Table of Contents
/bahr/ — Fatima Hanan El Reda
Where Light and Darkness Meet — Katy Mahon
Tide, Mixed Metaphors — Kushal Poddar
in the dream i — Marie Crook
Simple Creatures — Imogen Hartland
Be Fruitful and Multiply — Alyssa Peterson
While Peeling an Orange I Remember My Father — Rebecca Villineau
Grown — Emily Anderson
Scallops Don’t Abandon their Shells — Ellie Jenkins
Requiem for an afterlife — Giovanni Pagliari
Quotidian (III) — Anda Marcu
Deep August — Jen Colclough
Instructions — Liz Swanson
Recalled To Life — Alexandria Maxwell
How I make my ikebana, in 3 Parts — Laura Cohen
Jetsam — Suze Terwisscha
Editor’s Note
We knew the feeling we wanted this issue to capture before we knew the title or the cover image. Our first summer issue would carry the electric hum of summer nights, those static storms that emerge from nowhere; the heavy clouds that refuse to burst. That time when daily life itself is heightened – suddenly worthy of poetry. Small details gain significance in direct sunlight. Colours are brightened. Dull things take on a certain shine.
Together we found a title that could inform the collective voice of the issue. Importantly, High Tide can mean different things to different people. It can be your saving grace or your greatest danger; the moment of disruption or the gentle surge of time moving.
Art director Anna Elwin created the cover for this issue, a cyanotype print designed to capture the feeling of a sun-drenched ocean. The process of printing with negatives is a game of opposites. As time goes by, the shapes reveal themselves – sometimes unexpectedly, and take on new meanings.
Anna built the image in layers: first painting on glass, then adding plant life, pebbles and water droplets. The sun did the rest, in a chemical reaction that transformed the paper into rich shades of blue.
The poets of High Tide capture its theme in fiercely imaginative ways. Dive in – let the poems carry you through the issue. Watch as details of quotidian life emerge, so specific and unique yet impossibly universal. You will see people you know; feelings you remember. Every stanza rings true.
— Zara Shams, Executive Editor
/bahr/
Fatima Hanan El Reda
/Baħr/
Noun meaning: the expanse of saltwater that surrounds us
The answer to how much time till landing?
A unit of measurement in this city
Poetry crashing against the shore of verses
The ebb and flow of meter
A blue parody
A mosaic of voices
The dance of language with all possible meaning
The extent of my anguish
The ink that exhausts before God’s words
In Arabic, when you ask about how much time you have left
They will answer you /baħr/
There’s a sea between now and then
As if saltwater quenches time’s thirst.
1
Where Light and Darkness Meet
Katy Mahon
Unread books at the bedside,
more on the coffee table breathing
for attention, yellowed by daily light
a to-do list which I don’t organise
and my young son’s iPad on charge
awaiting sticky fingers. (It’s my reprise.)
I turn to the light, sleep-sick with bone China eyelids,
a glass face pressed by the moon.
Clouds shout at the window.
A blackbird’s distorted shadow
French kisses my shoes
with its length of darkness.
He keeps asking me questions
like how I’d choose to spend my days
if things had been different.
As his quartz tones cut
through my waking head, I remember
how music becomes clearer
when silence holds sway with things unsaid;
that single trill in the quiet street
has softened the shout at the window.
2
Tide, Mixed Metaphors
Kushal Poddar
I do not crane my neck,
make an effort to see
if the stone my father threw skipped.
It matters little in this high tide.
“Time ebbs away from me.” He grins,
“Only swells my midriff. It is your stream.
You should swim up and mate.”
Not everything he says makes any sense.
His metaphors sometimes whirl,
and fails to flow.
I stare at the storks on the runway.
Pebbles burst like bubbles.
The fractured bones of his words causes
bleeding in the inner meanings.
3
in the dream i
Marie Crook
in the dream i was praying for a whale
i have no idea why but in the dream i
believed in a god that answers prayers
just give me a whale! i cried to the sky
in the dream i was looking down upon water that was not
whale water not the wide wild ocean
but a narrow city river fringed with wrought-iron railings and people walking by
in the dream i was people walking by
i was the sky and i was the cry
in the dream i was a narrow city river
i was a god that answers prayers
in the dream i was a whale, my whale, moving slow below my water’s skin.
4
Simple Creatures
Imogen Hartland
The rock pools aren’t as busy
as I remember
but they’re still magic
—as is your delight
at the play
of soft new moss and rough old sandstone
under your feet.
For eons we marvel at the simple creatures
and I wonder if they’re descended
from the first intrepid organism
to leap from sea to land
and I realise
I gave birth to you, yet
I know little of the beginnings of life.
Salty and exposed
with the ocean encroaching
we retreat from the rock shelf
to fetch fresh water
and I hold your hand
as we navigate
the unpredictable terrain.
We right an upended barnacle
before
we cross paths
with a spear fisherman
preparing for battle
and you concentrate on your
clutch of shells
and I’m grateful
you don’t notice his harpoon
and so I don’t tell you
about his work and how
we too
are clinging to a rock
before a rising tide.
5
Be Fruitful and Multiply
Alyssa Peterson
My grandparents kept everything
they owned, until their house became
rat infested and went up in flames
with a dusty radiator. My father
has done likewise, accumulating
alongside familial rubble. I used
shopping as a coping mechanism
which resulted in the impulse
purchase of a leather moto jacket
from a bike shop off I-90. When I go
to check out, my father says,
We’ll need to find a gun to put
in that pocket. I tell him Sorry,
I have other plans. I wear this jacket
and a pin that says Sorry Boys, I’m Gay!
so the men in my farming town who
look me up and down know—
unequivocally and to their horror—
that I’m a Dyke. In the concealed
carry gun pocket I keep a small
copy of Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
Didion says it’s best to keep on nodding
terms with our past selves. I’m not sure
I agree. My shoulders ache to shrug
off this ancestral shroud for a looser
garment. So, I remember to use words
like visceral, to square the drawl,
and that my family’s bloodline
dies with me.
6
While Peeling an Orange I Remember my Father
Rebecca Villineau
The clementine itself
Smells of the campfire
Let me explain
This is olfactory memory
Tactile
Like the soft skin of my pinky
Peeling
My tenth till
My father
Nicknames me
Orange fingers and the fire
Lights the center of things
Like citrus sun
Orange moon
The moon of his words
Each piece peels back
Until the unseen
Mists the night
And father glances
Back from beyond all the glowing things
The setting day rolled in my palm
The camper, dirt path
Even the rocks lift flame
7
Grown
Emily Anderson
she would scrunch her knees
up to her chest
in a prop plane
Los Angeles to Denver
quick heart
sleeping feet.
But the Southwest terminal
is too much now.
What is beneath a plane
but air?
In Mexico in January it was cold,
with concrete under muddy shoes.
my bones ached holding
hot coffee with one cream
tonight my bones ache driving through
the part of town with brothels but
my hands are steady
and i don’t brake
“Strength isn’t anything,” she tells me.
She doesn’t want to be
Strong, but just to be
& breathe & break.
Disappointment is not death.
but the weak are first out…
like the scrawny guy in infantry
a shield for the strong,
his body cheap enough for bullets
he tells me about it
over tacos
and under lanterns
with a smile
strength is nothing more than
movement
not death
but she never wanted to be
in a plane
because her bones ached
and maybe we are grown
when we say
we’d rather
not
8
Requiem for an afterlife
Giovanni Pagliari
those sheet metal streets
tightly packed bone
glass and breath
in faded October heat
have long since swallowed
their anonymity
in factory grime
and flickering debit readers
while brown bag lunches
chased with automatic coffees
rush us headlong to
microwave takeout
60s on a report card
and bills we don’t look like
we can pay
all the while our children’s
anxiety is feverish,
therapy is a bust
and depression bleeds
into everything
maybe the most important
thing to remember
is that we forgot
where we came from
and the clock’s counting
leads us closer to the
thrusting silence and pitch
until the source-light
dissolves our boundaries
9
Scallops Don’t Abandon their Shells
Ellie Jenkins
Unless their hinges become brittle,
weakened by the acidity of the sea.
Unless malformed halves no longer fit together.
Unless they lose the ability to swim.
Unless the throat no longer knows how to swallow
and the doctors ignore the symptoms
(of a brain tumour the size of an unripe orange,
and prescribe medication for menopause).
Unless caught in the nets of surgeons
and prised open on the operating table.
Unless pronounced dead for fifteen minutes
(unable to be revived due to stomach ulcers).
Unless the pain of a verbal goodbye
outweighs the pain of dying.
Unless it doesn’t have a choice but to die.
10
Deep August
Jen Colclough
The sun is also a mouth,
gaping
in the face
of all the light
it cannot bear.
Learn to hear
the nightly cricket hum as a
hymnal.
Listen for their chorus of
‘thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.’
Their evening song is sung from
lifeboats
for every day that
they make it to the end,
unburnt.
In the evenings,
I mark the page
where the plot line strays.
Some days are empty like
me,
Resounding with the echo of all I
abstain from.
In the absence of a glowing mouth,
a hymn
hums its way through a body
that is linen-tangled
yet still alive:
Fear and longing go hand in hand
while the ship of my fate is manned
by a far too-impatient sailor,
unaccustomed to the luxuries of
land.
Your company provided a
landing
away from which I have sailed
ever since the day
you called my soul
a ship
in want of
mending.
Again, it strikes me,
accompanied by a familiar ache,
that I’ve never feared love in its absence.
Only in its vast,
all-encompassing
wake.
11
Quotidian (III)
Anda Marcu
I can hear you humming
in the next room,
violently peeling the orange
you dropped with a thud
on the way from the kitchen.
Little boats of bruised citrus skin
white side up
for me to find in the morning
12
Instructions
Liz Swanson
You will find it in the attic, in the sunroom, in the basement.
It will appear as a set of white sheets covered in lines and marks.
Don’t worry if the edges tear or if your hands, covered in chocolate,
stain the sheets.
It was meant to absorb the evidence of your looking.
It will appear as a set of white sheets, but you will know better
Because by then, you will understand clouds.
You will hear the flicker of matches, the clinking of dishes,
the tinkering of Ashes and you will know
you are almost home.
When you are ready, begin swimming.
There is no time limit for this part.
Don’t worry if your legs start to shed and your body, covered
in clouds, starts to crumble.
It was meant to absorb the evidence of your longing.
At a certain point, you will become disappointed that clouds
do not smell like pillows and that
the attic, the sunroom, and the basement refuse to dissolve.
You will blame the chocolate, curse the matches, break the dishes.
But you will know better—and learn to love the smell of paper.
13
Recalled To Life
Alexandria Maxwell
That’s right, I do have a middle name
I forget about the identity I
had before I had you
I call you by your name, softly,
in its entirety, when I am in awe of the things you
can do and
sharply
when I wish you wouldn’t do them
No matter how I behave you call me mom
and so it slipped my mind
that I had any other monikers
any other identities
But you’re right, I do have a middle name
14
How I make my ikebana, in 3 Parts
Laura Cohen
I. I am gathering materials like a white man hunting.
Flowers from Walgreens, right before they close
from the corner store
from Rainbow Grocery (because I just got paid)
from public property/slightly more privately owned property
Sticks from friends
branches from accidents
from discoveries.
I am an architect.
I will take their bones
their leaves
their sex organs
and prune them to my liking
To the rules I learned and unlearned.
II. “beautiful flowers do not always make beautiful ikebana”
As they blossom and fade and reshape themselves
I am an observer.
just after I wash my face I walk out into the dark and check on each arrangement
my last attendance of the day.
One last thing.
One last thing.
One last thing.
One last thing.
III. The redemption arch.
There are roots that grow
despite my cutting and plucking
drowning in a week’s worth of stagnant water they burst into buds
the branches that only seemed barren
the ones that sprout and sputter with life
are rewarded with new chances
at full sun
in the garden.
15
Jetsam
Suze Terwisscha
And so you turn again to poetry –
Because these words, unfiltered, are too painful,
Too raw, too cruel, too ugly.
And you’re searching for a way to make them flow again,
To imbue them with a certain kind of softness,
To smooth them out, like water running over pebbles rubs away
Their roughness and their sharp edges –
But the seas are rough today.
Your words swept up by the waves,
Tossed about, drowned in blackened water, jagged peaks
Topped with flocks of foam crashing, full force,
On the rugged cliffs.
And then the storm dies down, and the seas grow quiet.
What washes up on the shore bears only a faint resemblance
To what you once cast away.
16
Contributors
Zara Shams | Executive Editor
Zara is a poet, tech nerd and would-be meditator based in the UK. Always looking for new ways to find inspiration herself, she founded @poetry.prompt in 2020 and then created Free the Verse this year with the aim of inspiring and connecting writers from all backgrounds. She is currently in a small flat on the Thames, probably being chased around the room by her dog-like cat – Peanut.
Anna Elwin | Editor
Deeply passionate about the Free The Verse mission to create community and foster creativity, Anna is the Igor to our Executive Editor’s Dr Frankenstein and the Robin to her Batman. Aside from being an ambiguously queer-coded sidekick, she is an artist and (embittered) writer.
Emily Anderson
Emily Anderson is a Los Angeles-based writer with a passion for cappuccinos and Joan Didion. Professionally, she tells stories on social media for an international nonprofit. Just for fun, she conducts historical research, obsesses over puzzles and writes about grief. She holds a B.A. in English from UC Irvine.
Laura Cohen
Laura Cohen is a San Francisco based artist with a diverse artistic practice. As a poet they create kaleidoscopic, surrealist images invoking the feeling of travel, spontaneity, and an appreciation for nature. Aiming to convey the imprint of locations, chance encounters, and ephemeral moments to form dense, hypnotic snapshots. They hope to express their values of experimentation and collaboration through words, dance, music, and photography, cultivate a body of work that is built on fortuity.
Jen Colclough
Jen Colclough is a poet, novelist, and ESL Instructor from Nova Scotia, Canada. She holds a Master of Arts in Classics from Western University, and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Classics from Acadia University.
Marie Crook
Marie Crook is a writer based in Manchester. She mostly writes poetry and creative non-fiction and she runs the writing workshop series Feed the Fox.
Imogen Hartland
Imogen lives in Dharawal Country in Sydney, Australia, keeping company with her partner, two adventurous pre-schoolers, and Bonnie, a beautiful dog. By day, Imogen’s a data analyst, and come nightfall, she’s an aspiring picture-book writer.
Ellie Jenkins
Ellie Jenkins is a poet from Bristol whose poetry straddles both page and stage. She is a UniSlam finalist, has been highly commended by Verve Poetry Press and is soon to appear in Anthropocene.
Katy Mahon
Katy Mahon is a Northern Irish musician and poet. Her poems have appeared in various Irish and English journals, most recently The Waxed Lemon, Dreich Magazine, Black Nore Review, and the Irish Independent in February 2022. Katy’s first chapbook ‘Some Indefinable Cord’ is forthcoming with hybriddreich.
Anda Marcu
Anda Marcu (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and writer living and working in London, Canada. Her work has been featured in galleries and publications internationally. Her projects include painting, mixed media, film photography, poetry and short stories. Instagram: @andamarcuart
Alexandria Maxwell
Alexandria Maxwell is a poet and writer from northern Minnesota. Her poetry has been published in Colorado Christian University’s art and literary journal, Paragon, and displayed in Northwester Minnesota Art Council’s gallery as a part of their ‘Elements’ exhibit.
Giovanni Pagliari
Giovanni Pagliari is a secondary school teacher who has been reading and writing poetry for as long has he can remember. He has written a few short collections of poetry and is looking to publish his collections to share with the world.
Alyssa Peterson
Alyssa Peterson (they/she) is a writer and musician living in Chicago. They studied the classical saxophone at Interlochen Arts Academy, and English and sociology at Northwestern University. Their work has previously appeared in Helicon Literary Magazine. They spend a lot of time shooing their cat out of the kitchen sink. Follow them on Instagram at @alyssampeterson.
Kushal Poddar
An author and a father, Kushal Poddar, editor of ‘Words Surfacing’, authored eight books, the latest being ‘Postmarked Quarantine’. His works have been translated in eleven languages.
Find and follow him on Amazon and Twitter.
Fatima Hanan El Reda
Fatima Hanan El Reda has an MA in English Language and Literature from the Lebanese University and a BA in journalism. A lover of words and literature, she writes poetry and the occasional short story. She lives in Dubai, but her heart is in Beirut.
Liz Swanson
Liz Swanson is an Associate Professor of Architecture who has been teaching at the University of Kentucky since 2001. Her projects span a variety of scales and media, and represent a lifelong love of drawing, painting, collage, poetry, and mixed media in 2- and 3-dimensions. Her work centers on drawing as a physical and psychological process of construction that reveals and directs the social, cultural, political and spiritual aspects of the human experience. She is fascinated by the many ways that line, color, and materials influence the reading of form and space.
Suze Terwisscha
Suze Terwisscha (1996) is a writer and composer, originally from the Netherlands and now based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Influenced by the likes of Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry and Rutger Kopland, she finds inspiration in her natural surroundings. She writes and releases music under the name Catch The Sparrow.
Rebecca Villineau
Rebecca Villineau is a poet and social worker. Her work has appeared recently in Grief Dialogues, and Months To Years.
© 2022