The title of this anthology, published by Dempsey and Windle under their Vole imprint, is taken from Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” and the image on the front cover is from ‘Snow in Winter, 2010’, a painting by Janice Dempsey. Both the title and the painting speak to us of hope and the continuity of the seasons. 

The anthology contains 48 poems by 44 poets comprising three prize-winning poems, three highly commended poems and 41 shortlisted poems from the Vole Books spring poetry competition 2025 judged by Jeremy Loynes. In his introduction Loynes remarks that in judging the entries he "wandered through the poems like a water diviner with a forked hazel wand’ and ‘had no choice but to go where the pull of the magic was strongest".

Glancing down the contents page, some of the magic of the titles certainly worked their spell on me: Angela Brodie’s ‘Dancing on the Ottoman,’  Emma Lee’s ‘The Door that Opened to Nowhere,’ and Martin Leisner’s ‘In the Licence of Long Marriage’.

The poems in this anthology cover a wide range of topics. They include a poem about unusual hobbies with equally unusual vocabulary: baton-twirlers, skydivers and snowboarders, Lego addicts, lapidiarists and radio hams; a lively description of a Friday night in an urban centre; a detailed observation of someone who knows how to iron a shirt; and an ekphrastic response to an Edward Hopper painting. 

Some of the stories behind the poems can be illuminating. Anthony Knight’s poem, ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’ refers to one of the 19th century’s most important female horticulturists, Ellen Willmott, who is best remembered as the namesake of the sea holly Eryngium Giganteum, known as ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’ whose seeds she would carry in her pockets and surreptitiously drop in gardens that she visited, thereby ensuring its propagation. It seems in retrospect that this is more of a myth than a reality but it makes for a good story. Knight’s rhyming sonnet ends with the line: "She scattered seeds to leave her mark, You’re reading mine."

The tone of these poems is equally varied ranging from Marilyn Daish’s powerful poem ‘At home with my brain damaged sister’ to Richard Schwartz’s humourous piece ‘Twelve ways to nurse a grudge – a self-help guide’  David Floyd’s poem ‘Nostalgia’ takes us for a quirky ride to areas we would not have guessed at by the title. I loved the way it surprised me. Here is the opening stanza:

 

     The problem with young people today

     is that they’re always staring at their phones

     and have no time to experiment

     with petty theft.

 

In the end, the poem has more to do with the recent surge in organised shoplifting that we are now witnessing in some areas of our towns and cities.

Richard Woolmer’s philosophical poem ‘Time Being’ reminded me of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Days’. Like Larkin, Woolmer attempts at a definition of his subject matter:

 

     What are days

     but loose change in the hands of time

     and time no more than a trick

     we find lurking in a family tree

     or in the branches of the mind,

     a simple way to measure change—

     Einstein’s ‘illusion’ of reality?

 

The layout of Lizzie Ballagher’s poem ‘Peat’ — five stanzas where each line shifts to the right — looks like the angle that a spade might go into the ground.

Jan Westwood’s ‘February Walk’ expertly paired with Judith Wozniak’s ‘River Walk’ convey powerful human emotion in response to the natural world.

Still on the subject of nature, I will leave you with this short poem by Neil Beardmore called ‘Kingfisher’: 

     Out of the river bank’s

     black hole of history

     the kingfisher swipes

 

     its translucent blur

     along the river’s mind’s eye.

 

     Ouse Blue.

 

Can Spring be Far Behind? Vole spring anthology 2025, ed. Janice Dempsey, Vole Books, £10