2025 News

MAY

Sunday 18th of May

After a sellout in February, I’m very pleased to be repeating my ekphrastic poetry workshop, ‘Beyond the Frame’. Once again, this workshop is being delivered through The Writing Well, a brilliant writers’ resource founded and run by Kate Oldfield. More information can be found here, and please do investigate the rest of the website too, as it’s a treasure trove of resources and support:

https://the-writing-well.com/bookings/p/ekphrasticpoetry-2

APRIL

I’m very pleased to share news of two publications this month. Firstly, my poem ‘Sycamore’s Prayer’ has been published by Atrium Poetry. Inspired partly by the felling of the much-loved tree at Sycamore Gap, and partly by my admiration for the sycamore that grows just beyond my own garden, I wanted to explore the vulnerability of trees, and their resilience too. I’m grateful to editors Claire Walker and Holly Magill for giving my poem such a lovely platform. ‘Sycamore’s Prayer’ can be read at the following link, and I encourage readers to explore more of the work at this excellent poetry website as well:

https://atriumpoetry.com/2025/04/11/sycamores-prayer-sarah-doyle/

Secondly this month, and also responding to aspects of the ‘grown world’, my poem ‘The groundbreaking women of Kew’ has been published in the ‘Soil’-themed latest edition of The Alchemy Spoon poetry magazine. My poem celebrates the first female gardeners employed at Kew Gardens in the late 19th Century; a fascinating subject for poetry. Always well-produced, and including colour images in addition to intelligent poetry, the magazine contains work from lots of other great poets, and can be purchased via this link:

https://www.clayhangerpress.co.uk/store/p61/The_Alchemy_Spoon_Issue_15.html#/

MARCH

Due to popular demand, I am rerunning my five-week email poetry course again this month. If there is sufficient take-up, I may well run it again later in 2025 as well, so please feel free to get in touch (via my Contact page) if that’s of interest. In the meantime, it’s been a source of joy and great pride to see poets publishing work inspired by or begun in various workshops of mine (from one-offs to my five-week course). Here are some examples:

‘A dunnock’s prayer’ by Corinna Board:

https://carmenerror.com/?page_id=422

‘A Jar of Starfish’ by Claire Walker:

https://inksweatandtears.co.uk/claire-walker-2/

‘Red Hills with Flowers’ by Corinna Board

https://www.afterpoetry.com/poem/feb-28-2025-corinna-board

‘prayer of the suckling pig’ by Cindy Botha:

https://inksweatandtears.co.uk/on-the-second-day-of-christmas-we-bring-you/

FEBRUARY

Sunday 9th of February

I am excited to be rerunning my ekphrastic poetry workshop, ‘Beyond the Frame’ – this time for The Writing Well, an inspiring writers’ resource founded and run by Kate Oldfield. More information can be found here:

https://the-writing-well.com/workshops

One of the highlights of my poetry year is co-judging the Pre-Raphaelite Society Poetry Prize with PRS Chair (and my great friend) Serena Trowbridge. Once again, we read lots of wonderful poems and had rewardingly difficult decisions to make. Ultimately, though, we are delighted with our final five winners, listed here. Enormous congratulations to all!

https://www.pre-raphaelitesociety.org/copy-of-competitions

JANUARY 2025

Published towards the end of 2024, I have enjoyed reading the latest edition of Under the Radar magazine, which includes my poem, ‘And the wind rose’. Co-edited by Jane Commane and Caleb Parkin, this issue features work exploring the theme of ‘Sound’. A wind rose is a graphic representation of typical wind conditions recorded over time at a specific location, and my poem is part of a larger meteorological collection that I’m working on. ‘And the wind rose’ uses the sounds made by winds as a metaphor for our own utterances and expression:

And the wind rose

I pucker my lips to form their names, divide

myself into quadrants, divide again: four, eight,

sixteen. I am air gathered, a bloom of breath

blustering my lungs to bellows, summoning

cardinals in the spinning language of weather.
[…]

If you’d like to read the rest of my poem – and lots of other brilliant work besides – then Under the Radar can be purchased at this link:

https://ninearchespress.com/magazine

Completing a seasonal quartet, it was a great pleasure to record some gorgeous wintery Pre-Raphaelite poetry for the Pre-Raphaelite Society’s podcast. Whether you’re wallowing in DG Rossetti’s winter-bitten wold, or swooning among Swinburne's sonorous fruitless furrows, please do have a listen here:

https://www.pre-raphaelitesociety.org/podcast/episode/918614a8/poetry-readings-for-winter