All the profits of this 'young British poetry' anthology go to Oxfam, and it has to be said the selection of poets, numbering well over 100 in total (its one poem per poet) is remarkably wide in methodology and style. So often people take lazy potshots at anthology editors, often with solid foundations to do so, but in this case the attention to detail, the sense of responsibility to the work and not the reputation, and the refusal of any limited notion or camp or clique is really striking. Respect has to be shown to the editors, Todd Swift and Kim Lockwood, for such a vast undertaking and one that is truly pluralist in nature. I'm very happy to be featured alongside poets who are making geuinely innovative strides like Emily Critchley, Amy De'Ath, Anna Selby, Agnes Lehoczky, Bobby Parker, Kelina Gotman, Michael Egan, Chris McCabe, Alistair Noon, James Byrne, Sandeep Parmar, Jon Stone and Sam Riviere, amongst many others.
My poem is taken from my Taxidermy collection, called (Steggr). It's quite formalist in nature, but in a roundabout way. It is about the sigil of Robert Baratheon, from the George RR Martin books. So its a formal poem about a fantasy warlord torturing people.