(Cover artwork: 'Distant Memories' by Anette Holt)
Song for a City by Katherine Gallagher
The Waiting by Louise Longson
The Alchemy of Moss by Louise Mather
Old World by Ed Limb
Sun, Heavy and Sweet by Caitlin Thomson
Halloumi by Claire Marsden
Duality by Jen Feroze
Scream by Nina Parmenter
Lost by Martin Hawkes
Theme in White by Sue Spiers
Ironing feathers by Marion Oxley
Make it sweet by Adam Stokell
The fur of a bear by Erin Schallmoser
Not Just Water by Natasha King
Mother, the sun is trying to shine on me by Mary Ford Neal
Safety by Rae Norman
Eclipse by Amanda Roth
In the Bungalow by Caleb Parkin
Unclenched by Aisha Malik
Tuesday in March by Hannah Cole Orsag
Tee-chuh by Nikita Azad
Smells of cabbage, warm damp, and by Mary Mulholland
if you're like me… by Simon Alderwick
Red Roads by Jeannie Prinsen
Welcome to Issue 8 of Dust Poetry Magazine.
After a year's break, while I had my second daughter, it is so good to be back to bring you these 24 new and glorious poems by some exceptional poets.
It was their words - "next month we will see the beeches burn/ bronze and yellow, gold and orange flames", "splintering shards of sunlight/ onto baked-hard clay", "tree-mottled, kaleidoscopic from/ yellow fires to rosy dens", "the molten wings of creatures/
where the road cracked,/ crescents, droplets, spores" and more - that led me to the wonderful work of abstract photographer Anette Holt and this image, titled 'Distant Memories', for the issue's cover.
Anette is based in Nottinghamshire, UK and her photographic artwork aims to create a different reality by focusing on the beauty in those details or angles that are often overlooked or lost in the bigger picture. Whether it is a small, out of context detail, a different viewpoint, a flipped, distorted or double exposed image, Anette likes breaking the rules of representational photography and, although taken with a camera, many of her images look more like paintings than photographs. Anette sees her work as personal interpretations of what she discovers when she goes out with her camera and she hopes that it encourages the viewer to look at the world that surrounds us with an open mind and from new perspectives. If you would like to see more of Anette's photographic artwork please visit her website anetteholt.com or her Instagram pages @anetteholt6 and @anetteholtphotography
Thank you to Anette, to each of our poets, to everyone who submitted poems for the issue, and to everyone who has supported and encouraged Dust, on and offline. I hope to put out another issue later this year and to think more about how we could try out printed copies. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this issue and these poems!
Tara Wheeler
Editor