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      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
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      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
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      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
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Poems by Zoë Brigley 

The planets
 
were how they mapped their lives. To know their motion
meant knowing roughly how or who to love, in lines
 
and orbits traced by gods – or goddesses – who believed
in human longing, in giving up the body to pleasure, but
 
also in pain, in punishment: the rapes of women that –
in their telling over the years – became a story
 
of simple seduction. To harness oneself to Eros
meant fur and musk, light through the slats, a high,
 
quivering note, the way the wind blows through blinds
at my open window and sets the chimes to song, whispers
 
over my skin where I lie on the bed thinking of you. If the wind
can make music from the chimes, what could it make of me?
 
Is it possible for this body to fully open to anyone, as
the door of fear swings this way and that? I ask myself
 
if it is possible for two to be equal, and now you won’t let me,
won’t allow me to give too much. You keep on giving me
 
everything I want. Here: my leg drapes over your leg,
my head on your shoulder, and we fall together
 
to a bottomless sleep. So much time wasted with men
who made me – at best – a bowl for washing their hands.
 
Remember you said: I go barefoot while they wear clogs, and I
didn’t know a lover could be like that. Here you are shoeless
 
and around you tiny buds are opening, unfurling; lips parting;
skies deepening. Was it the planets that brought us, gliding
 
like chess pieces across the checkered board? Now I am sighing,
little moans to the open window, not caring about anything
 
except you: teaching me everything I didn’t know
about love, teaching me everything I had hoped was true. 
 

 


The Men We Are Meant To Love
 
we were told about them as girls those men
who would fuck you gently or hard depending
on what you wanted men who never shamed
you for the choices you made when you didn’t
know those men going down on you in
the shower one hand on each of your thighs
and a tongue in your vulva men washing
your hair gently with long firm fingers the men
who would spoon you on nights when you slept
with your fear or men who wanted to kiss you
for hours or spend a day on each part of you oh
those men who would cook delicious food that
you would eat in bed before fucking again the men
who sit and listen and say something in return
that cracks open the egg of your knowing
that coaxes out something that you didn’t
see a shiny voice that makes you shudder
with the great surprise of it what we wouldn’t do
for those men what lengths we would go to what sweet
intimacies we would spread before them what delicious
ways to please we would find for those good men
who feel it too who open up who read books and
share who never spread their legs on the train or
mansplain at meetings men who maybe groan
at housework but do not expect a fanfare when
stacking the dishes or plates do not grow bitter
because they must do what their fathers never
did those men who do not laugh with the boys at
the stolen photo of a naked lover that a friend
flashes on his phone do not shove a woman into
the spare room at the college party do not touch
the behind of their co-worker do not force
their lover to have an abortion do not prevent
their lover from having an abortion do not assume
do not seize do not feel entitled do not do not do not
 
and you my lover staring into the red distance
are you one of those men
                                                  or not?

Published in Aubade After A French Movie (Broken Sleep, 2020).
​

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Zoë Brigley is editor of Poetry Wales, poetry editor at Seren Books, and she works at the Ohio State University English department, dividing her time between the US and Wales. She has three poetry collections, The Secret (2007), Conquest (2012) and Hand & Skull (2019) all from Bloodaxe Books and all Poetry Book Society Recommendations. See also her nonfiction essays Notes from a Swing State (Parthian 2019), and, with Kristian Evans, 100 Poems to Save the Earth (Seren 2021) and Otherworlds (Broken Sleep 2021). Recent chapbooks include Aubade After A French Movie (Broken Sleep, 2020) and Into Eros (Verve, 2021).
​


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​VerseVille (formerly The Enchanting Verses Literary Review) © 2008-2025    ISSN 0974-3057 Published from India. 

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  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
      • ISSUE-XVI July 2012
      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
      • ISSUE XIX November 2013
    • 2014 Issues >
      • ISSUE XX May 2014
    • 2015 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
    • 2016 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
    • 2017 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
    • 2018 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
    • 2021 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXII August 2021
    • 2022 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXIII June 2022
      • ISSUE XXXIV December 2022
    • 2023 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXV August 2023
      • ISSUE XXXVI December 2023 Indian Poetry
    • 2024 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVII October 2024 Bengali Poetry
    • 2025 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVIII January 2025 Balkan Poetry
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions