In case the morning frosts, appearance of big Celebrations tubs in the supermarkets, and sudden urge to hum Mariah Carey haven’t clued you in, the winter gifting season is upon us – and we’re here to help you tick the poetry lovers in your life off your list with a selection of works by contributors from this year’s issues.
Our Summer 2025 issue was also known as ‘the international issue,’ taking readers on a trip around the world from the comfort of their home. With special features including an interview with Eileen Myles, a piece on short poems by Dean Etta, and advice on marketing for poets by our very own Sarah Johnson, Summer 2025 is an issue meant to inspire writers and readers alike.
Collections by contributors to this issue are perfect for the reader whose favourite method of travel is by page,
The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning by Alison Binney (Seren Books, 2025)
The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning is Alison Binney’s eagerly awaited debut collection. The title refers to the act of de-cluttering one’s own life to save loved ones the trouble, a reality far removed from the poet’s own experience of sorting and clearing the family home of a parent with Alzheimer’s. Connection, memory, loss and belonging are recurring themes in poems which explore all the messy sides of life. Writing with heart and tenderness about coming out, coming of age, teaching, nature, grief and recovery, Alison Binney’s poems sing with vitality and humour.
Nest of Matches by Amie Whittemore (Autumn House Press 2024)
Amie Whittemore’s Nest of Matches is a lavish declaration of the beauty of the natural world, queer identity, and of the imagination set free. Whittemore’s third collection explores the complexities of love—romantic, familial, and love for place—and wonders at cycles of life, finding that: “Every habit / even love—strangest / of them all—offers exhaustion / and renewal.” Moving seamlessly from meditations on the moon’s phases to explorations of dream spaces to searches for meaning through patterns of love and loss, Whittemore’s work embodies the mysteries of dichotomies—grief and joy, consciousness and unconsciousness, habit and spontaneity—and how they coexist to create our identities. Throughout the collection, Whittemore reveals how interior nature manifests into exterior habits and how physical landscapes shape the psyche.
Boxing in the Bone Orchard by Bruce McRae (Frontenac House 2025)
A paean to life, death, and everything in between, Boxing in the Bone Orchard is a sly, black-humoured take on post-modern absurdities. Peppered with surreal abstractions, McRae’s tough-but-tender world is peopled with sleepy angels, mindful cows and talking scarecrows; eyeballing an alternate reality where the poet cocks a snook at the Grim Reaper while merrily contemplating the meaning of clouds and the self’s extinction.
What we Inherit from Water featuring Doryn Herbst (Yaffle’s Nest 2025)
This anthology is about water – the science, history and romance of it. It’s rain, river and ocean. Home to fish, birds, Olympic swimmers. Water is everywhere, it brings joy and relief, it’s the stuff we bath in. What else can we do but dive in.
WYSG by Gareth Writer-Davies (Arenig Press 2022)
In WYSG Gareth Writer-Davies is instantly recognisable, as he navigates the borderlands of Wales, seeking to bridge the new and the familiar; the streaming of our lives, our conflicts with nature, getting older and always, wherer we have been and where we are going?
Amber by Iris Anne Lewis (Graffiti Books, 2024)
Amber is a collection built on the bones of the past. A visionary poet with a richly lyrical and transportative voice, Lewis takes us travelling through time in her beautifully realised and vivid poems. These are poems of liminal spaces and ritual. A poet of great scope and ambition.
Beautiful Hands by James Kelly Quigley (Press Break 2025)
“Dope as hell.”
Identifying the Pathogen by Jennifer Militello (Tupelo Press, 2026 – now available for preorder)
Composed as a lab notebook documenting surgeries, autopsies, and experiments, Identifying the Pathogen tells the story of a scientist on a quest to classify a mysterious ailment—referencing the life of eighteenth-century Italian anatomist Anna Morandi Manzolini alongside accounts of a ruptured appendix, a splintered cello, and an ill-fated rock climbing excursion.
New Arcana by Jessica Traynor (Bloodaxe Books 2025)
New Arcana explores grief and female friendship through readings of the Tarot and Tim Burton movies. Moving from teenage friendship and destructive relationships towards a tangling with the realities of domesticity and desire, this highly inventive collection builds into a heartbroken letter to a friend (personified in the poems as ‘lydia deetz’) who died by suicide.
The Aerialists by Katie Munnik (The Borough Press, 2022)
“There will always be another girl, won’t there? As long as there are crowds and balloons, there will be girls risking everything. And men who ask them to…” Victorian balloon-girls over Cardiff – brave, ambitious, unsheltered. As Grace’s dreams take wing, can Laura keep her grounded? Or will both girls risk it all for dazzling flight?
Unlock by Kexin Huang (Veer Books 2023)
‘Language is tested to its limits in Kexin Huang’s work in this evocative and charged exploration of the impact of mental health. These vivid and arresting poems are bursting with imagery and will stay in your mind long after you’ve finished reading’ – Kim Moore
Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece by Nasser Rabah (City Lights 2025)
“Like Mandelstam, Akhmatova, and Vallejo, Gazan poet Nasser Rabah embodies the magnificent possibilities of the human spirit and imagination under extreme conditions.”
History of the Child by Penelope Shuttle (Bloodaxe Books 2026)
History of the Child is a highly evocative exploration of childhood, memory, and imagination, blending personal and historical perspectives. The book’s themes include parenting, grief, nature, emotional recovery and connections to the past, guided by the idea of childhood as a transformative and rebellious space.
You’ll Never Be Anyone Else by Rachael Clyne (Seren Books 2023)
The title poem of this fearless collection perfectly sums up Clyne’s personal journey towards self-acceptance. She explores identity and otherness, through personal history, migrant background, sexual orientation and domestic violence. She manages to find the right balance between difficult topics expressed with humour and wit. It’s a rollicking read.
Multiple Choice by Rachel Carney (Seren Books 2023)
Octopus Mind plays with rich and original metaphors to explore the intricacies of neurodiversity, perception and the human mind. These poems articulate the desire to understand and be understood by oneself and others in a complex world.
The Salt Bind by Rebecca Ferrier (John Murray Press, 2026)
The Salt Bind is an unputdownable and hypnotising historical fantasy page-turner steeped in salt, superstition and seafolk – a world of forgotten sirens, sea gods and the alchemy of the Old Ways. Perfect for fans of The Bear and the Nightingale and The Binding.
Scattered Brightness by Sheenagh Pugh (Hansel Co-Operative Press 2025)
Poems connected with Shetland, plus illustrations by Peter Long.
Palestine is Everywhere by Nasser Rabah trans. Wiam El-Tamami (Silver Press and TBA21, 2025)
In Palestine is Everywhere, writers, thinkers, poets and artists map the Palestinian struggle for freedom and its global resonances. Vital dispatches from Gaza, essays, poems, protest chronicles, images and letters from prison reflect upon resistance, solidarity and the right to self-determination. Amid a world-historical moment marked by unknowability and loss, this collection offers essential reading for those interested in Palestinian liberation.
Another perfect present for someone who loves discovering new poets? A subscription to Poetry Wales magazine. Not only will they get three volumes a year of never-before-published work from emerging and established writers, but they’ll also get access to all of the bonus features unique to subscribers, including a discount at Seren Books, free competition entries and event tickets, and exclusive access to upcoming seminars for writers from our editor. Oh, and you’ll also be supporting an independent Welsh literary magazine and helping us keep publishing new poets. It’s a win-win.