Lovely to be part of wave twenty-seven in iamb today, with many thanks to @markantonyowen.com for all his care and hard work. If you fancy a read/listen, you can find my poems here, including one about a horse (who may not really be a horse) in Ikea...
www.iamb.uk/wave/27-em-g...
iamb.uk
Em Gray | wave 27 | autumn 2026 | iamb ~ poetry seen and heard
Hear poet Em Gray read poems for wave 27 of literary poetry journal iamb.
![A photo of two books published by Broken Sleep books and a bookmark fanned out on a white background. The books are the anthology 'Opening Line', edited by Aaron Kent which has a swirly orange and peach coloured cover, and 'A [Cupboard] Full of Tomboys' by Jay Farley, which features a poem presented/shaped like a washing label, with the words in larger letters at the top '100% NON BINARY?'. The bookmark is a blank reading list with columns for 'title', 'date started' and 'rating'.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:svenoegtayebcwkqer25gofb/bafkreicgfkjxgf7ktxr3g3m4d75ftuejmgc3jkgbzxxfm6hx62apmmxpme)
![A screenshot of a poem titled [soliloquy] by Em Gray that is right-justified on the page and reads;
lately you have seemed absent
not like a commuter kited by birdsong
but a phone ringing out
by shoes
and you have seemed full
not like a glass
but a bathtub curbed
dark rain
and you have seemed empty
not like a room to be painted
or the beat before applause
but forgetting the words
of your song
and you have seemed far
not like a plane —
fields an abstract
you need to step back from
to know where
to land
but a plane that has only a box
and the box is a vault
a plane that is lost over fog
because fog lies low
seems more than vapour
the wall of it](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:svenoegtayebcwkqer25gofb/bafkreigdondjdfgzi2ebjxmide33ugbwmlofrkbjazehuvnfgu2ji24s4a)
