Dressed to Kill, Ready to Rot: Submit to Verdigris: Poetry of Decay
The 7th Thematic Slimline Anthology from The Broken Spine
Submissions Open Throughout September 2025 | Publication in 2026
‘A country, a style or an epoch are interesting only for the idea behind them.’
Christian Dior
The Broken Spine invites submissions for Verdigris: Poetry of Decay, the next instalment in our critically acclaimed slimline anthology series, following After Hours: Beat Culture Made New, Last Light: Apocalypse Poetry, High-Rise: Brutalist Poetry, Glow: City at Night Poetry, and Rites & Trials: Coming-of-Age Poetry and Haze: Counterculture Poetry.
Verdigris: Poetry of Decay is an anthology that revels in luxury on the verge of collapse. It’s about style, wealth, independence, and the rot hiding beneath the gloss. Think champagne flutes raised in defiance, cigarette smoke curling beneath chandeliers, and silk that clings like memory. Think opulence as resistance and deception.
I want poetry that understands glamour is political. That beauty is both performance and pressure. That elegance can be both armour and trap.
This Is About Decadence and Opulence
Let me be clear: this collection is about wealth and what it hides. Opulence is not innocent. It seduces, obscures, and distorts. Whether you’re critiquing the aesthetic or weaponising it, your poem should know the difference between shine and substance, and exploit both.
Editor’s Note
I will edit and curate this collection alone. No committee, no compromise. My editorial vision is cohesive, bold, and unapologetically personal.
I will not publish poetry that indulges in the male gaze uncritically; neither will I erase it. Verdigris: Poetry of Decay is interested in tension, in what beauty costs, in what desire distorts, and in what power conceals. Whether you’re writing from the inside or tearing it down, your poem needs to carry both craft and intention.
Themes & Motifs
The Bachelor Girl & The New Woman Solitary, stylish, and untameable. Charm as autonomy. Café thinkers, cocktail rebels, too sharp for comfort.
The Dior Dream & What’s Underneath The tight fall of fabric, fashion as control and statement. Glamour as a mask. Clothing as culture war.
The Roaring Twenties: Stripped of Illusion After Gatsby. Beyond flappers. What remains when the music stops.
Glamour & Decay Everything gilded, everything green beneath. Pearls that strangle. Opulence that cuts.
The Gatsby Hangover Poems in conversation with The Great Gatsby or its cultural footprint. Not homage. Interrogation. Inversion. Ruin.
What I Want
Poetry that sparkles and slices in the same breath
Style-conscious work with critical teeth
Imagery that drips, sways, intoxicates, then bites
Work that blends luxury, gender, autonomy, beauty, and collapse
Decadence with meaning
Submission Guidelines
Submit up to 2 poems
A5 page size only
Font: Times New Roman, 10pt, single-spaced
Titles must be bolded and italicised
Left-aligned text only; justified text will be rejected
White space is allowed and its use encouraged; but no shape poems
No identifying details in the file: blind submissions only
Social media publication is fine; work must be previously unpublished in journals, books, or magazines
Submission Fee & What It Supports
A £3 submission fee applies. This is not a profit grab. It keeps the press alive.
As editor, Itake no cut. Your fee helps pay for:
Social media tools
Professional cover design
Zoom, Canva, and other professional subscriptions
Contributor copies for those hit hardest by the cost of living crisis
All contributors will be offered copies of the anthology at 50% off the cover price. This is only possible because of the submission fee.
This anthology will be brutal, beautiful, baroque, and brutally honest. If your work glows with elegance but haunts the reader afterwards, it belongs here.
Alan Parry is a Merseyside-based writer, editor, critic, and community organiser whose work moves with political intent. His debut novella Peeling Apples (2025) is a lean, emotionally charged portrait of grief, masculinity, and fractured family ties, written with the kind of restraint that hits harder than flourish ever could.
His poetry: Neon Ghosts (2020), Belisama (2021), Echoes (2022), and Twenty Seven (2023) - draws from a different palette: rhythmic, haunted, and musically alive. Influenced by Latin jazz, girl group heartbreak, and northern soul, his poems hum with emotional complexity and working-class lyricism. This is where the softness sits, alongside the bite.
Parry is political. Always has been. His writing doesn’t seek approval, it seeks truth. As founder of #PromoteIndieLit, he built a free-access platform where indie writers and presses can get their work seen and reviewed without begging permission. He also curates and hosts events, both live and digital, that prioritise community over clout, conversation over performance.
As a critic and commentator, Parry’s voice is direct, unvarnished, and deeply rooted in lived experience. Whether reviewing poetry or interrogating pop culture, he calls it as he sees it, with clarity, care, and no interest in playing nice with systems that exclude.
Parry doesn’t write to charm. He writes to challenge, connect, and keep the margins visible. If you’re looking for polish, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for honesty, you’ve found it.
