From the outset, The Whiskey Tree was never about curating a simple collection of poems—it was about building a movement. Each poet involved has been handpicked not only for their talent but for their willingness to embrace discomfort, challenge themselves, and leverage their platforms to generate excitement. This isn’t a passive project—it’s an invitation to wrestle with convention, to step into the ring and create something transformative. The Whiskey Tree is a you get out what you put in venture, designed for poets ready to push themselves and each other to produce work that defies cliché and expectations.
The poets in The Whiskey Tree are not assembled at random. Each one is chosen with a clear purpose: to break through boundaries and rethink what’s possible in contemporary poetry. This trilogy isn’t about safe pairings or predictable themes. Instead, it’s about taking poets who might never have worked together and watching them spark something electric. The expectation is simple: these poets are responsible for making the project resonate far beyond the pages. They are charged with harnessing their platforms, creating buzz, and ensuring that each book leaves a mark.
More than individual voices, The Whiskey Tree is a collective mission. It thrives on collaboration—mini-communities of poets coming together to form temporary, but powerful, alliances. It’s about dynamism, not comfort. Each poet is encouraged to push harder, dig deeper, and face the themes head-on. This is a project that breathes because of the energy, passion, and fierce creativity of its contributors.
What The Broken Spine does best is building these vibrant collectives—pockets of poets who seem mismatched at first glance but who, together, create something remarkable. In The Whiskey Tree, poets are thrust into spaces they may never have chosen for themselves, paired with voices they might never have encountered otherwise. These aren’t safe collaborations—they are designed to be challenging, to force the poets into unfamiliar territory. And that’s where the magic happens.
Take the interplay between my own Mother of Seas and Sue Finch’s Desert Antlers in Untamed Nature. The stark, unforgiving line women are ocean in my poem strips away romantic notions of nature, while Finch’s subtle, reflective desert scene makes us question the emptiness often associated with such landscapes. Together, these pieces create a conversation—a friction between vastly different approaches to the natural world that defines what The Whiskey Tree is about. It’s a dynamic, unpredictable dialogue between poets who come at the same theme from completely different angles.
In The Whiskey Tree, the poets’ roles extend far beyond writing. They are expected to help build momentum around the project, using their networks to generate buzz and draw attention to these books. This is no simple handover to a publisher—it’s a collaborative effort in every sense, with poets actively involved in shaping how the series reaches its audience.
What The Broken Spine delivers in return is an anthology that isn’t just powerful on the inside, but visually striking. Every element of the book design, from the cover art to the typography, is crafted to reflect the boldness of the project. These are anthologies that stand out on shelves—books that demand attention, just like the work inside them.
The beauty of The Whiskey Tree lies in its ability to bring together poets who, under normal circumstances, might never cross paths. This deliberate pairing of unlikely collaborators is what gives the series its unique identity. Poets are encouraged to step out of their comfort zones, to engage with voices that challenge their own, and to produce work that surprises even them.
The tension and friction between poets working together is what makes this series so explosive. Whether it’s the delicate precision of Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s Olmec Crocodile: Cipactli, juxtaposed against the primal imagery in Doghouse by Jay Rafferty, or the shift from nature’s raw danger to the intimacy of love in Untamed Love, these anthologies thrive on the unexpected. It’s a space where poetic risk-taking is not just encouraged—it’s essential.
Ultimately, The Whiskey Tree isn’t for everyone. It’s for poets willing to dive deep, to face creative challenges head-on, and to push themselves further than they have before. This series demands dedication—not just to the craft, but to the project as a whole. It’s about creating work that doesn’t just sit comfortably on the page but reaches out and grabs the reader, forces them to see something new.
For The Broken Spine, The Whiskey Tree represents a new chapter in poetry publishing. It’s about building something bold and collaborative, about creating mini-communities of poets who come together to make something far greater than the sum of its parts. It’s a brand that knows what it is—bold, unsparing, and never safe. Poets who accept the challenge come through with something extraordinary: an anthology that feels alive with the struggle, the friction, and the triumph of creating work that defies expectations.
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The Broken Spine is a poetry and arts collective proudly published on the coastal edge of North-West England. Founded in 2019 by Alan Parry and Paul Robert Mullen – two school friends reunited after twenty years through a mutual love of poetry.
