The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2026. For February, we are delighted to publish three new works by Amanda Rackstraw. The first of these, ‘Wolf Moon’, is published today with two more poems to follow throughout the month. 

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Wolf Moon

 

It is a clear, cold night

in January when I stand

away from brittle lights,

out on the green,

wrapped in winter ghosts,

 

no more decipherable

than a small poplar tree

stood still in the dark,

only the slightest tremor.

 

Straight ahead,

to the north-east, rising behind

tendrils of a sprawling beech,

Wolf Moon.

 

An unembarrassed blush

on a sphere that rises

confident, unashamed,

proud to be here

 

in this silence,

rising imperceptibly

above the science,

the earthly goings on.

 

Wolf Moon.

I am howling.

No-one can hear how

soundless

I howl

 

in my heart

to still be here

to still be

to have in this rising

another chance.

 

Amanda Rackstraw trained at RADA and worked as an actor before moving to Wales. Following an MA at Cardiff University she taught creative writing in the Department of Continuing Education there until 2017. Her work has been published in various journals including Planet, New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, Mslexia, Acumen, Modron, most recently with Broken Spine. She has a poem on a sculpture in Dunraven Bay…. Amanda is working on a collection.