Submissions have come from all over the world: Spain, Cyprus, USA, Bulgaria, Canada, South Africa, India, New Zealand and Australia as well as the UK. We have been fortunate enough to have two poets writing whilst in prison. There appears to be an innate human optimism in an emotion we have no definitive understanding of, though we are compelled to keep trying, even in the most difficult circumstances. To love, to try to love has to be the thing that makes each of us fallible and yet triumphant. It gives us an opportunity to have faith in another, to receive wounds without perishing, it allows us to grow wings. Then, just when we think we have the final word, somebody says something more and we are in the maelstrom again.
We hope you enjoy the final cut of a very large set of submissions. We have bent the rules occasionally by allowing more than one poem from a poet - please forgive us, we are both complete romantics!
Having been tempted to group the entries thematically, and failing, we decided to allow serendipity to rule. We make no apologies for the fact that the reader will bounce from utter despair to absolute ecstasy via madness within the space of a few minutes. Read the words and weep, laugh, cheer and reflect, for to love is humanity at its best and at its loudest. As Philip Larkin said ‘What will survive of us is love.’
Let your legacies speak for themselves. Dawn Bauling and Ronnie Goodyer
and again last night...
love poetry from around the world |
