The Nail: Poetry to the Point

Photo by Kate Raworth
Dave Todd, poet, musician, and editor of The Nail magazine, dishing out the latest copy at the Catweazle Club in Oxford.

Number 7 of The Nail is a tasty slice of poetry, from a diversity of contributors, with added illustration (inc yours truly). Well worth the asking price of £2.50 (+ postage). Drop me a line if you should perchance wish to own one. It is A5 format, 40 pages, b&w.

Best of my own Nail drawings, this one for
"Sestina on a Train", by Bihani Sarkar.

And from the pages of Nail #7 here's a fine poem from Mr Dave Todd himself:

This Hug

This hug comes by text message.
This hug comes by email.
This hug is subtly suggested by the arrangement of
junk advertising lying at the base of your door.
This hug is a cloud across a lifted duvet of sky.
This hug comes with enough warmth to keep 3,000
homes in energy until the year 2012.
This hug is the fullness in me invading the emptiness
in you, and vice versa.
This hug is swimming with endolphins, making
Escher tesselations below twinkling surfaces,
disrupted by the grace of your body, everywhere.
This hug is introducing our heatbeats to the notion of
counterpunctual rhythms.
This hug can be spotted from the sky by jealous
police helicopters.
This hug is a potion, this hug is a manifestation,
And should it lead to kissing and undressing and
breakfast and marriage and grandchildren
This hug is a figment of the interlinking networks
of our net imaginations.
This hug comes by Post It note.
This hug comes by fridge magnets.
This hug is printed on a map at the scale of 1:1
which leads from my house to yours.
This hug is you looking at me looking at you looking
at me looking at you and wondering who will stop
smiling first.
This hug is an urgent request shouted across a sea
of other requests as a poet moves to take his cue.
This hug's for you.

Dave Todd, 2006