Poet of the Month / Toby Cotton
The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2026. For September, we are delighted to publish three new works by Toby Cotton. The first of these, ‘Summer on the Old Farm‘, is published today with two more poems to follow throughout the month.
Summer on the Old Farm
Already the apples
are making the top branches
bend into bowers on which
plump wood pigeons sit.
Below, in the deep meadow,
dusk-mallow, petalled
with mauve tongues, lies
with stems sprawled beside daisies.
Beneath those smaller bowers
of tawny twine, mice swell,
pitter and slip behind
scything shadows of flattened wings.
Above, a few fat clouds festoon
without diminishing
the spread of light that falls
evenly over the old farm.
The wild rose, meadowsweet,
lady’s bedstraw: all put forth
their nectar to embroider
the comforter of night.
By dawn the raspberries
have doubled in size
and a pair of rabbits retreat
along the fallen walnut tree.
No sooner were the cherries
proffered than they were gone,
into squirrels’ coffers
and the fibres of fledgling moths.
Gone yet not gone –
the blackbird’s blood shines
of their juices shooting
sweeter and darker its song.
Toby Cotton grew up on a farm in Herefordshire and now lives in a cottage amidst Welsh mountains. He is currently pursuing a creative writing MA at the University of Aberystwyth. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Poetry Wales, Boundby, Pearl Press, Ink Sweat & Tears, Wildfire Words and Black Cat Poetry Press. He is the poetry editor at GossamerWight Literary Magazine.