Carmen et Error 16.5

Dear Readers,

We have a gorgeous issue for you today, selected by our summer guest editor, Ilisha Thiru Purcell. It was wonderful working with Ilisha and seeing what she chose, so I hope you enjoy the issue as much as we do.

Before we get to that just a few things. First of all we have three new microchapbooks for sale in The Braag’s shop. Each of these is handmade and limited in number.

Lavender Hill by Lauren Thomas looks unflinchingly at the natural world and the darker side of female experience. Here the rural landscape is touched with subtle threat, both beautiful and disturbing. Deftly and lyrically written it moves between kingfishers and roadkill, snares and grief, asking us to ‘contemplate our wastes, our brevity’.

Little Book O’ Moss by Corinna Board is a bright glimpse into the miniature world of moss. Multi-vocal and full of green whisperings, we find tales of deep time and mossy resistance, springing up from found texts and studies of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. It digs its roots deep into ecology and botany, with a lyric precision. Here is a portrait of one of our most important and overlooked plants.

Possession by Stevie Ronnie is a single poem that runs the length of the chapbook, in fragmented couplets that speak to love and desire, it charts the ways in which we can posess another person or be possessed by them. Posession overflows with rich language, simultaneously intense and delicate, marked with want.

If you’d like to see your book advertised here someday, our submissions for Braag books remain open until the end of the month. Please read the guidelines carefully, taking note of the requirements, and hexes.

That’s all from me. Just remember: books are social creatures, and its inhumane to keep them in small groups. Herds of ten thousand or more are reccomended by most Library-Veternarians.

Kym
Carmen et Error
The Braag CIC

Portrait of Ross in LA, 1991
by Tallulah Howarth

Take one.
Take as many as you like. 
Techni colour slump of a man. 
Cellophane like T-cells. 
Candy avalanche hugging 
the corner of the room.
He diminishes slowly, through 
a series of awkward takings.
This wary lean towards the taking. 
Unwrapping. Consuming.
That contagious caution that 
the medics had – hazmats, 
latex gloves, masks. 
The same caution you approach him with
when you are told that, for once,
you can touch the art.

To the body in flux
by Kate Leah Hewett

February’s sneaky twigs act
as though nothing is going on,
all the while harbouring
neon leaves ready
to burst forward like TA DAA!
You send and receive
your surprising postcards.
The knot on your stitches
is a spider in the bath
startling the palm
as it brushes.

SPRING FILLS IN THE BLANKS  
by Aimee Lowenstern

The snow looked like _____
and ______. The sky
looked the same. Clouds
_____ed around the elbows
and knees of the mountains,
their _____ed and ashy points
_____ing over the sweaty
cellulite of the lake,
their bodies bluer
and colder than a _____
body, the water flutterish
as a heart before the _____scape
_____s it. Even _____, it is
alive. Or I am alive, wondrously
alive. Everything (______!)
is either alive
or filled with life, as a
_____ body is filled with some
disco-ball ____s of light
making a party of _____.

i’m dreaming of the sun
by Jonathan Kinsman

and i’m on my back in the long grass again / august dying over us in a nuclear sunset / all my worst dreams are orange / the radiation glow of granny’s fireplace / playing chicken in the second degree / and you’re rising up against the sky / a whole planet / a star collapsing / bending the light about you / a burning halo / when i was six / someone turned off the sun for a hundred and forty-three seconds / all of us scurrying / panicked ants beneath a magnifying glass / eyes dissolving / brimstone on the retina / and shrieking / THE SUN / THE SUN / THE SUN / i know now it was you / with authority from on high / the british astronomical association promised me /it would never be that dark again / not in my lifetime / and the bmj said / we made it out unscathed / but you’re here / in the night / singing paraffin / and so fucking bright / i can’t stop staring

Tallulah Howarth is a multidisciplinary creative and the Co-ordinator of the Writing Squad. They are particularly passionate about Polish jazz, foraging and archives. She was highly commended in the 2024 Hammond House International Literary Prize, and placed second in the 2025 Red Shed Poetry Competition. Last year, she took part in the international ReWrite residency, a literary collaboration between Denmark and the UK. Her debut pamphlet, An Alternative Xanadu, came out in April 2026 with Ossa Prints – in which the square foot measurement of each room in her house dictates the word count for each poem in the sequence.

Kate Leah Hewett (she/her) is a poet, writer, cultural worker, gardener and occasional DJ. She lives on the edge of the Peak District with her wife and daughter. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Ink Sweat & Tears, Queerlings, One Hand Clapping, Sinister Wisdom, Yes, Poetry and elsewhere. She has performed in Yorkshire, New York and on Basilica SoundScape’s Poet Trolley, and has collaborated with musicians including Harkin and Tim Mislock. Hire her to DJ your gay wedding at https://www.handmirror.online

Aimee Lowenstern (she/her) is a twenty seven year old poet living in Nevada. She has cerebral palsy, a pulse, and a pen. Her work can be found in several literary journals, including MEMEZINE and Exist Otherwise.

Jonathan Kinsman (he/him) is a trans poet living near Hope (which is a real place, in Derbyshire). His debut collection, The Fireman’s Daughter, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2023. Catch him finding new and weird hills to die on (philosophically, and in the Peak District) @manykinsmen.

Issue 16.0 was guest edited by Ilisha Thiru Purcell. Ilisha Thiru Pucell is an award-winning Sri Lankan-Scottish poet from Newcastle upon Tyne. She was part of the inaugural Poets of Colour Incubator Programme and has been a Young Creative Associate with New Writing North. Ilisha was shortlisted for the James Berry Prize 2024 and she was a Poet in Residence at the 2025 StAnza Poetry Festival. Her work has appeared in publications such as Bi+ Lines Anthology, Butcher’s Dog, and Under the Radar. Her debut pamphlet What She Said was published in 2025 by Verve Poetry Press. @ilishadoespoetry