The Lonely Crowd

07/06/2024

Read ‘This is not a poem’: one of three new poems by Patrick Jones on The Lonely Crowd site.

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/06/02/the-heart-is-a-security-risk-and-other-poems-patrick-jones/

05/06/2024

We are saddened to hear of the passing of the great writer, John Burnside. Here is his ‘Learning to Sleep’, from Issue Eight.

Though the hunter returns at first light, bearing a heart in which all warmth has ceased, the gut hook sticky in his hand, his misdeed visible to everyone he sees – the horsema…

03/06/2024

The Heart is a Security Risk Thank you for searching my suitcase As I left Palestine Thank you for your note you left explaining what you did and why A kind thought indeed So you felt…

03/06/2024

I don’t bother going home to change after my last exam, even though it’s only three o’clock and the pub will be empty. In Carty’s you’ll get served in school uniform, as long as you take off your t…

02/06/2024

Returning: brilliant new fiction from on The Lonely Crowd today.

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/06/02/returning-by-gerard-mckeown/

02/06/2024

‘Returning’: Unmissable new fiction from Gerard McKeown on the site today.

‘I don’t bother going home to change after my last exam, even though it’s only three o’clock and the pub will be empty. In Carty’s you’ll get served in school uniform, as long as you take off your tie and blazer before approaching the bar.’

I don’t bother going home to change after my last exam, even though it’s only three o’clock and the pub will be empty. In Carty’s you’ll get served in school uniform, as long as you take off your t…

02/06/2024

‘The Heart is a Security Risk’ and other poems / Patrick Jones

Patrick Jones visited the West Bank last year and was profoundly changed by the experience. Read three new poems, all of which are inspired by that trip and the devastating current situation in Gaza.


The Heart is a Security Risk



Thank you for searching my suitcase

As I left Palestine

Thank you for your note you left explaining what you did and why

A kind thought indeed

So you felt the need to open my suitcase

To go through my possessions

As I was leaving the country

An hour away from a flight home

Because?

Because I had been to The Occupied Territories?

Yeah I brought Palestinian items as gifts

Yeah I brought spices for my aching joints

Yeah I brought flowers from the garden of Gethsemane

I bought blown glass from Hebron

Did you see them?

Read the whole poem and two more here:

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/06/02/the-heart-is-a-security-risk-and-other-poems-patrick-jones/

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/06/02/the-heart-is-a-security-risk-and-other-poems-patrick-jones/

The Heart is a Security Risk Thank you for searching my suitcase As I left Palestine Thank you for your note you left explaining what you did and why A kind thought indeed So you felt…

02/06/2024

‘The Heart is a Security Risk’ and other poems / Patrick Jones

Patrick Jones visited the West Bank last year and was profoundly changed by the experience. Read three new poems, all of which are inspired by that trip and the devastating current situation in Gaza.


The Heart is a Security Risk



Thank you for searching my suitcase

As I left Palestine

Thank you for your note you left explaining what you did and why

A kind thought indeed

So you felt the need to open my suitcase

To go through my possessions

As I was leaving the country

An hour away from a flight home

Because?

Because I had been to The Occupied Territories?

Yeah I brought Palestinian items as gifts

Yeah I brought spices for my aching joints

Yeah I brought flowers from the garden of Gethsemane

I bought blown glass from Hebron

Did you see them?

Read the whole poem and two more here:

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/06/02/the-heart-is-a-security-risk-and-other-poems-patrick-jones/

14/05/2024

Acclaimed for her accounts of the darkness and desire found in everyday life, ‘the Canadian Chekhov’ has died, having suffered from dementia for more than a decade

06/05/2024

‘…well ask the biting bloodbugs, ask the twirling phantoms hereabouts & implore the leaves & the shine on them & if you must grieve at this point before death then…’

‘Knotted’: new work by by Niall Griffiths on The Lonely Crowd

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/05/01/knotted-by-niall-griffiths/

Photo: John Lavin

06/05/2024

‘You have to rely on moonlight,

The best red of self-willed land with its

Occasional outbursts of willow, the creeping

Advent of the river’s personhood, the ID

Weather sensations like a yellow archangel,

A variant of seasonal radiance.’

Read the astonishing Walking with the Weather by Medbh McGuckian

A grey light with a gossamer tinge Through his eyes. Those diaphanous Hands, on the dawn which follows The midnight after a death. Their nearness lent a new weight To the interlocking between ange…

05/05/2024

New online fiction: ‘Shepherd’ by

‘When we used to get rain, heavy rain, real rain, the kind that seeped into the soil and pushed its way out through channels to flood the ditches, I lost sheep to the water. Sometimes a few every year. Now, there’s nothing but dirt and needle dry grass and I lose them to heat exhaustion and messy miscarriages.‘

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/05/05/shepherd-by-sarah-davy/

05/05/2024

Just a reminder that The Lonely Crowd is now also on Bluesky

Literary journal — thelonelycrowd.org

05/05/2024

It’s a great honour to be publishing three new poems by Medbh McGuckian in Issue 14, which will now be published at the end of this month. Here is a preview of one Medbh’s sublime new poems, all of which, in my opinion, are major works of art. JL

‘A grey light with a gossamer tinge
Through his eyes. Those diaphanous
Hands, on the dawn which follows
The midnight after a death.
Their nearness lent a new weight
To the interlocking between angels,
Blackmarket lemons on a forest day
When I cottoned on to this and ruled
The winter, in a sheltered river whose
Mouth is hidden, since death itself is
After all an angel.’

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/05/05/walking-with-the-weather-by-medbh-mcguckian/

Image by Jo Mazelis

A grey light with a gossamer tinge Through his eyes. Those diaphanous Hands, on the dawn which follows The midnight after a death. Their nearness lent a new weight To the interlocking between ange…

05/05/2024

‘I run my palm over his muzzle, then over his ears and he flinches. I tip my forehead to his and smell it before I feel it. Infection.’

New online fiction:

‘Shepherd’ by Sarah Davy

I climb the stile and drop into the field, feet sending a dust cloud into the air. It films my eyes and I blink it away as best I can. The sheep are bloated yellow dots under the crumbling boundary…

01/05/2024

New work from Niall Griffiths on The Lonely Crowd for Beltane.

Don’t miss this brilliant extract from a new work in progress.

…slap at thrip and thunderbug, midge & mosquito come whining from the dark at neck and wrist, ancient blood knowledge voiced by this time & in this place long before the winking out…

24/04/2024

It would have been Christopher Cornwell’s birthday today, so why not raise a glass to Chris and read these tributes to a beautiful and talented man.

Christopher Cornwell’s dazzling debut collection, Ergasy, was published by The Lonely Crowd. Here, his fellow writers pay tribute to an exceptional talent who will be sorely missed by all who…

23/04/2024

Acclaimed Palestinian American poet, translator, and physician Fady Joudah has received a $100,000 prize from Poets & Writers. The Jackson Poetry Prize is awarded annually to an American poet o…

22/04/2024

Greg PB Chatterton on Christopher Cornwell

21/04/2024

on Christopher Cornwell

20/04/2024

James Aust on Christopher Cornwell

19/04/2024

Read ‘Incomplete Text’, editor John Lavin’s poem for the late Christopher Cornwell.

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/04/19/christopher-cornwell-tribute-incomplete-text-by-john-lavin/

19/04/2024

Read ’s wonderful poem for Christopher Cornwell, ‘Early Doors’.

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2024/04/19/christopher-cornwell-tribute-early-doors-by-john-goodby/

19/04/2024

You can read our tribute to the much missed and loved Christopher Cornwell here.

Featuring contributions from John Goodby, Jo Mazelis, Rhys Owain Williams, Adrian Osbourne, Amy McCauley, Michou Burckett St. Laurent, Greg Chatterton, Chris Hall, James Aust and John Lavin.

Christopher Cornwell’s dazzling debut collection, Ergasy, was published by The Lonely Crowd. Here, his fellow writers pay tribute to an exceptional talent who will be sorely missed by all who…

09/04/2024

From Chris Cornwell’s introduction to Issue 5 of The Lonely Crowd. Chris guest edited the issue which featured work from writers including Dennis O’Driscoll, Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, Andrew Wynne-Owen, Menna Elfynn, George Szirtes, John Freeman & Vanessa Gebbie.