Ten Poets Tell You Their Favourite Ghost Story

“One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted—”

When a poet turns to the subject of ghosts, it’s as much conjuration, or spectral evocation, as it is a story. We have gathered here ten in one slim book — ten possible summoning spells, primed to plant sounds and images deep in the ear and eye. Would you risk reading them aloud? Be careful — repetition is a kind of incantation. And the ghosts in these lyric tales are as angry as they are mournful as they are cold ...

Kirsten Irving is a Lincolnshire-born, London-based poet and voiceover, and one half of the team behind collaborative press Sidekick Books. Her work has been published by Salt and Happenstance, widely anthologised and thrown out of a helicopter. She has won the Live Canon International Poetry Prize, judged competitions, and taught courses on folklore in poetry. Kirsten's latest collection, Hot Cockalorum, was published in 2022 by Guillemot Press.

Jon Stone is a Derbyshire-born writer, editor and researcher. He won a Society of Authors Eric Gregory Award in 2012 and his collection School of Forgery (Salt, 2012) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. As well as writing several shorter poetry books and co-editing a number of collaborative anthologies with Sidekick Books, he has published a monograph, Dual Wield: The Interplay of Poetry and Videogames (DeGruyter, 2022). He teaches writing and publishing at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

From www.noranadjarian.com: Nora Nadjarian is an award-winning poet and author of short fiction. Her work deals with the themes of women, refugees, identity, exile, love and loss, as well as the political situation in Cyprus. She lives in Nicosia, Cyprus. Best known in Cyprus for her short story collection Ledra Street (2006), she has had poetry and short fiction published internationally. She has been cited or published in the Guardian, the Irish Times and the Telegraph and has also won prizes and commendations in international competitions, including the Commonwealth Short Story Competition, the Binnacle International Ultra-Short Competition, the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize and the Reflex Fiction flash competition. In 2022 her story "Doors" was included in the Wigleaf Top 50 Short Fictions of the year. Her work was included in A River of Stories, an anthology of tales and poems from across the Commonwealth, Best European Fiction 2011 (Dalkey Archive Press), Being Human (Bloodaxe Books, 2011) , Capitals (Bloomsbury, 2017), The Stony Thursday Book (Limerick, 2018) and Europa 28 (Comma Press). Her latest book is the collection of short stories Selfie (Roman Books, 2017). Her short plays Mermaid and Catalina were performed at the Old Red Lion theatre in London. Nora has represented Cyprus at literary events and festivals in Europe and elsewhere, including Frankfurt Book Fair and Dresdner Bardinale and within the framework of EU2016, in the poetry project In European Poetry I want to live (Amsterdam). She was a writer-in-residence at Goga Publishing House (Slovenia) in 2019 and a speaker and workshop facilitator at the Flash Fiction Festival in Bristol (2019 and 2022). She presented her work at the Literarisches Colloquium (Berlin) in July 2019. The Hay Festival selected her to represent Cyprus in the project Europa28: Visions for the Future in 2020.

From https://clarepollard.wordpress.com: Clare Pollard was born in Bolton in 1978 and currently lives in South London with her husband and two children. She is a Doctor of Letters, having received an honorary doctorate for her services to literature from Bolton University. Her first collection of poetry, The Heavy-Petting Zoo (1998) was written whilst she was still at school, and received an Eric Gregory Award. It was followed by Bedtime (2002) and Look, Clare! Look! (2005), which was made a set text on the WJEC A-level syllabus. Her fourth collection Changeling (2011) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and her latest is Incarnation (Bloodaxe, 2017). Her pamphlet The Lives of the Female Poets is published by Bad Betty Press (2019). Her poem ‘Pollen’ has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Individual Poem for 2022.

From https://turaspress.ie/roisin-tierney-contemporary-poetry: Róisín Tierney was born in Dublin and studied Psychology and Philosophy at University College Dublin. She lived in Spain for several years (Valladolid and Granada) and is now based in London. She has worked in many areas, from theatrical make-up artist to museum administrator.