2025
This year I’ve been involved with a wonderful poetry project at a BUPA care home in Trowbridge, but I’m mainly taking a break from poetry and slowly returning to longer form writing. I’m also focusing on my health after a small issue last year, learning to swim front crawl (after years of only being able to swim breaststroke), and I’m finding ways to explore and develop my Catholic faith. I’m not blogging and not being online as much as in previous years. My latest blogpost is here and my latest free-to-read Substack post (about hearing Fady Joudah read and Pentecost Sunday) is here. All of my contact details are available on this blog. As always, thanks for visiting.
2024
I’ve made a poetry zine Six Poems to accompany ‘Borderland’ (Walcot Chapel, Bath, 29 October – 2 November 2024) an exhibition of intaglio print and collage by Pauline Scott-Garrett in response to Donald Trump’s 2018 zero-tolerance immigration policy which enforced the separating of children from their parents at the US border. I’ve also worked with Lorena Pino Montilla who’s translated my poems into Spanish which I’ve written about here and I’ve written a quick post about how I made my zine which you can read about here. I shared a poem from my zine, in English and in Spanish, in this post.
I’m just adding a small note (Oct/Nov/Dec 2024) to say that I’m currently receiving treatment for a minor health issue so I’m not running writing workshops at the moment. Huge thank you to everyone who’s attended any of my workshops in recent times! Thanks, also, to Nina Parmenter who’s taken over the running of Trowbridge Stanza.
I’m honoured that a poem I wrote about my son has been included in a beautiful new Candlestick Press mini-anthology Ten Poems about Sons.
Thanks to all at Silver Street Poetry, Bristol, for beautiful poems at the open-mic and a warm welcome for my reading in July!
My poetry book Love and Stones, one of the winners of the 2023 Live Canon Pamphlet Competition, is in stock and available to buy at Stones, Paper, Scissors, Bradford on Avon and online at Live Canon.
Thanks to staff and a lovely audience at Trowbridge Museum for a reading in May. Thanks to Creation Theatre, Oxford and Live Canon for the invite to read in Oxford in March.
Thank you to Heron Books, Bristol for inviting Matt Bryden, Isabella Mead and me to read in their beautiful bookshop on 13 January and congratulations to them on being voted one of the UK’s best independent bookshops in The Times newspaper!
2023
My limited edition, handstitched pamphlet was launched at the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool.
I’m very happy that my summer poem ‘Last Chance, Strawberries’ has been selected for the 2024 Almanac, published by Candlestick Press. What a treat!
Thank you to Emma Lee for reviewing Love and Stones at the online journal London Grip. You can read Emma’s review here.
My poem ‘Ode to an Oversized Cardigan’ has been included in TEXTUS, an exhibition and community arts project at the Torriano Meeting House, London NW5.
My new pamphlet/chapbook Love and Stones is now available from the small press and theatre ensemble Live Canon.
One of my visual poems has been posted online by Angel House Press. My thanks to editor Amanda Earl. I wrote something about this poem and my visual work for Amanda’s Substack newsletter which you can read here.
2022
November 2022 – A new prose poem ‘True Story’ has been published in The North, issue 68, edited by Andrew McMillan and Stephanie Sy-Quia.
November 2022 – I have two new ‘seen while walking’ poems in Issue 29 of Under the Radar magazine.
14 October 2022 – My visual poem ‘poem with no rhyme or rain’ which I wrote about here was selected as a joint winner in The National Poetry Library’s competition for Instagram poems on the theme of The Environment and shared on their website as Poem of the Day.
October, 2022 – My poem ‘Visiting Woodhenge and the Church of St Mary and St Melor, Amesbury’ was shortlisted in this year’s Live Canon International Poetry Competition, performed by the Live Canon Ensemble and published in the competition anthology.
September, 2022 – ‘High Summer World of Light’ published in Poetry Ireland Review.
August 2, 2022 – ‘Last Chance, Strawberries’ published in Raceme magazine.
July 9, 2022 – ‘Seen while walking: one high-heeled boot, black suede, in public flower bed’ published in Magma Poetry magazine.
June 10, 2022 – I’m thrilled to hear that Edmund Waller Primary School in London, where I ran a set of poetry writing workshops earlier this year, has been named as Outstanding School in the Live Canon Children’s Poetry Competition, 2022, in recognition of the outstanding poems sent in by their students! Congratulations to all of the young poets and their teachers.
June 3, 2022: Margate Bookie Festival, Turner Contemporary – I had a wonderful time reading with other contributors to 14 magazine at the launch event.
May 28: Teignmouth Poetry Festival. My thanks to judge Katrina Naomi for highly commending my poem in Teignmouth Poetry’s open competition. It was wonderful to be given the opportunity to read at the festival.
2021
November, 2021: Two poems, ‘Self-Portrait as an Oversized Cardigan’ and ‘Reading Poems with Evacuees at the Memory Loss Café’ published in Raceme magazine.
October, 2021: An ecopoem ‘A Baby Speaks on his Birthday in an Autumn Garden, 2020’ was shortlisted in the Live Canon International Poetry Competition, published in the competition anthology and performed by the Live Canon ensemble.
A visual piece ‘Irony Poem’ was selected to be made into a badge for the Printed Poetry Symposium (October 14, 2021, Arnolfini Arts Centre, Bristol) organised by the Centre for Fine Print Research, University of the West of England. Some more of my visual poems are included in the symposium showreel which can be viewed here.
September, 2021: My review of My Mother’s Language/La langue de ma mère by Abdellatif Laâbi, translated and introduced by André Naffis-Sahely (Poetry Translation Centre, 2021) is published online at MPT magazine.
September, 2021: A poem ‘Self-Portrait as a Green Silk Dress’ published in 14 magazine.
August, 2021: Two new poems, ‘To Love One Another’ and ‘True Crime’, published in The North, Issue 66.
My reviews of new poetry collections, by Katherine Stansfield, Maria Taylor and Jackie Wills, published in The North, Issue 66.
January, 2021: My reviews of new books by Geraldine Clarkson, Seán Hewitt and Marvin Thompson published in The North magazine, Issue 65.
2020
December, 2020: My poem, ‘Then, Said I, Lord, How Long?’ published in Poetry Wales, Volume 56/Number 2.
October, 2020: ‘Poem for a 1960s Welfare State Childhood’ published online in The Morning Star.
‘I Dream of the The Sea’ a poetry film I made on an iPhone during the first UK lockdown (2020) was accepted by Ink, Sweat & Tears magazine and can be viewed on their YouTube channel here. This poem is an interpretation of a haiku by Yosa Buson (more details at MPT magazine ‘Haiku Translation Workshop’ here).
The Great Margin (Bath Spa University), made this tiny poetry film ‘The Wonders, The Joy‘ (2020), words by Josephine Corcoran, directed by Professor Bambo Soyinka.
‘Birdsong’ – poem commissioned by Ledbury Poetry Festival (2020) can be read online.
Unseen Criticism (article) published in The North magazine (August 2020).
‘New Oldish Poetry Society’ (article) published online in The Common Sense Network, March 2019.
‘Poem in which we hear the word drone’ by Josephine Corcoran (2018) – film poem by Helen Dewbery can be viewed here.
‘To bring me luck’ – poem commended in the 2018 Stanza Poetry Competition and published online at The Poetry Society.
Here is a film of Nichole Bird (Live Canon Ensemble) performing ‘Do you remember those wild, out of control pre-Referendum days?’ (2017) by Josephine Corcoran (Text of poem available here). This poem was shortlisted for the 2018 Live Canon International Poetry competition and performed on stage at the Greenwich Theatre, London, in 2018.
Some poetry reviews written by Josephine available online: Filigree: Contemporary Black British Poetry – Edited by Nii Ayikwei Parkes, preface by Dorothy Wang (Peepal Tree Press, 2018) – reviewed in Under the Radar magazine, available to read here. Three 2019 titles from Pavilion Poetry Press (Lieke Marsman, Mona Arshi and Janette Ayachi) in Under the Radar magazine – available to read here. Other reviews have been published in The North, Poetry Wales, Under the Radar and Modern Poetry in Translation (online) magazines.
Josephine Corcoran 