I found Polcevera by Julian Bishop in the inaugural issue of The Alchemy Spoon, which is available in print and online. It may have been the alliteration in the first line that caught my attention: 'Your silent storm'. I love the subtly repeated sounds - "taking it's toll"; "beating against bared ribs". In two places the poem drops briefly into Italian as if to conceal where the blame lies?

Or perhaps because the full horror of those 43 lives lost by negligence leaves us searching for the right words and unable to find them in the usual, familiar places?

I'm thrilled and grateful to have Julian's permission to record and share his poem. Please do check his other work if you like it. Also please do have a look at The Alchemy Spoon - https://www.alchemyspoon.org/

Find the text of the poem here: https://en.calameo.com/read/0062403289f3fbdc57bbe?authid=BT5fITEXG0bZ&page=37

I found this poem by Sarah Alcaide-Escue in the second issue of Channel Magazine. I've been studying villanelle form - I enjoy the rhyme scheme.

This poem forces me to stop and slow down. In the second line I wrangle with the repeated 'r' sounds - growth, ringed, wrists - almost as if the w of with threatens to trip me up. I have to proceed carefully. There's a lot in each line in terms of sound and in meaning, it's definitely a poem to linger over. 

There's some lovely not quite rhymes in here too: wrists / resist; antilogy / apologies. You can find the text of the poem by buying a copy of Channel, issue 2 https://channelmag.org/

I have a weakness for repeated words and alliteration and I find both in Song of the West Men by Simon Armitage. 

Armitage makes use of a repeating form "the far of the far ... the isles of the isles ... the rocks of the rocks" that provides a strong energy as I read and I feel almost like I'm flying with the words.  

When the pattern changes ('weave of the waves' or 'bones of his bones/were cooler than stone') other forms become apparent, sometimes alliteration, sometimes rhyme or part rhyme. The poem makes me wait a beat, and then lets me charge along with the words again.  

I enjoy the motion of these words as I unfold them.

I found Almost be Elizabeth Jennings today while flipping through a collection in need of solace. I can't tell you why, but the sound and feel of "it almost was not' comforting. There's something hypnotic in the flow of these words, and in the ways they appear later in the poem.

By John O'Donohue, Time to be Slow seems very apt after spending 3 weeks of the last 4 feeling unwell - taking time to be slow becomes very important when life gets tough. 

I enjoy how the poem's rhythm subtly shifts in the middle part of the poem. The start and end of the poem feel slower and has a slight lilt to it, which I think arises from the stressed & unstressed syllables forming groups of 3.

The middle part, the part about bitter weather, withstanding the storm and guarding your own "hesitant light" have more of a rhythm of plodding on. There's also very little punctuation in the 2nd verse, which pulls me on without pause, despite the first line's reminder to be slow. 

 As the poem comes back to the words "... of yourself" the lilt returns and, as reader, I breathe easier again.

Time to be Slow has featured as one of the Poems on the Underground, you can read it here:

https://poemsontheunderground.org/time-to-be-slow 

I first heard Tomas Tranströmer's Madrigal when a Swedish colleague chose to read it my leaving party many years ago, for a job that I loved. That means I first heard it rather than read it, which makes me very happy. The final line about the shirt always conjured images of a bright white shirt, reflecting sunshine and flapping on the breeze on the clothesline. This is the line I searched for when I tried to find the poem later.

I get a sense of simplicity when speaking this poem aloud, conveyed by what feel like natural breaks in the rhythm of the words. I love the imagery of it, the contrast between dark & light and the repeated line about the dark woods leading first to uncertainty and unsolvable crimes, and secondly to spring and to movement.

If you'd like to read the poem you can find it here: https://nataliejabbar.wordpress.com/tag/madrigal/

I don't know much of Plath's writing and I found this in an anthology a few years ago and marked the page. The poem, like the mushrooms it describes, is both undemonstrative and yet insistent. There are some gorgeous and unusual repeated sounds, for example

"Over night ... whitely ... quietly" 

".... soft fists insist ..."

The use of sound and rhythm in this poem is a useful reminder that it's not necessary to be loud, obvious or to tower over others to be meaningful or even powerful.

Read the text of the poem here: https://allpoetry.com/poem/8498359-Mushrooms-by-Sylvia-Plath

A friend gave me a collection of Elizabeth Jennings' poetry recently and it fell open on Night Sister as I was flipping through. First, it made me think of the work I did with the contributors to These Are The Hands (an anthology of poems written by NHS workers). 

On reading it the final lines of the poem - about someone who has the courage and compassion to sit with us in our distress - really stayed with me. 

I really enjoy the subtle rhyming - the poem contains 4 verses of 5 lines each. On the middle 3 lines of each verse, the final sounds all rhyme. Tears, fears, appears in verse 2 is my favourite set of rhymes, building the energy through that verse.

Read the poem (and see a video of another reading) here: http://med.st-andrews.ac.uk/poemsfordoctors/2018/07/05/night-sister/

I was looking out at an overcast, rainy day and found As KIngfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The colours alone transported me out of the greyness in the room and I had to read it. More, the sounds of the words are almost three dimensional. The unpredictable combination of repeated sounds and rhyming sounds makes me feel as if I'm in the flow of a playful sea current as I read or listen.

Read it here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44389/as-kingfishers-catch-fire

Photo by Boris  Smokrovic on Unsplash.

I bought Raymond Carver's All of Us on the strength of one poem and haven't properly explored it yet. I picked it up and chose Soda Crackers - it tugged at me. 

When I head myself reading it as a monologue and not a poem, new meaning fizzed from the words. The timbre of my voice changed as I read the last line and that's helped me to hear the whole poem differently.

I love repetition in poems and you'll hear it almost immediately in this one by Carole Satyamurti.

I chose it almost accidentally -  earlier I browsed one of my favourite collections to see which poems I'd marked with a post-it note last time I picked up the book. This was the first I found and its brevity, repetition and the reminder of how much I love painting my nails meant I needed to read it today. 

I found a copy of Short of Breath, a poetry collection by Vivien Jones, in a second hand bookshop and passed over Cold Snap at first. 

It wasn't until I read it aloud that I realised its sounds and rhythms manage to re-create the sharpness in the air of a deep-winter day. 

I love the alliteration and the percussion in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - it just cries out to be read aloud. 

Listen for repeated sounds not just at the beginning of the words, but on the first stressed syllable. Feel the pulse and the pattern of the poem and you'll remember it physically as well as aurally. 

Most importantly, enjoy it!

My friend Ash sent me a poem about biscuits and, it being Friday afternoon and being in need of a diversion, I recorded it. 

Enjoy! And maybe go make a cup of tea and find a packet of biscuits ...