Young Poets

Published here are some of the excellent poems we receive from our gifted young writers.

You can submit poems either by post (please enclose a stamped address envelope for reply), via our on-line portal, or by email to acumeneditor@gmail.com. Please mark the contents ‘Young Poet Submission’, put this in the subject line if you are submitting by email, and put your name, age and address on each page of the submitted document below your poems. We would prefer a word file for the submission please. 

Please submit no more than four poems. You should be aged between 16 and 25 years, the work should be unpublished. 

More information about submitting your poetry

Millie Woodrow

Millie Woodrow

Burial

We buried his guns in the garden

a year after he’d been burnt

in his best jumper. Rifles

and a double-eyed shotgun,

sawn barrel, heavy cartridge, no licence.

A stock that lay cold against the heat

of his cheek, felt the misting of his breath.

A trigger that knew the quick kiss of his finger,

the death-flinch. Foxes, pigeons,

rabbits, rooks, scattered

in the ringing of my grandfather’s gun.

He shifts his weight forward, sinks a crow,

retakes his aim. Reopens his right eye

when a kite drifts through the slaughter,

like a ghost. Shivers in the wind.

He watches till it’s flown.

He shot at what he shouldn’t, pushed warm bodies

deep into warrens – seagulls, racing pigeons.

He licked his lips and tasted

tobacco and liquorice. I’ve seen

his blue eyes harrowing memories,

known the affectionate touch

of his neck-wringing hands.

But he knew there was a weight in death

heavier than the fall of red feathers.

We pick a spot by the ditch

by the dog bones, cat bones,

grass cuttings sodden and rotting,

a ditchful of water running cold and clear,

a passing witness. I sink

his spade in the soil, funereal.

We fill in where we’ve been, leave his violence

to the ground. My mother rolls a cigarette,

watches the circling kites

while I sow grass to hide our crime.

I dread to think, she says, then stops.

Venus in the Forest

Below the high hill

that splits the valley wind,

night opens in the elm grove,

the wild garlic breathing.

Old England once, so Hardy says

scorched to the chalk,

iron fires, funerals,

smoke rising in roots–

like ghost trees waving their pale limbs.

We’re building a den in the forest

rotten elm boughs, slim firs

come down with a crack.

When the fires in the village

Ignite, one by one,

there I’ll cup the last of the light

in my face for him to taste.

I’ll give my orphan body

to the suckling ground, like water.

A vast giving love

that swells new

every season.

After Equinox

When the ditches burst black water,

go splashing.

Fling the old songs skyward,

chase rabbits, break their necks,

flush rooks from their nests in the flue,

black smoke writhing on the wind

bending and beating.

Hang the rabbits out of reach

ready for gutting, sharpen your

kindest knife.

The dark beats the light underground.

Driven into the landscape, a mass burial,

sunk patient and cold beneath Silbury Hill.

Skin the bunny rabbits,

bake a pie.

The first acorn, kicked by a boot,

gone rolling down the road. 

Chase it and keep it. A talisman

for the path ahead.

Make stone circles for the dead,

I let the living pass like rain.

Watch the slow green die to the bark –

strip the second blackberry harvest –

follow the kites as they surrender

to the turning wind like ribbons,

give up love, start fires, start walking,

up with the dawn,

waste no light.

Adonis Anderson

Adonis Anderson

Feast

One day, this dog ripped into my flesh and got so deep we both saw bone and that excited him and surprised me as I was also excited. While he gnawed away, I wondered, what kept him going? he’d already gotten what he wanted… what else could he be after? And as if God whispered, let him be… I laid, almost relaxed. The dog released then started barking, as if others were welcome to join. As he howled, I stayed down, now thinking a number of thoughts, what’s wrong with me?… why am I letting this happen?… God…why?… And when his buddies finally arrived, I still listened to God. I let them feast. All of them excited, all of them howling, coughing, all of them getting sick on my chocolate flesh. I now, fully relaxed, as if God had answered in a whisper again, You are not the only one that wants a little taste of death.

Inspiration

I’ve heard writers sit on their chairs, sit at their tables, and select an audience or genre. I’ve heard writers sit on their chairs, sit at their tables, unknowing when or where their inspiration will come but if it does come, the words pour out like a good piss after a beer run. I don’t relate because I don’t drink, however I do relate to the policeman throwing gang signs, to the blind child wearing shades, to the Baptists’ final prayer before going to his office with a knife and his bible. I do relate to the old woman flailing her arms, to the teenager reading Watt’s ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’, and to the white guy on the subway twirling an empty chocolate bar in his hands. And I want to tell him, just throw it away old man, the best of its over. And I want to tell you, I do take a great piss after sex, and I do think inspiration is such a lousy way to write.

Maybe try again tomorrow

The yolk of an egg is not quite the yellow of sunlight. And as I get out of my Asian-owned mattress embedded onto this white-owned brown wooded floor, the sun’s light is covered by Yellowstone brick through my black boarded clear window. With steady steps towards this window I see the view of this broken city block, I feel my head going empty, and then I feel a lightness as I skip an egg filled breakfast prepared by a woman who knows this is the hardest part of my day and as the smoke of unborn babies dissolve into the air and the smell of their remains fill my nostrils, this woman still cooks for me and I go back to staring out this window until my eyes fill with watered emotion.

More Young Poets

Audrey Hunter

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Saul Grenfell

Rain and cheer Innocence darted through streets alone,hair dancing in the rush of itamid dense smells and bids and cumin and saffronlittle lungs a-panting. Now, with top button stiffly done,greying hair flattened and...

Sidney Lawson

The First Affair I rinse my hands of the way your skin felt, Brush my teeth thinking of how you tasted. The soap’s scent is reminiscent of your Intense fragrance, something I won’t forget In a hurry. I remember the sight Of you in that red dress, the slight gasps you...

Emily Riley

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Charlotte Lebedeker

Josephine It’s been ten years of Josephine, and the world will give us decades more. But if that’s cut short by the gods above, I would upturn all our climbing trees, I would dry out all our oceans, I would leave no corner of the world unchecked searching for her. As...

Daphne Harris

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Florence Grieve

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Isaac Cude

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Tricia Tan

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Emily VanPelt

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Liberty Price

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Grace Marshall

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Alex Walker

Strange Winter river pouring daily puff of coal chatter of friends press of water against the lock gates overflow balsamic moon I am swallowed up I am swept away in the overflow of turkey tails lobular expanses drops of rain strung like beads of liquid starlight...

Anna Ray

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Imogen Davies

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