Wye Haze

Hello

I am a poet and teacher living in London, currently in the process of relocating to Norwich, 'City of Stories'.

My poems have been published in The Moth, Under the Radar and Stand, anthologized by the Emma Press, and shortlisted or commended in competitions including the National Poetry Competition, the Cannon Poets 'Sonnet or Not' Competition, the Ver Poets Open Competition and the Bridport Poetry Prize. Please see below for a small selection of my work, with thanks to the editors of the above publications where some of these poems first appeared.

I am currently working on a collection exploring the bracing intersections between a formative loss in my childhood and a transformative gain in my adulthood.

Hourglass

The origin of this is unclear,

but you can depend on it while at sea,

or waiting for your heart to thaw.

Unlike other equipment, the motion of

sailing (even storms) never affects it,

and it will not freeze, even in freezing weather.

It keeps its own calm agenda,

allowing that regulated trickle of matter to

pass from one globe to the other,

the migration significant, but not irreversible.

And unlike modern methods,

this honours the past and the future, revealing

the present in its place, a whisper

racing between deserts.

You can depend on this for your life -

yes even at sea - and it forgives,

giving new hours unconditionally,

not minding how you spend them,

asking only that when each hour is over,

you use what strength you have to

arise and upturn it, beloved of time.

Arise and upturn it,

begin another.

Replacements

Suddenly and not suddenly,

after months of fading and flailing,

a word is removed from our language.

We don’t discuss it, exactly.

Just condone its departure between

the trips to the storage unit, the bank transfers,

the chats with the helpful cousin.

At first, I don’t notice it’s gone.

But then the replacements come –

we care. We’re fond. We are,

we tell each other, amazing –

amazing and distant, like

the succession of things on the

plinth by the National Gallery,

surrounded by sky and pigeons.

I last heard you say it

in a voicemail about dinner, left

one Tuesday, late afternoon. It’s now

gone from my phone’s memory.

It must exist only in me,

and in the white space on this page.

I’m hoping you know what I mean.

self-lullaby

# all things must perish in anguish at some point

# at least we’re chained to the same burning boat

# and so are the badgers their dazed expressions

# the deer their dignified innocence bambi

# we’ve come through before we’ll come through this too yh

# there’s always red velvet and other soft things

# lean in to your cravings for soft things for sweetness

# the nerds are on it dykwim

# we still have that brecht quote the darkness the singing

# devastation brings its own kind of beauty

# hold tight to your small your immediate worries yh

# all things must move on at some point in any case

# the newsrooms will be melt-proof something to rely on

# you could say it’s the chance of a lifetime a worldtime

# we’re making our very own large-scale greek tragedy

# hamartia and chorus and irony lol

# we’re stupid and greedy our punishment is justice

# lord of the flies you know idk

# all things must learn the hard way eventually

# downfall is the price we pay for our freedom yh

# our beautiful fuckwittedly-squandered freedom

# blue-green breath in unstoppable freefall

# our beautiful freedom

# nvm nvm

Contact

Please use the contact form to get in touch with me about readings, creative collaborations, poetry workshops, or anything else that you would like to. I look forward to hearing from you.