#SelectedPoetry – June

As we step through the lush embrace of June, The Broken Spine proudly unveils a collection of poetry that captures the essence of transformation, reflection, and the myriad ways in which the natural world and our internal landscapes intertwine. Curated with thoughtful precision by our editors David Hanlon and Katie Jenkins, this month’s selection invites readers on a journey through the verdant fields of human emotion, exploring the depths of our connections to each other and to the earth itself.

Blossom Hibbert, with her poignant Poem #85, draws us into the introspective spaces of solitude and the complex interplay between the self and the external world. Hibbert’s Mediterranean musings, infused with the aroma of Greek coffee and the texture of olive trees, offer a stark, vivid backdrop for her exploration of identity and belonging.

Scott Boyd’s Life Squad delves into the gritty realities of life’s darker corners, weaving a tapestry of resilience amidst adversity. Boyd, with his varied life experiences and service as a Navy veteran, crafts a narrative that is both raw and deeply human, challenging us to find beauty in the struggle.

Alison Jones, in How to Meet Foxgloves, guides us through the enchanting process of connecting with the natural world, reminding us of the magic that dwells in the quiet moments of communion with nature. Jones’ poetry is a gentle call to mindfulness, to the practice of presence in the embrace of the earth’s quiet wonders.

Deborah Finding’s gods is a powerful ode to the forces that shape us, both human and divine. Her work, rooted in her queer feminist perspective, is a reflection on the dualities of absence and presence, power and vulnerability, weaving together the personal and the universal in a tapestry of profound insight.

Lily Dyu’s Foraging explores themes of heritage, displacement, and the search for belonging in a changing world. Dyu’s Irish-Chinese background informs her poetry, creating a rich, nuanced narrative that spans continents and cultures, inviting us to reflect on the meanings of home and identity in a time of ecological and climate emergency.

Susan Butler’s Bed Blocker and Jennifer Skogen’s offerings, including Lighthouse and Today You Are, further enrich this collection, each with their unique lens on life, loss, and the natural world. Their words serve as a reminder of poetry’s power to connect us to the most intimate parts of ourselves and to the universal experiences that bind us.

This June, let The Broken Spine’s poetry selection be your guide through the landscapes of the soul and the natural world. Join us in celebrating the work of these talented poets, whose voices offer solace, reflection, and a deeper connection to the world around us.

Blossom Hibbert

Blossom Hibbert has a pamphlet, suddenly, it’s now, published by Leafe Press. Her work has appeared in places such as The Temz Review, Litter, International Times and Buttonhook Press. She hides along the Mediterranean, drinking greek coffee, picking olive trees and finding inspiration in the soil.

Intsagram: blossomhibbert

Poem #85

Bad folks come here to die inside their
denim jackets wearing barking dogs drinking 

morning espresso I resemble an orphan almost
stand up to go but they turn the radio up so 

stay horizontal on the floor unable to 
stumble again I stay. Sleep! 

Sleep! There is good air here & when the
fires start again in the sky a certain

helplessness so vast it encourages my
arteries to drain & no articulation on the

page can help navigate this fear unless
you become intimate with it during the hours

when night is not night enough

Scott Boyd

S.A. Boyd works in community mental health. Before that they worked a lot of different jobs around the States, mostly warehousing and landscaping. They’ve published in places that don’t really exist anymore. They’re a Navy veteran of the Gulf War. It was the Christian foster home that fucked everything up.

X: @saboydwrite

Instagram: @saboydwrite

Life Squad

after shooting up the brick building 
of the International Units
they spray painted its worn halls
a red, white and blue and 
bare skinned women hung wounded in 
the wire mesh fence surrounding a
backyard where a little boy and his father 
are playing out their roles the taller man 
severing what has caught these odd birds
the boy watches them take off 
ceremonial wigs, tattooed sleeves, feathered collars
so whatever falls through the safety net
is edible for the chickens scratching at his toes 
my own father follows a script on some days 
he is aware enough to talk about 
avoiding bees and never picking at his scabs
other times we talk about his ambulance runs
angrily raising his fist when I let the car hood
slip from my hands hitting his head 
each year a new model comes out with
sensors for oxygen, blind spots, night terrors 
you can forgive almost anything

Alison Jones

Alison Jones’ work has been widely published in journals such Poetry Ireland Review, Proletarian Poetry, The Interpreter’s House, The Green Parent Magazine and The Guardian. Her pamphlets, Heartwood (2018) and Omega (2020) were published by Indigo Dreams. She is working on a full collection. 

X: @AlisKJones

Instagram: @Alisonkatherinejones

How to Meet Foxgloves

Go out in the lane at day’s crossing,
when evening slips on a misted ephemera,
stay, lonely with bracken and nettle, 

Slip out of yourself, to inhabit the place, 
the old orchard and clearing, expect nothing, 
but know that all moonrises are good.

Find fortune slowly, learn to read moss, 
drink the pure silence an owl can bring, 
or learn the birch’s shivered incantations.

They will come, and assume new shapes
before your eyes, as you learn to linger to luck, 
behaving as if it is always dusk, gathering here.

They will lean you into the light, fall you 
into deep relief, that carries no warning.
You could surrender, let this crack you open. 

Deborah Finding

Deborah Finding is an award-winning queer feminist writer with a background in academia and activism. She has been widely published and anthologised, and her debut poetry pamphlet ‘vigils for dead and dying girls’ is out now with Nine Pens. She is poet in residence at London’s Soho Poly Theatre.

X: @deborahfinding

Instagram: @dfinding

gods

in praise of my father
from whom I learned
impervious absence

in praise of my mother
who made me understand
catastrophic presence

in praise of church
for constructing my catacombs
and casting the characters

in praise of jesus
who taught me
why I should forgive

in praise of the men
who showed me 
why I should not

in praise of the sun
for shining on me
regardless of my wishes

in praise of the moon
for giving me respite
from the fucking sun

in praise of the sea
for roaring in my ear
that power can be beautiful

in praise of nature
for demonstrating
how to practise grief

in praise of death
for the opening line
in praise of my father

Lily Dyu

Lily Dyu is an Irish-Chinese writer who grew up in North-West England and now lives in Wales. Her work explores nature and place, cultural hybridity, and the meaning of home in a time of ecological and climate emergency. Away from her desk, she’s happiest in woods and lumpy places.

Foraging 

We scraped cockles from Mersey’s shining sands,
but never crafted castles with buckets and spades.
Filled tubs with blackberries from brambled fences, 
but never kicked leaves on rambling walks.

Dappled light played the water as my parents plucked 
watercress from a cold Dublin stream. They gathered
seaweed from shore to make tong yuen – 
our favourite rice ball soup eaten for Chinese festivals.

Their round shape symbolises unity, reunion 
and togetherness, 
a taste of the villages they left, carrying 
passed-down recipes and dreams of a better life.

I sip my flat-white, read the menu. Today’s specials:
cockles and laverbread, ‘Welshman’s caviar’.

***

Yan Hong drops tong yuen into the bubbling pan, 
stuffed with sweet bean paste her children love: a rare treat. 

Soon she’ll call them in from the street
where they wave lanterns against the sky

for Yuan Xiao festival – the first full moon of new year,
Chinese Valentines. She remembers fondly, 

years ago, holding hands with Yu Hui beneath the glow
of village lights.

Half a world away, darkness howls in an English bay.
Yu shivers in his thin coat, raking cockles from the mud,

longs for the red earth and rice fields of home, 
the smiles of his children whose futures drive him on.

Beneath the bright moon, the tide will deliver them
the debt of his final passage.*

* Morecambe Bay Cockling Disaster: On the night of 5 February 2004, 21 Chinese illegal immigrants were drowned by an incoming tide at Morecambe Bay in North West England, while harvesting cockles off the Lancashire coast. Some of the victims had borrowed the equivalent of 50 years of local wages to fund their journeys to the UK and the debts were inherited by their families.

Susan Butler

Sue Butler took up walking and Creative Writing in retirement from General Practice; both unpredictable forms of meditation on life, its grace, pain and peculiarity.

Her work has been published in various journals and her pamphlet ‘Learning from the Body” is published by Yaffle (https://www.yafflepress.co.uk/shop).

Blue Sky: suepoet.bsky.social

Bed Blocker

To be given a boiled sweet every day
To perch on her bed and suck it 
while she calls sister Mrs. Nitpick.

To see her doze through breakfast, 
then dinner. To hear her cough, 
that rattled with tar and gossip, soften. 

To shake the hand of Ted 
from behind the bar at her local, 
wait while he wipes his glasses.

To return in the midnight hospital half-light, 
feel only the hard ridge of a scar 
when you lay your finger on her neck. 

Her husband was a one, Ted said. 
To hear only static
when you listen for her heart.

Jennifer Skogen

Jennifer Skogen’s work has appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Green Ink Poetry, Bowery Gothic, tiny wren lit, Crow & Cross Keys, and FERAL. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of San Francisco. Jennifer lives near Seattle, Washington, and goes hiking in beautiful places whenever it isn’t raining.

Lighthouse

Please find me 
a spit of land with a light
perched on the end. Far enough
so it takes effort to walk there. 
Find me ragged grass
and nests of thin-legged birds.
Wind calling our names. 

Let us stay,
settle our bodies
in a house built away from time:
driftwood walls, seafoam bed. 
Everything empties here.

Let us love enough
to learn from the tide:
we can still return 
to those empty places. 
We can find each other again 
and again
and again.  

Today You Are

fir trees 
at the edge of the hay field, 
where the creek enters, loams thick and green

shadows there—gashes of dark branch and tangle
wet soil and trodden leaves
metallic cold—the creek
when summer grass is dry, stones algae slick

you are 

bruised mint leaves 
from the wild abundance 
that grows 
along the banks of the creek

today, you

bend underfoot  
cling to my hair 

yes, today 

you scratch my bare legs