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Issue 14 of The Lonely Crowd is available now.

Three Poems Medbh McGuckian / Mature People Mary Morrissy / Three Poems Taz Rahman / Everything Falling Emily Devane / Letter To My First Milk Tooth Breda Spaight / Success is counted sweetest… Fiona O’Connor / Naming Jimmy Wilde Tony Curtis / Capital Vices Conor Montague / Two Poems Hilary Watson / Intermission Catherine Wilkinson / Three Poems Linda McKenna / A Suitable Feast Cath Barton / Three Poems Jackie Gorman / A Letter to Dylan Thomas Orfhlaith Foyle / Three Poems Pauline Flynn / Joy Karys Frank / Three Poems Jane Lovell / Wild Horses Lucie McKnight Hardy / Two Poems Jo Mazelis / The Bangle Angela Graham / Two Poems Fiona Cameron / Take Away Alan McCormick / Two Poems Mary O’Donnell / Two Poems for Christopher Cornwell John Goodby, John Lavin / Edited by John Lavin

Latest articles

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Poet of the Month, January: Angela Graham

The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2026. For January, we are delighted to publish three new works by Angela Graham. The first of these, ‘A Plan for the Development of Gaza’, is published today with two more poems to follow throughout the month.    A Plan for…

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‘for a few dollars more’ by Jack Houston

The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2025. For December, we are delighted to publish three new poems by Jack Houston. The third of these, ‘for a few dollars more’, is published today. (Note: if reading on a phone, please read in landscape format)   i have been trying…

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恋の予感 by Jack Houston

for M   My heart was a dog curled around itself in the cold, far corner of a kennel & gnawing at the mange on its left back leg in the large & flood-lit rehoming centre full of other strays nobody’d ever wanted, or ones they’d tried to take care of but couldn’t find time,…

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Books of the Year 2025 / Part Three

Contributors to The Lonely Crowd choose the books they have most enjoyed this year. John Lavin   Twenty years in the making, Sarah Hall’s seventh novel, Helm, is an imaginative tour de force. The Eden Valley, where the author grew up, is dominated by the shrieking Helm (the only named wind in Britain) and Hall…

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Books of the Year 2025 / Part Two

Contributors to The Lonely Crowd choose the books they have most enjoyed this year. Part Three follows on Friday. Karys Frank Sarah Hall’s Helm, a gale of a novel in which the Helm wind is personified in a bold, non-linear narrative was going to be the focus of this piece. I also mulled over reviewing…

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Story of the Month, December: ‘The Broken Wand’ by Jane Fraser

The Lonely Crowd will feature a new short story by a different author each month throughout 2025. For December, we are delighted to publish a new story by Jane Fraser. It wasn’t a white Christmas in Gower as they’d promised on Wales Today. Lynne and David looked out over the ocean – frothy-white and agitated…

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Poet of the Month, December / Jack Houston

The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2025. For December, we are delighted to publish three new poems by Jack Houston. The first of these, ‘magic city’, is published today with two more poems to follow throughout the month.   magic city   it sure seems as if…

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How I Wrote ‘Joy’ / Karys Frank

For some time before I wrote ‘Joy’, I’d been having strange feelings. I didn’t know what to make of them, or how to explain them. They occurred in bouts a few times a year. They were blasts of intense, untethered happiness, often ambushing me in very mundane settings. Ironically, they made me feel a little lonely afterwards, as I couldn’t think of anyone I could talk to about them who wouldn’t find me loopy. So, I kept quiet. Eventually, I confided in my husband, who listened, and told me he didn’t experience such things. I expect he thought I was loopy.

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Story of the Month, November: ‘Joy’ by Karys Frank

Eric was late to the airport, but Laura was not there yet with her life. The pieces of it would not come together. She was studying, she was being evicted, she worried her boyfriend was cheating on her. Someone had stolen her identity and was buying blenders from abroad in her name and she had spent a lot of time sorting it out.

The police told her the blenders were likely bought for mixing drugs. How could people do that to their bodies? Laura was training to be a nutritionist.

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