Issue 15 / Edited by John Lavin

A Page of Knots – Vona Groarke / Local Colour – Tim MacGabhann / Three Poems – P. C. Evans /  A Quiet Night – Alison Moore / Four Poems – Jacob Polley / The March of Progress – Richard Milward / Three Poems – Eleanor Hooker / Portrait Photography – Jonathan Gibbs / Two Poems – Lauren Camp / Sorrow – Naomi Kruger / Three Poems – Kate Feld / Phylogeny – Ruth McKee / Two Poems – Glyn Edwards / Double Pneumonia – Jane Fraser / Three Poems – Maeve McKenna /  It’s Just Not What We Do – Hugo Kelly /  The Lonely Crowd Essay – Jo Mazelis / Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – Tom Vowler / Alone, leaving the London Library – Adrian Masters / The Downs – Ben Tufnell / Two Poems – Aideen Henry / Laura, 1987 – Rowena Mcdonald / Three Poems – Caroline Stockford / Canal Stories – Neil Campbell / Three Poems – John Freeman / My Sweet One – Sarah Davy / Three Poems – Nuala O’Connor / Sea Light – Matt Rader 

 

 

 

 

Issue 15 / Edited by John Lavin

A Page of Knots – Vona Groarke / Local Colour – Tim MacGabhann / Three Poems – P. C. Evans /  A Quiet Night – Alison Moore / Four Poems – Jacob Polley / The March of Progress – Richard Milward / Three Poems – Eleanor Hooker / Portrait Photography – Jonathan Gibbs / Two Poems – Lauren Camp / Sorrow – Naomi Kruger / Three Poems – Kate Feld / Phylogeny – Ruth McKee / Two Poems – Glyn Edwards / Double Pneumonia – Jane Fraser / Three Poems – Maeve McKenna /  It’s Just Not What We Do – Hugo Kelly /  The Lonely Crowd Essay – Jo Mazelis / Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – Tom Vowler / Alone, leaving the London Library – Adrian Masters / The Downs – Ben Tufnell / Two Poems – Aideen Henry / Laura, 1987 – Rowena Mcdonald / Three Poems – Caroline Stockford / Canal Stories – Neil Campbell / Three Poems – John Freeman / My Sweet One – Sarah Davy / Three Poems – Nuala O’Connor / Sea Light – Matt Rader 

Latest articles

Poet of the Month Essay, June / Melanie Marshall

My poems showcased here in this inspiring place are both typical, and, of what I write. I penned poetry prolifically from about the age of nine until my early twenties and then suddenly, once accepted onto the novel stream of a Creative Writing MA, everything I wrote was prose fiction (or shopping lists). I managed one sentimental poem after the birth of my son, and then, around ten years later the glimmer reappeared and I can’t stop pursuing it. 

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‘Exeunt’ by Melanie Marshall

Day One From nowhere a displaced, Cloven, braced in the shallows Marmite eyes unanswered He vaults over the ford Interrupted. Day Three A puppet under the hedge Tiny antlers once sculpted of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, vessels. Uncalled-for on grass verge of death Eye: quill in a bloodwell Back end: velour peeled already…

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Short Story of the Month, June: ‘The Brutality of Fairy Tales’ by Conor Griffin

Between the waves of panic and shock, some questions arose that could not be answered: How did it happen? How could she not have immediately noticed his absence? How would they ever fucking get through this?

It was devastatingly straightforward: Her youngest child Jamie had been beside her at the fairground and then he wasn’t. Over his almost-four years on the planet, they had rarely been more than the length of his shadow apart, and now he was nowhere and she was broiling in a hell that she never knew existed.

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‘Afon Elan’ by Melanie Marshall

Shall we go? Plateau of slate slides and gorse flumes perpendicular. The house is at the bottom key safe code 1412, squeak open the door to range black, lit after much puffing and kindling, warming the kettle and Bara Brith for afters with bathtub vista of watery ewes.   Evening plunges. Shall we go to…

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Poet of the Month, June: Melanie Marshall

The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2026. For June, we are delighted to publish three new works by Melanie Marshall. The first of these, ‘Dark bordered (Epione vespertaria)’ is published today with two more poems to follow throughout the month.  Dark bordered (Epione vespertaria)   Repelled by cedar,…

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‘For My Cousin the Boy Racer’ by Tim MacGabhann

Separate episodes at the panelbeater’s left his ninety-eight Fiat Punto a particoloured motley: red body, black bonnet, right front hub blue, the other cowled under dinted dirty white. A Ferrari sticker on the boot emblem, the interior a snug perfection: flossy tassel bobbing by the mirror, seats of crimped satin. Once, red early, his iceburn…

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‘Saint Julian in Winter’ by Tim MacGabhann

Stood, leadenboned, before the bed-length grooved barrows. Lit rainwater brimmed there: the tombstone’s saddle-gloss became a font, and anima reglossed itself as that instant in the top room of the tower’s grey file when her studious concentrated hush pulled all space as tight to her as the pith lagging snug around a chestnut. * Chains…

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Poet of the Month, May / Tim MacGabhann

The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2026. For May, we are delighted to publish three new works by Tim MacGabhann. The first of these, ‘A Winter Dedication’, is published today with two more poems to follow throughout the month.    A Winter Dedication (for Sean and Lisa)…

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Poet of the Month Essay / April / Lorraine Carey

A lot of my work is nature themed, exploring and reflecting on ecocentrism. As a child, I spent hours drawing, writing and making things, collecting details even then from simply observing the minutiae of everything around me. This wandering (and wondering) through bluebells, city parks and woods with my father and later, on my own through fields, on beaches and through mountain heather, cemented an appreciation of what lives around, with, under and between us. In essence it’s acknowledging and respecting the interconnectedness of everything. I spent my early childhood in the English midlands and later in Greencastle, Donegal.

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‘Distance’ by Lorraine Carey

  My dreams are dark as peat. They’re fen and flush, hillock and hollow under orange glow. Pyres of wood scraps and tractor tyres sate the soot-black sky. Cut grass sugars the ring wormed gate. It crumbles to ash in my hands. Another gate is a mound of pheasant feathers. I cannot reach the field.…

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