Jennie Howitt

Jennie Howitt is a writer and performer from Shropshire, currently researching bog poetics. She just completed the MA in Poetic Practice at Royal Holloway, where she was the Royal Holloway Picture Gallery Composer in Residence in 2023. She is currently the judge, creative facilitator, and workshop leader for the Young Poets Network Bog Poetics Challenge in collaboration with Bog Talk. She was a Foyles Young Poet in 2016, long-listed for National Poetry Competition 2019, and highly commended in various Young Poets Network competitions. Jennie’s work has also featured in Poets Choice, Ariel Magazine, Bedford Square Review, Writers Block, Beyond Words magazine, and multiple Young Writers anthologies. She has spoken multiple times on BBC radio about the importance of poetry for young people.

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the spider

is chartering

her line of web

the thinnest string

between

thistle bushes

spanning longer

than a half field

body blended

with the brown prongs

steeped below

overlaying

until she’s crossed

every branch

with her little

spindle body

& when

the wind comes harshly

she falls

unfalls

clawing to a grass strand

& up again she goes

threading legs

spreading far

as a focus

---

bog enters

an ear

shudders into its coils

water holds jolt

transmits it up spine

mud slicks under nail

mounds heave under skin

little dark hairs strand out of a foot

prongs short as a width

blisters layer a heel

a spider crawls on a lip

slips into the mouth

onto sponge tongue

algae mesh

green against black

a slug enters the nose

gets stuck in the sinus

slime slides down the throat

casts the hidden underearth

into depths of the chest

---

foxglove

is a spinal cord inhaling

is a chest stretching open inhaling

is a stack of little lungs inhaling

is gasping with a stinger inhaling

is tinged pink as a mistake inhaling

is a lodging unplucking inhaling

is placed every three paces inhaling

is unmoved by the wind sway inhaling

voice caught inhaling

soundless inhaling

---

bog body

rosacea moss rises

hides the body underneath

which can only be heard

if a stranger is willing

to slowly wade in

under thistle-stack boundary

with a footing sound the voice

unearth ground long untouched

hear a body existing

hear a mouth sprouting up

---

tiny insect in pond

is debris

almost floating

fingers threat ripples

speckle wades

into black

---

moth silhouettes

cling to a curtain

brown paper brittle

still as a nettle

the stranger interrupts

wings shatter into black

the stranger turns over

& exits their sleep

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