This book contains the winning and commended poems from the VERVE Poetry Festival 2023 competition on the theme of PROTEST judged, selected and introduced by Kim Moore

The poems in this volume are poems so ‘full of heat and light that it feels sometimes that they might burst into flame and burn everything around them. There are poems of anger, but also poems full of love, full of vulnerability, poems rooted in the body, poems that draw together social, political and the inevitable, feel timeless … To write a poem of protest is also to write a poem of hope, because if we didn’t have hope, we wouldn’t protest … I hope you enjoy reading this anthology – and keep writing, and keep protesting.’

– Kim Moore in her introduction.