A poem by Jenny Mitchell, in solidarity with actress Francesca Amewudah-Rivers
Author: Frances Turpin

Josh Smyth: How I Wrote ‘Billboard’
“During these visits, I am immersed in familiar company, and it isn’t until I have short moments away from family, in solitude, when I take stock of my surroundings and focus on the unfamiliarity of everything”

Deborah Finding: How I Wrote ‘valley burn’
“I’m always thinking about who gets to speak and be listened to, and who gets silenced”

Lynne Hjelmgaard: How I Became a Poet
“When I attempted to put my feelings on paper it became clear that it would be a long, slow process with hard work and determination at its core”

Stuart Pickford: How I Wrote ‘Backchat’
“If you let your characters speak, you can give them enough rope to hang themselves: they reveal their own nature without the narrator having to comment; you’re showing and not telling”

Postscript for Alun Lewis
Why is it that some poets are more ‘discoverable’ than others?

Jefferson Holdridge: How I Wrote ‘Hands’
“She noticed my predilection for rhyme and then warned that using it should sound ‘blindingly inevitable'”

Bank Holiday Sale
This Easter weekend, get 10% off all non-sale items, including print and digital subscriptions, using code MARCH24

Katie Munnik: How I Wrote ‘The Invention of Rope’
“You might say that writing this poem was an act of unwinding”