Opening Tremors / Naming the Damage

We begin where it begins: with rupture. The poems in this first section speak from the brink, in the language of impact, aftermath, and the moment something breaks. This is where the damage is named. Not to retraumatise, but to mark its outline, to say this happened. These poems are raw-boned, necessary, unflinching. They give shape to the unspeakable, refusing the silence that so often follows trauma. This is the first tremor, the shock before the aftershock. The moment the world tilts, and you know nothing will ever be the same again.

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Helen Ivory | poet | artist opens the section with poems that disassemble domesticity. In Why I Called Him Bluebeard, she writes:

“Because I didn’t believe meuntil I wrote it down.”

And in That Friday Afternoon, a shattered windscreen becomes a quiet metaphor:

“but it’s tough to get powder off a black quarry floorif the tiles are unsealed – it just kind of wears in.”

Mark Antony Owen offers a farewell that is both intimate and devastating. His A suicide note is tender, almost instructional in its grief:

“Fill them when you’re strong. Book holidays,take the kids to the movies. Do all the thingswe used to do, would’ve done. Keep me alive.”

In The ‘S’ word, he captures the jolt of disclosure:

“Not falling, not drowning –by poisoning, you said.”

Joseph Fasano’s poems reach out with grace to those surviving the impossible. In The Good News, he reminds us:

“The amount of agonyyou carryis only the vastness of yourlovewaiting in the darkness to be found.”

And in For Those Who Wake in Fear, the miracle is not grand but rather it is breath:

“You’re breathing. Aren’t youstill breathing?”

Each of these poets brings us to the lip of the wound, then dares to press further in, not for pain’s sake, but for truth. They remind us that to name the damage is the first act of repair.

Over the next few days and weeks we will be sharing these poems.

For now - head to their substack pages to follow them.

Contributors:

Helen Ivory

Helen Ivory is a poet and visual artist. She edits IS&T and teaches for Arvon. Her six Bloodaxe collections include Waiting for Bluebeard, which centres on domestic abuse, and Constructing a Witch (2024), which is a PBS Winter Recommendation. She won a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors in 2024.

Mark Antony Owen

Mark Antony Owen is the author of digital-first poetry project Subruria. He’s also the creator and curator of online poetry journals iamb and After…

Joseph Fasano

Joseph Fasano is a poet, novelist, and songwriter whose books include The Last Song of the World, The Swallows of Lunetto, and Fugue for Other Hands. He has won the Rattle Poetry Prize and the Cider Press Review Book Award, received eight Pushcart nominations, and was nominated for the prestigious Poets’ Prize. His work is widely translated.

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