Primers Volume Five

Krystelle Bamford, Claire Cox, Hannah Jane Walker, Jane Commane, Jacqueline Saphra

• Publisher: Nine Arches Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781911027959
• eBook ISBN: 9781911027966
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

In 2019, Nine Arches Press launched their nationwide Primers scheme for a fifth time, in search of exciting new voices in poetry, with Jacqueline Saphra and Jane Commane as selecting editors. After reading through hundreds of anonymous entries, and narrowing down the choices from longlist to shortlist, three poets emerged as clear choices: Krystelle Bamford, Claire Cox and Hannah Jane Walker.

Primers Volume Five brings together a showcase from each of the three poets. At the core of these poems are the milestones and critical moments of our lives and, vitally, the ties that bind us to those we love. From the tides of grief to surfing the wave of birth, these often courageous and candid poems are distinctive in their engagement with fear, loss and self-discovery, and how they emerge afresh, bold and illuminating. An insightful collection of new work from some of poetry's most talented emerging voices.

"Each of these poets moved us from a very first read with courage, openness and authenticity and each walks an exhilarating edge, daring to take risks with both language and content." – Jacqueline Saphra

Hannah Jane Walker

Hannah Jane Walker is a writer from Essex. She makes work that uses poetry as a way of talking, in theatres, public spaces and for radio, working with BBC Radio 4, the British Council, and Apples and Snakes. With collaborator Chris Thorpe, she has created interactive shows exploring questions which seem too simple to ask, winning a Fringe First and touring the world. Plays are published by Oberon and performance poetry by Nasty Little Press. Poems in anthologies by Forest Fringe and Penned in the Margins. She often works with vulnerable groups, collaborating to create artworks. She is an Associate Artist for Cambridge Junction and National Centre for Writing.

A study at 20

Frankly, there is a lot I don’t even admit to myself.

When I was in my twenties

I got really bloody-minded about asserting

my right to fuck whoever I wanted.

And apparently a lot of people wanted to fuck me.

I did things I can’t quite face.

But I do it to myself sometimes, reveal the truth

in little squares.

Some of the sex was excellent.

Most of it was boring and required cleaning up.

Once I slept with a man whose girlfriend

was asleep in the next room.

It ended up feeling like a job.

I betrayed friends, replaced them with louder, camper

friends who brought me pastries and Vogue in bed.

I used plates as ashtrays,

took things that didn’t belong to me,

took things I didn’t know the name of

in the non-places, that become places

that made me feel I could see inside myself.

Spread like milk across his bed

I bet you were devastating when you were seventeen

I love a girl with a snaggletooth

I’d hate to be attractive wouldn’t you?

He combs the Covent Garden cafes,

pockets filled with pens and postcards looking for girls

whose poems feature

the colour of their hearts, their favourite moment of sky.

He feeds them cream cakes and tap water tepid as saliva.

Spread like milk across his bed he follows logic

from shoulder to neck to ear.

Do you like your body?

Have you ever truly been loved?

When was the last time you gripped

a table, asked the whole room

to be quiet?

No one knows where you are

You drive me to a strip of neon,

buy beer and fried dumplings:

careful with the steam in your mouth.

You pull up in a place with no light.

You hold my wrist as we edge through the long grass.

What about snakes?

It’s not them you need to be frightened of.

Tip your neck back.

The trees laden with colonies of fat coat hangers,

bats twitching in their sleep.

I will definitely die soon

and deserve it.

I brace.

We walk to a clearing.

This is why we came.

I wait for the blade between my ribs.

You gesture to the line of eucalyptus

and sigh, usually girls love this.

The shark experience

When she is ready, hair capped,

someone leads her lightly by the elbow,

past great pools of turquoise.

The rubber locker band grips her wrist –

the goggles fumbled, she

eclipses the ladder as her ankles dip.

The fin shudders the air grate –

blindly nose cuts the surface,

flank bumping bubbles off the tiles.

She lets the lights track her backstroke.

Her arms turnstile,

her sinuses inhale antiseptic.

They drop the meat in on string.

The red blue sinews...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• About the Selecting Editors
• Contents
• Foreword
• Krystelle Bamford
• Claire Cox
• Hannah Jane Walker
• Acknowledgements