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Poetry
A space for poems, spoken pieces, and collections shaped by pressure, memory, fracture, and feeling.
Browse by collection, spoken work, theme, or recency.
A walking poem about taking the long way round, deleting a message and allowing one remaining word to cross.
A reflective poem and dark alternative folk-rock lyric from the perspective of a child soldier, tracing obedience, hunger, survival and the right to remain human.
A brother writes to his sister after cancer treatment, holding fear, relief, delayed processing and the ordinary promise to keep answering.
A petal passes through the heron's streamside trace while three bird calls cross a ridge and valley.
At 4:10, birds pass a signal across a sleeping city, and one upstairs window opens by a palm’s width.
A storm scatters a crow's nest of train tickets, carrying faded names and blue paper across the station town.
A rooftop flock loosens one corner of a snagged net, turning its morning roll-call into shared effort.
A satirical dramatic soliloquy set in a fictional expo of certainty sellers, where a presenter discovers that the exit is the only sign not promising wholeness.
A fictional South African private-security sales soliloquy that tests the limits of commodified peace of mind, coverage and separation.
A contemporary poem about a door opens in the wrong place, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A contemporary poem about a door sized for elsewhere, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A strength & spirit poem about distance, refusal, choice, where attention changes the scale of the ordinary.
A minor physical tilt alters every relation around it, exposing the hidden agreements that made the ordinary seem stable.
A contemporary poem about a use for the unusable, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A contemporary poem about between the two forms, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A contemporary poem about blood finds the copper, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A contemporary poem about no use for the beautiful, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A contemporary poem about one quiet thing moves, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A contemporary poem about silk keeps the cut, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A contemporary poem about the centre has no address, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A contemporary poem about the centre moves first, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A charge passes from image to observer, making attention itself responsible for what it intensifies.
A contemporary poem about the cup holds a different sky, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
A contemporary poem about the door opens sideways, using a concrete image system, a pressured turn and a restrained open ending.
Poetry themes
Each stream gathers poems by mood, music, pressure, and the kind of attention the piece asks for.
Poems that walk the fault lines: grief, rupture, war, urban grit, and the mythic underbelly of the everyday. Expect charged images, stark music, and hard turns that don’t tidy the mess so much as name it.
Editor’s picks and special spotlights: the poems, sequences, and craft notes we think deserve your front-row gaze. Rotating highlights, seasonal themes, and one-off gems that show the range of our community.
Where verse meets melody. Poems arranged as songs, chants, and soundscapes—complete with audio players, lyric sheets, and credits for collaborators. Expect live takes, studio mixes, and experiments that let the poem sing in new registers.
Field notes of the inner and outer world: weather, seasons, land, and the quiet revolutions of thought. Lyrical attention, ecological awareness, and a contemplative pace define this stream.
Wit with teeth. Irony, parody, and mischief aimed at power, pretence, and the status quo. Formal play and punchy line breaks welcome; the laugh should leave a bruise.
Work of resilience and renewal: poems about survival, kinship, faith (in any form), and the long arc of becoming. Clear cadence, steady light, and endings that open rather than preach.
Dream-logic, fabulism, and mythic visitations. Reality bends, symbols speak, and images carry more than one meaning. The goal is wonder and unease in equal measure.
Poetry in isiZulu, alongside careful translations where offered. A home for imagery, izibongo (praise poetry), and contemporary voices that carry rhythm and story. Submissions may appear bilingual to welcome wider readers.
56 entries across poetry.
6 entries across poetry.
6 entries across poetry.
13 entries across poetry.
3 entries across poetry.
255 entries across poetry.
Poetry began here as play with words, fragments, and unlikely connections. Over time it became a record of feeling, then a way of making sense without forcing neat explanations too early.
Some pieces are more instinctive. Some are more controlled. None of them are interested in pretending the human experience arrives tidy.
These poems are not written to hand over a single fixed meaning. They are written to hold image, pressure, contradiction, and the parts of experience that resist summary.
Read them slowly or read them in a rush. Read them in sequence if you want to notice how the voice shifts over time. Read them out of order if you want the cleaner shock of recognition.
If a poem leaves you with a clearer feeling rather than a cleaner answer, it has done its job.
Some poems also live in voice.
Where a spoken version exists, it should feel like an extension of the page rather than a separate performance layer. The voice is there to carry the pressure of the line, not distract from it.
Collections gather poems by atmosphere, season, pressure, or recurring thread.
Enter a collection when you want a more sustained mood than the main archive offers, or when you want to stay with a particular register a little longer.