A runner-up in The Latin Programme Poetry Prize VI, Abandonment of Shame examines how modern institutions sanitise violence through language. Short, declarative lines expose a system where action comes first, justification follows, and responsibility dissolves into process.
Framework
A poem on the mechanics of justification: how governments reorder cause and effect, recasting first strikes as defence. Language becomes the weapon—terms positioned, meanings reassigned, contradiction absorbed—until narrative holds, regardless of sequence or consequence.
Beetle
In the dance of light and shadow, a BMW morphs from car to beetle, from green to blue: a purposeful form skittering up the road ahead.
A90, Early Afternoon
A poem about a journey to Dundee, written en route. The skyscape blurs between hazy white, muted blues and scattered grays. Her voice shifts through playful beats, while the car steadies, yet pain edges forward like a persistent rhythm. The world moves on.
1070 And All That
1,070 poems, typed from ancient notebooks in a year. Still not calling myself a poet. But the numbers sit there, shifting the ground, raising questions about habit, identity, and when something stops being marginal and becomes the work.
Grind
A univocalic poem driven by “I” alone, tracing work, illness, and constraint. Written in a rush of clarity, it captures the grind of shifts, limits, and persistence, followed by a candid account of how the poem arrived fully formed.
