From beneath the cliff, a sudden din and these flattery-chatterers take off, thicken the channel with threads. A black lace veil lifts, swirls in the glare, risks scorched edges. From somewhere a cue to change tack. Flourish of a return. A wait. Then, with a phoosh they go again, a synchronicity of stretched spans widens…
I broke a dish today, a little blue dish just large enough to hold in the cupped palm of my hand. The colour, soft aqua blue. A good colour, cool yet warm to receive yoghurt, soup, all kinds of pureed fruit. I loved this dish not least because my son bought it for…
Our February Poet of the Month reflects on the composition of her piece, ‘Wolf Moon’. Interesting to come back and close read this poem. Written a year ago, it could have been written in the last couple of weeks: same place, same focus, same me. This makes me smile, not least because the poem concludes …
The Lonely Crowd will feature a new short story by a different author each month throughout 2026. For February, we are delighted to publish a new piece by Glyn Edwards. There was once a boy who became a man of sorts, and in those intervening years he shed all his wonder for the wild. When…
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. Wolf Moon It is a clear, cold…
I was a documentary maker for decades – images and truth my daily concerns in the business of representing the lives of other people. The three poems in my Poet of the Month feature appear in my new collection, Exposure: war, media, democracy. The book responds to journalistic reports of conflicts – the first half, Soldiers and Civilians engages with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israel / Gaza war; the second, Citizens and Politicians with the operation of democracy, its institutions, its weaknesses and the crucial issue of how the individual can participate.
The air has changed. It shrinks from us when we emerge – the sun a shrivelled leaf, the air thinning. Even the ants limp and the cats are eating their own paws. Buildings lean on one another like exhausted beggars; salvage – an obscene dream. This morning I wondered, Is it time for me…
A crucifixion but the cross is a threatened man. A bleeding victim clings to him. In the foreground another sprawls, nearly dead, trying to rise. The painter positions us face on to them in the final moment we could intervene before the irreversible end. Night in a stony place. Flaring torches, from the right, cast…
The Lonely Crowd will feature a new short story by a different author each month throughout 2026. For January, we are delighted to publish a new piece by P. C. Evans. The Attic Over the Weigh House Then one day, over coffee, Nicky said, ‘Why don’t we go out for dinner after work one…
The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2026. For January, we are delighted to publish three new works by Angela Graham. The first of these, ‘A Plan for the Development of Gaza’, is published today with two more poems to follow throughout the month. A Plan for…
The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2025. For December, we are delighted to publish three new poems by Jack Houston. The third of these, ‘for a few dollars more’, is published today. (Note: if reading on a phone, please read in landscape format) i have been trying…
for M My heart was a dog curled around itself in the cold, far corner of a kennel & gnawing at the mange on its left back leg in the large & flood-lit rehoming centre full of other strays nobody’d ever wanted, or ones they’d tried to take care of but couldn’t find time,…
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd choose the books they have most enjoyed this year. John Lavin Twenty years in the making, Sarah Hall’s seventh novel, Helm, is an imaginative tour de force. The Eden Valley, where the author grew up, is dominated by the shrieking Helm (the only named wind in Britain) and Hall…
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd choose the books they have most enjoyed this year. Part Three follows on Friday. Karys Frank Sarah Hall’s Helm, a gale of a novel in which the Helm wind is personified in a bold, non-linear narrative was going to be the focus of this piece. I also mulled over reviewing…