Letter from the Editor I hope you enjoy our second collection of Channel Islands poetry. I remember attending the first Guernsey event as a nervous teenager, my first ever Pride, and how much the world seemed to open up on that one day. I couldn’t be happier to be attending the tenth anniversary, having seen our local community go from strength to strength ever since. The Channel Islands have such a rich poetry scene, something I have been grateful to both contribute to and benefit from. It seems our literary community is always growing; whether a reader or a writer, a performer or a listener, there is a good home for creatives here in the Channel Islands. Once again featuring a range of poets from across the Channel Islands, with Word is Out I aim to provide one such home for local writers. Thank you so much to all of our poets for trusting me and the team with your submissions; the judging panel and I loved reading through each entry. We had such a range of poetic styles and themes, I’m so proud to be able to showcase them here in this zine.
Rowan Carteret Editor and lead artist
Contents
Judge’s Choices When discussing all of the poems submitted to Word is Out, our submissions team selected a small number of favourite poems to receive this commendation. Congratulations to our selected poets for their incredible work! Our five judge’s choices are:
You’re the reason for nomenclature I'd rather not be known As a he, she, or they I'd rather be remembered for how I love, cherish, play. Not burdened into categories, of gender, form, or type. None of that can capture the self, Which is all that is ripe. We are not your enemies Restriction is not our aim. It's life that we are fighting for And life is all the same. We're fighting for you too, you know, If you had not realised. Even when we want to scream At your hate waves on the tide. We recognise your fear, you know, We know you are afraid But not all change is harmful - ever-new creation It's how we stay the same. We remember that you are family, Even those who had forgot. We're all on the same side, Each other's all we've got.
barry barrison barrington bartholobew III
Maker to Makers Last Sunday in Church the parson said for ‘My’ sake, "No will nor pill does a woman/man make.” I think it’s absurd to do what he says: Dismiss all not completed In those seven days! For while I made oceans and earth themselves in one go, I gave these creations some nice room to grow. I made tides - which erode cliffs, I made trees - which grow sticks, Around the same time I made girls who have dicks. I made Marsha and Alan and Wendy and Lou, A short while ago I went and made you. When I went to sleep at the end of that week, Creation went on; if it hadn’t, how bleak!
So make wine from grapes, And make bread from wheat, Share in creation, make me obsolete, Make new names and new words no-one’s ever heard of, Make love with your body Make your body with love. While your time is still passing and the day turns to night, Your body is paper, I command you to write Using the pen which I never forbade, For nothing’s alive that was not Made.
Laurence Besson
Circling skyward Transfixed by what we’d only dreamed could pass, Translucent shapes and colours become one. The circle’s squared, the meaning clear at last Enlightened, now we know our journey’s done. And what transpired to lend our minds this new Translation of the mysteries in our way? To go beyond our birthright was the clue, Intransigence of flesh made to obey. Our former dawn-dusk boundaries eclipsed. I cannot look away. I am transfixed.
Katie Bastiman
The Impact of Pronouns Ladies. Forced into this category, pain stabs at my soul. Don't you see me? A glance should be enough. But you throw me to drown in a sea of feminine waves. Madam. You think you're being polite, but your assumption was too quick. You don't see that I don't fit That neat little box designed to keep society in check. She. A small word.. that packs a punch to my gut. It looks harmless, but the impact is invisible. Much like me. Every day I dodge these words like bullets from well-meaning friends, colleagues who "forget." As if my voice wasn’t lower, As if surgery didn’t happen. Are you blind or oblivious? Few understand the importance of pronouns. If you knew would you try harder? Dysphoria is a silent, daily battle. But when you get it right just once my heart sings.
Joey Le Blond
Spectrum skin, spectre masks There is a void here, where love should be. Love has been here before - when it was gloriously free. The void was birthed anew. This void has grown too large. Since your love packed up, mine petered out to match your output. When did void this replace it? There is a void here, and I can’t face it. Intrusive thoughts from waking. Causation looking vacant. Thinking of how this breaking of mine only leads to your shaking. Honestly, I can’t take it. There is a void here, where emotions once grew. Where they should grow, when not selfpreserving. Numbed. An indefensible mechanism for anybody. It’s a wonder we ever open our eyes at all.
This void covers the whole world. Paralyses it with slow seeping venom. Brandishing words so carefully carelessly. Threads of the carpet. Forgetting we are part of it. One family. One love. One world. One void. When did this one start being our compass? The void became our salvation. Feeling unreachable, infinite, absolute. Now, even our songs are yet another commercialised venture. Those voidish brutes. Now, the void is in me and you.
barry barrison barrington bartholobew III
giant i am a giant surrounded by people who are too small to be people with little fuses on their heads that i might light if only i give them too much of my attention. they cant fit thoughts in the acorns balanced on their shoulders and they move like watches the way they tick tick tick along. they must carve their smiles on each morning as their shell sloughs off, careful of the thread that is begging for a spark that will send them into a blaze of ecstasy. i do not have a fuse, i cannot. not with the way i tower over them all, watching how they ferry scavenged objects around like ants and bite with their mandibles. sometimes they see me watching them and, among a flash of terror, they ask me to play, but i am a giant and they are people who are much too small to be people with squashed up conkers between their ears. so i tell them "no" and, quivering, they scuttle away on their flimsy, gold plated clock hand legs and the sound of their hissed warnings about me spread like the scent of a freshly mown lawn.
alastair lee
When I Saw You I thought the world had paused to let one heartbeat speak. You stood beneath an ordinary sky, yet nothing around you felt ordinary. I looked once, then twice, afraid beauty like yours could only belong to a dream. Something quiet drew me closer— not to possess you, but to know you were real. Since that moment my days have carried your name like the sea carries light. You found me as a hided trans man, before I understood I was lost. Now my heart remembers what it had forgotten: how to race, how to hope, how to love, simply because you exist.
Erik
That’s all there is Choirs of all our selves In song. In harmony. All voice parts represented. From one translucent throat refract One hundred or more voices, all in key. Hear me sing the tenor line Entwined with alto counterpoint All to join my descant’s flight With scant regard for pace or pause This chorus underscored in bass: Layer on layer on layer, We sail from the stave, Embody the sound. Beyond the need for form or fear Our sound is clear: We’ve struck this chord of our desiring.
Katie Bastiman
Alternate Moths Outcasted and othered Rejected and alone Unable to love or be loved Different yet yearning to fit in Existing but not living Living but lying Down not standing in truth Pretending not to feel A fraud in normality The sentence doesn’t end Until you release. Your breath that is yours, And see yourself in your imagination. Catching the wave, Not bearing your own weight. Leading with ease, Finding freedom in your drum. Othered will come to light, Like alternate moths to the alternate flame. No longer blinded by meaning, It’s now yours to make.
E.V.
Innocent
The worst was, “They are still innocent.” I don’t so much mind all the ‘brave’s. Though, “You’re so brave,” never quite hit. Always felt a little like Regina George calling your skirt, “Vintage.” Had a touch of the neg about it. I try to make time for the Grammar Police. “I’ll do my best but it’s hard to unlearn the right way to speak.” When the thing they are really unwilling to learn is you can’t know who anyone is from a peek. That the singular ‘They’ is as old as Shakespeare. That they use it every day. “Has anyone lost their phone?” They’d say. “Could the driver of a BMW come forward, we're towing their car.” “When I meet a new person I just use the pronouns of the gender I can tell that they are.” It sucks when someone thanks me for being, “Honest.” As if I wasn’t being honest before. Or as if they’ve been waiting for me to come clean and I’ve taken too long to be sure.
I didn’t love it when one friend asked me to, “not become militant about it.” But then she was open when I asked what that meant and discovered her info wasn’t legit. She’d been misled, and she listened, apologised, moved on. And now she’s the slightly militant one, defending my rights when I am too done. I actually totally loved that one. But, “In their innocent little world you are their auntie,” hurt so much that I had no reply. “We would rather it not be mentioned around them,” ended all discussion, all impetus to try. “We don’t want to lose their innocence as long as we can.” That was the worst. By far. By miles. By worlds. It turned me from a person reaching out, opening up, courageous, right, honest, militant To a thing. That corrupts. Harms. A taker-away of innocence. And, most of all, it took me out of those children’s lives. Who loved me, who I love, who might have, might still, might always need me. “They are still innocent,” was the worst.
Vick Le Feuvre
They Want Us Dead Cocooned in this bed of rot and decay I awaken, longing for escape. And as I start to dig I think of stories, people trapped underground disorientated, who dig themselves deeper trying to find a way out. Still, I keep going. Though it may lead me to the fire it will be my choice to make. Please don't let me go quietly. When my fingertips breach the surface, an ocean of relief crashes through my veins, electrifying in its intensity. I pull myself from the earth with shaky limbs, trembling like a newborn foal blood-soaked and terrified, and get my first taste of freedom. Brushing dirt from my eyes as if it were sleep, I stumble towards the dawn.
Matija Andrijašević
Muted Raphael’s La Muta’s hung inside the National Gallery, she’s on the wall; I’m facing her, stick straight on the parquet. We’re both displaced in London and indoors. ‘I don’t think I’d be friends with her,’ you say. I wasn’t thinking friends. Last time I held someone’s gaze like this, I came, passed out. My neck gets chills. I feel each cell dilate. The miles and years between our eyes collapse. Now I’m inside her head and she’s in mine. But she's not here. Is there a chance he chose to leave eyes blank then later fill them in with his, reflected back at him? That’s why I’ve gone inside his head? My irises take breaths like gills. I paint them back to life.
Traci O’Dea
The last pine Sun caked the upper leaves in a warm white haze. Dead branches jutted sideways from the trunk, leathered by long winters. Their smell wafted down onto the cliff path, soft and familiar. He stopped, gazing up at the patterns the branches made as they effortlessly intertwined. Down in the bay the water lulled against the light grey rocks. Kayakers bobbed idly, laughing periodically. His mind flashed back to the summer before. They had used to laugh like that. A small white boat was anchored further out, Angelic in the last of the evening sun’s rays. His boyfriend had once seemed divine, carved from stone by a skilled stonemason’s hand. Time had proven differently.
Further up the valley, a pattering of water beckoned. The stream clear and crisp. It held him in an oasis. He went on, glancing at swimmers climbing from the cove below, together. He knew part of him still wished they were still them. But the sea salt stiff in his hair suggested he could thrive in a life that was his own. Though the cliff ’s fingers poked out into the water, beckoning protruding elements of the past, He sighed with finality and continued, turning a corner that whisked the bay out of view. A narrow path through the green awaited, lined with beautiful arrays of pink and blue flowers. He smiled and stepped forward.
Jake Twyman
Proud Letters Qu for a-qu-a qu engulfed in as qu for li-qu-id qu the ever-fluid space. Ee the s-ee-d that becomes tree ee the fr-ee-dom that we seek ee for all of us who agr-ee that to be is to be with. R for all the things we are R for art and heart and part. Part of everything and all that expands and thrives from small to the open sea we see whether they, or he or she only if we let it be. To a sky that beats for all to a heart that wants to grow. To the love that can’t be tamed to a tenderness reclaimed. To each letter and each sound as it rises from the ground We Are Here, Loud & Proud.
Marianna Pliakou
Queer Loneliness Epidemic When the articles drop and people exclaim that men are the loneliest they’ve ever been I wonder if they know what it’s like to be a queer teen? To never feel seen and have nowhere to be because you don’t belong at home or on screen Absorb their words until they destroy your self esteem And stay up all night because you’re too sad to sleep
Rain
Monday morning of a child you pretend to protect You are thirteen and today you have a geometry test. The test is period one - why is it always period one? You grab your books and your pens and Silently avoid eye contact with your mother in the kitchen. (She does not like your haircut.) There’s a woman on the television, Blaring in the lounge while you eat your toast. You don’t understand everything she is saying to the bad guys at the end of her desk But you know she does not like you. Do the boys at school like you? No. (Well, one did, but then you told him what you were, and that scared him right off!) The girls? The girls do not look at you. You remind them of the bad guys on the morning television.
Stuff your binder in between Othello and your exercise book, Do not imagine what the woman on the television would think If she could see you. If she could see you Would she wish you good luck on your test? Tomorrow you will be exactly thirteen and three quarters and this is exciting Because it means you are nearly fourteen, and when you are fourteen you are Nearly fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and then Maybe, when you are eighteen, You will be a person. But for now, you are thirteen, and today you have a geometry test.
Laurence Besson
The Life of a Political Talking Point I am a political talking point Walking in the deep craters, footsteps of my gay cousins. The fact of my existence is a debate, Something that can be argued And dismissed because it hurt someone's feelings. My body is a billboard advertising That I am not the same as you So I should probably be murdered. I probably deserve it. I go to work, I make people laugh, I teach and learn and create, But I'm just mentally ill. I love deeply and am loved, I have a best friend and a mum and a dad, But I'm just confused and selfish.
I have to talk to at least six professionals, Therapists and doctors before I Can get basic healthcare. My brothers and sisters face a wait Upwards of two lifetimes for the same. They will wait 200 years. But I am a political talking point. My humanity is a threat to a destructive regime And I hope it stays that way.
Alastair Lee
UFO Lands on Bourbon Street Without a single double take, we strolled down Rue St. Ann the night of Halloween. Your Cher was flawless, robed in sixties green— a backless number stitched with flecks of gold. My Sonny wore a vest of the same fur as my moustache, that did its best to conceal my femininity. It was a thrill to see myself a him and you a her. In the Quarter, we flew the flags of freaks. Authentic vampires, freed from coffins, drank red wine with a band of tipsy, toga-clad Greeks. Curbside, Catwoman shared a joint with Frankenstein, who had rusted sutures in his cheeks. A ghost floated by. Her entire look was blank. Queen Amidala, Prince, and a fool held court with Dr. J who’d clearly hit the sauce. Above their heads, on iron balconies, played werewolves, witches, and imps of every sort. Jesus staggered by twice, one with a crossdressed Billie, drinking some strange, fruity Kool-Aid. The aliens that descended should’ve guessed they’d go unnoticed in the Vieux Carré. They arrived practically as underdressed as each girl in uniform at Ritz Cabaret.
Tracy O’Dea
Thank You One and the same I feel like I know you I feel like I am you I feel like I owe you With every ounce of me As I live and as I breathe I do it all for you Although we’ve never met And you’ll never know my name I know your story and I know your pain I never say this out loud I know this sounds insane I’ll always be indebted to you For you paved the way
Rain
Acknowledgements A huge thank you to our submissions team, Sam Hearne, Lupin Vivian, Emily Hubert and Rowan Carteret, as well as to Alastair Lee for his contributions to the zine’s artwork To our friends at Liberate Ellie Jones Emily Hubert To Guernsey Arts, for their promotion of local poetry and support with this zine And a special thanks to Night Voices Gay’s the Word Craftwise Lexicon Bishopsgate Institute Jacqueline Cox Retrobadges The Stanley Road Store The Collectors Centre Writer’s Block Guernsey Literary Festival Snooper’s Paradise The London Graphic Centre Cass Art
Liberate Liberate, who were kind enough to sponsor this project, are a Guernseyregistered charity established in 2014 to promote fairness and equality, led by and for LGBTQ+ islanders. Liberate not only support both LGBTQ+ residents and their families, but campaign for legal equalities and protections such as same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination laws, and improved transgender healthcare. Liberate are also the founders of Channel Islands Pride, working to ensure that LGBTQ+ people always have a ‘place’ in the Bailiwick communities.
Guernsey Arts Guernsey Arts, who helped bring this project to fruition, are a not-for-profit organisation supporting, promoting, and inspiring artists across the Bailiwick. Their support allows artists of all forms to engage in a unique and vibrant creative community right here in the Channel Islands, running exhibitions, events, competitions, workshops, and more.
In celebration of Channel Islands Pride , please enjoy our poetry collection. A free zine celebrating LGBTQ+ poetry in the Channel Islands, we aim to provide a space in which anyone interested has the chance to be published, and in this second edition we have a wonderful collection of poetry from seasoned writers and newcomers alike. Word is Out! 2026
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