“essay” (n.), 1590s, meaning "trial, attempt, endeavour," also "short, discursive literary composition", from French essai, meaning "trial, attempt, essay", derived from Latin exagium, meaning "a weighing, a weight," from Latin exigere, meaning "drive out; require, exact; examine, try, test.” And Other Poems is now accepting submissions for a new prose feature. We hope to publish individual … Continue reading Prose Submission Guidelines

            John Crick and when God hammered out silver and goldhe made swordfish dance on Harlech sands took snuff for the first timeand made sirocco and simoon, levanter and mistral shook out his feather dusterand made a thousand ostriches moult with fear dropped sweat with the effort of creationand made tarns and meres, loughs and fjords … Continue reading And What God Made

            Blossom Hibbert Look, the hole in my heart is  beginning to fill with wet concrete  Look, it is overflowing, a street has been built, won’t you walk over it before you get buried like a small death in an  apple orchard? Won’t you ask around first, to find a maid who will      keep me safe in my elaborate, often  … Continue reading Poem for Sam

            Karishma Sangtani      after Wallace Stevens and Temsula Ao I On my sister’s roadin Birmingham, the oily lightof laburnum flowers. II Yellow tongues surroundedby bees. Pollen collectingon statically charged fuzz. III A terrier runswith the stamina of firethrough a laburnum arch. IV A sister and a sisterare one.A sister and a sister and a laburnumare one. … Continue reading Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Laburnum

            Lucia Dove Sunday lightbulbs a fruitbowl of potatoes aspic downright grizzly two trips one trip three but no potato masher. It's maintenance day for small cars in Amsterdam and my hand swollen my days swollen with wet leaves mulched trodden embarrassment confusion the central sin of all sins it's crushing how delicious the potato and … Continue reading Inventory

            Lucia Dove Mid-March I'm on my feet and running. I have been living with the spidersI used to be scared of but now they are companyI don't mind them so much.I wish writing poetry came as easily as it used to. I think this is not a poem but shame. Some would arguethat shame makes … Continue reading The spiders

            John White She lives with us now so I take her to church.It’s not the one she knows, but the going reassures or the memory of it. With her faltering graspI turn the hymnbook pages back for her, an act on both parts – I can’t sing, nor she decipherwords that crowd and jostle, never … Continue reading Way of Going

            Ginny Darke The last time you cried was at the supermarket, clutching a jar of mustard like it could somehow save you. You think about how embarrassing that must’ve been to witness. Though, at this moment in time, you are in a field. There is a pond with a horribly oversized yellow green blue swordfish … Continue reading Visualisation Exercise

            Steph Ellen Feeney My daughter’s voice is high and bright like sorbet, her grandmother’s raspylike stones, their conversation one of constant mutual interruption. Outside, bare branches appear, recede, appear, recede. Together, they chant the names: sycamore, hornbeam, sycamore, beech. It’s warm here, fringing their utter twoness. My daughter laughs a laugh she never laughs with me, and her grandmother snorts in reply. The children’s moon still doilies the … Continue reading Back Seat Orbital

            Andrew Dennison The wrong thing soundsbetter sometimesor makes light the truth like how, knowingwell enough by nowthat Earth circlesthe sun, we still say the sun comes roundthe back of the housein the afternoon. Andrew Dennison is an architectural assistant and writer from Orkney, Scotland, now living in London. He studied architecture at the University of … Continue reading Inversions (or Homesickness)