The poems in this anthology mark the culmination of the 2023-24 Roundhouse Poetry Collective programme. Bold and impassioned, with unexpected connections that thread through the work of multiple voices, they are remarkable in their range.
Here, cats, insects and amphibians are imbued with a strangeness verging on magic; pop-cultural ephemera are weighted with significance, and old stories are unearthed and reanimated to offer us something new. An awareness of place pervades, with London in particular making several appearances, but the sense of somewhere else, less tangible, emerges again and again: a patchwork of history and movement, journey and memory.
These are honest poems. With vulnerability and flashes of disarming humour, the poets confront doubt, insecurity, loss and hope, documenting their unwavering confidence in the craft of poetry as a means of exploration.
