IN THE RIALTO

The purpose of this section of the site is to allow us to showcase or preview poems in our publications. We hope to invite writers of the poems to respond and give their view of the work.

In the rialto

Close Reading

From time to time, when I’m reading for The Rialto, I come across poems that I really need to write about. Usually my long running wrestle with procrastination gets in the way, but when I wrote the recent Newsletter I found that I was writing about a poem from Issue...

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Crow drop

Crow drop

A radio show I sometimes tune into has a long-running feature where listeners write in about objects that have fallen on them from out of the sky – a slice of white bread, an unopened Mars Bar, jar lids and bottle caps, once (or did I imagine it?) a lady’s watch....

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THE RIALTO 91 – WHAT’S IN IT?

THE RIALTO 91 – WHAT’S IN IT?

So what’s in the new issue of The Rialto when it eventually escapes from the Babylon of the Royal Mail and gets itself delivered? Does it live up to the old Poet Laureate’s remark, back in the 1980’s, about being ‘very full and varied’? I think it does. There’s a good...

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A two poem blog

A two poem blog

Here is one of my favourite poems from the current issue (No. 90), of the magazine. CATFORD CYCLING CLUB RACE THROUGH ASHDOWN FOREST The normal fawn-coloured morning is scored through        with a fast-moving artery of red the jerseys of young bearded men on a...

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1 Poultry

1 Poultry

Shoot up in the fast lift, poke the faux gras with toothpick heels. Late lunch at the Coq d’Argent – accept a drink, plan your exit. After two pm the old religion can be smelt – some urban plague myth – even here, halfway to the holding stacks...

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Decompression by William Stephenson

Decompression by William Stephenson

Decompression The induction program’s willow pattern eyes and terracotta lips matched those of the woman I married in my first incarnation. She whispered, Just you and me darling me darling – a glitch, surely, A stutter in the software – so make yourself yourself. She...

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HOW TO BAKE A GINGERBREAD GIRL   BY EMMA SIMON

HOW TO BAKE A GINGERBREAD GIRL BY EMMA SIMON

HOW TO BAKE A GINGERBREAD GIRL   by Emma Simon Paint blue icing on her fingertips, fingers that could snap with cold, dipped into fridges and glass chillers placing cockleshell cakes in pretty rows. Tie back her hair, dress her in sexless tabards, dab with jam. Press...

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Home by Neetha Kunaratnam

Home by Neetha Kunaratnam

HOME by Neetha Kunaratnam June 23, 2016   I Go Home. We voted leave… Her indignant jaw trembled as she seethed, and the deadpan response I might have mustered froze on my lips, as she brandished a crumpled flyer and unleashed its litany of stats. I’m going I said and...

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