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.
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…
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.
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…
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,…
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…
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…
The Lonely Crowd will feature a new short story by a different author each month throughout 2026. For May, we are delighted to publish a new piece by Katherine Stansfield. I. Storm Suri Peter has the radio on while making breakfast. Radio Wales before work, Radio 4 after, while making dinner. This morning: two slices…
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)…
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.
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.…
You set off with a duck stance, feet snug in fins and an underwater camera strapped to your freckled brow. You turn with a double thumb gesture, then slip under like a cormorant. I abandon my book marking the page with a razorshell sliver. I scan the water for splashing fins and a snorkel…
The Lonely Crowd will feature a new short story by a different author each month throughout 2026. For April, we are delighted to publish a new piece by David Frankel. It looked like an old tool box, handmade from planks, screwed together at the corners. A cloth cover, stiff with grime, failed to contain the…
The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2026. For April, we are delighted to publish three new works by Lorraine Carey. The first of these, ‘A Year of Mountain’, is published today with two more poems and an accompanying essay to follow throughout the month. A Year…