, but a book of poems takes as long as it takes, and, after a lot of redrafting, re-ordering, editing, culling and inserting poems, I have had to finally let it go.

Putting together the acknowledgements page, I thought it might be interesting to share where individual poems have previously appeared, so below is the contents page with places some of the poems were published. I have added links to some in case anyone would like to visit the poems and their online publications.

Not all the poems that were published in magazines are in this book. This is because they didn’t seem to fit with the rest, or because they didn’t seem to represent any version of me that I would now like to present, or because I didn’t love them enough, despite a magazine editor kindly printing them previously.

Of the fifteen poems that have ‘Unpublished’ next to them, nine have never been sent anywhere. The other six have gone out and been returned, bless them. I still believe in you guys.

It is traditional to write something like ‘I am grateful to the editors of the following magazines where some of these poems have previously appeared. ‘
Given the work involved in all aspects of running poetry magazines, however ‘great’
or small, I can say that I really am truly thankful to all the editors and any admin staff involved, as well as to you for reading this.

Contents

1. The Privilege - The Butchers Dog issue 20, Spring 2024
2. Dragonfly - Bad Lilies, issue 8, June 2022
3. This is the Day - Atrium, August 2024
4. Tony Hoagland is Looking at Me- The Rialto issue 95. 2021
5. Thank you for sharing your illusion - Chain link , Issue 1, 2025
6. Which Service?- Unpublished
7. Icarus’s Mother- Wild Court March 2021
8. Baby Grand- Anthropocene
9. The Geologist- Matt Riches’ blog, Wear The Fox Hat, 2025
10. Layby- The North, Issue 66, August 2021
11. Wake- The Manchester Review issue 22, 2019
12. Saved- Under the Radar, issue 31
13. The Nation’s Favourite Bird- The North issue 63, 2020
14. Referendum Morning - The Rialto, issue 92, Spring 2019
15. The White Doe - Atrium, Sep 2024
16. Feed- 14 Magazine, 2020
17. The Weight - Finished Creatures, 2020
18. If A Parrot - Unpublished
19. A Blue Vase- Unpublished
20. A Celebration- Atrium, Sept 2025
21. Tinnitus- Unpublished
22. Pines - Finished Creatures 2019
23. London Plane- Magma, 2015
24. Mowing- The North issue 63. 2020
25. Sonnet - Anthropocene
26. Mute Swan- Unpublished
27. Can’t Buy a Thrill- Unpublished
28. Onesie - The Butcher’s Dog, issue 13, Summer 2020
29. X - The Rialto, 2021
30. Hernia- The Manchester Review, 2019
31. Three Degrees of Separation- Unpublished
32. From An Illustrated Bible - 14 Magazine, issue 4, 2023.
33. The Adoration- The Rialto, 2021
34. Zulke Is Het Leven- The Butcher’s Dog 2019
35. Murder - Chain link, issue 1, 2025
36. Our Lady’s Convent- Unpublished
37. Fine Fare- Unpublished
38. When Someone Asks ‘How are you?’- Black Nore Review, 2025
39. Absolute Beginners - New Welsh Review, 2021
40. Rain - First published in ‘After Montale’ ,Shoestring Press 2019
41. The Plumtree- The High Window, 2024
42. Trespass- The Black Nore Review, 2025
43. Family Photograph in a Churchyard - The High Window
44. Come As You Are - Under The Radar issue 31
45. A Fire - The North, issue 72, 2025
46. Jamie Vardy Scores - Longlisted for National Poetry Comp 2021
47. Lilac - Finished Creatures, 2019
48. Poem In November - The High Window, 2021
49. The Lull- The North, issue 71 2025
50. Three Thousand Trees- Unpublished
51. Frappuccino- Unpublished
52. Untitled - Unpublished
53. Litany - Unpublished
54. A Crow- Unpublished
55. Attachment Theory - STRIX, 2022
56. Above the Quarry at solstice - The High Window,2019
57. St. Bridgid’s Day- Unpublished
58. Pipistrel - Unpublished
59. Windhover -14 magazine, 2025
60. Lightwork - The High Window 2021
61. Olaus and the Swallows - Wild Court, 2021
62. Definition - Chain Link issue 1, 2025
63. US Inauguration Day- Black Iris, 2025
64. Moth- Unpublished
65. A Call- Unpublished