Dear World, Issue 15 Editorial

Welcome to Dear World, Issue 15 of Dust Poetry, featuring 30 remarkable new poems and the stunning wood engraving print, 'they tried to bury us but they didn't know we were seeds' by printmaker Molly Lemon.

1.      I Clean Up, Linda Laino

2.      Above the Ramparts, Benedicta Norell

3.      Forest Fire, Olya K-Mehri

4.      Suburbia Arcadia, Eve Chancellor

5.      Prayer for the world in seven couplets, Michael Mintrom

6.      When your sky lights up, Esha Volvoikar

7.      Human Being Erasure, Simon Maddrell

8.      Even the Sky, Paul Stephenson

9.      Persimmon, William Thompson

10.  Flight, Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana

11.  Wing Theory, Erin Little

12.  Quiet auctioning of futures past, Samantha Boswell

13.  Flowers, Joshua Seigal

14.  The Art of Maybe, Jennifer Mills Kerr

15.  My Name Is, Carmella de Keyser

16.  Wetland Concert, Jennifer Lagier

17.  Busker, Penny Ayers

18.  Woolly Mammoth, Charlotte Cosgrove

19.  Crucifixion, I Echo

20.  Democracy Dies, R.J. Breathnach

21.  The Tiny Nappy, Elizabeth Osmond

22.  My Daughter is a Gannet, Rachel Burrows

23.  During Slaughter, Danial Fraser

24.  The microplastics in my body unionised, Ross McCleary

25.  In which I return to the Earth, Alex Dawson

26.  Low Tide, Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin

27.  After a Stranger Called This a Hobby, Julie Weiss

28.  Breakfast TV, Sarah Wallis

29.  Cottage. Hawkchurch, Dorset, 1989, Katie Beswick

30.  A letter to whoever’s in charge, Joe Dresner

A note on reading: If you are reading this issue on a phone you may find that switching to desktop view restores the intended structure and line breaks of the broader poems.

When the editorial team sat down to decide on a theme for this issue, we felt strongly that it should offer a chance to speak to the world honestly, openly, and authentically. The poems that we have gathered together in ‘Dear World’ surpassed all of our expectations: they bring together anger and concern, sadness and devastation, as well as singing words of strength, thankfulness, and determination.

In this issue, you will find fierce and insightful poetry that spans the breadth of the climate emergency and ongoing humanitarian crises. We were deeply moved by Esha Volvoikar’s vision of Gaza in which she implores ‘let life enter / this homeland / You must live / to swim / in your / free / sea’, and by Olya K-Mehri’s observation that a forest fire is ‘not destruction’, but ‘the wood speaking louder / than you thought it could’. We hope that you feel the call to respond – as poets, and readers of poetry – to Benedicta Norell’s question ‘Will there be a place for us, together, / as the oceans rise above the ramparts?’.

The poems in ‘Dear World’ take many forms – letters, prayers, erasures – and cover the deeply personal and confessional to that which is universal. We urge you to spend time with this writing. Hear the voices of fury, frustration, heartache, and hope. Listen to what they have to say – and carry their words out into the world with you.

Catherine and Tara

Co-Editors

Molly Lemon

"They tried to bury us but they didn't know we were seeds" - wood engraving print ©2021 Molly Lemon

We are delighted to feature this wonderful wood engraving print by Molly Lemon on our cover. Its colours and determined, hopeful message - "they tried to bury us but they didn't know we were seeds" - feel so perfectly matched with the poems in this issue.

Molly Lemon is a British printmaker specialising in wood engraving. She engraves pieces of end-grain hardwood, such as English boxwood, using traditional hand tools and then inks up the woodblock before printing it on her antique Albion Press.  Molly loves to create colourful prints, layering up the colours one by one from light to dark until the image is complete. You can find out more about Molly's work on her website here.

Since 2019 Molly has donated over £14,000 to environmental charities through the sale of her artwork, including to The Woodland Trust, which works to protect, create, and restore woods and trees across the UK by planting native trees, protecting ancient woodlands through campaigning, and caring for over 1,000 publicly accessible woods. You can find out more about the work of the Woodland Trust here.