Latest Poem
- Plainsong at Easter
We chant, because a dead man starts to breathe –
His tomb is filled with echoes, filled with awe,
And we – wide-eyed like saints on parchment leaves,
We’ll sing this day beyond the doubting shore.
There’s patience in our song, in silence too –
We kneel in licks of shadow and of light –
Whatever candles bring – the end is true –
His triumph at the edge of death and night;
Though cities burn, one city shall remain,
Though many crosses gather around the one
His universe will summon every name,
And all shall rise when time and dark are done;
Let’s sing until the risen God has heard –
To make new Earth and Heaven, with one word.First published in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Part of a sequence, Eight Sonnets for Compline; nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Gary Bills was born at Wordsley, near Stourbridge. He took his first degree at Durham University, where he studied English, and he has subsequently worked as a journalist. He is currently the fiction editor for Poetry on the Lake, and he recently gained his MA in Creative Writing at BCU, with distinction.
He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his post-modernist epic poem, Bredbeddle’s Well, which was published in Lothlorien in 2022. In 2024, he was also nominated for his sequence, Eight Sonnets for Compline.
Gary’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Magma, HQ and Acumen, and he has had three full collections published: The Echo and the Breath (Peterloo Poets, 2001); The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart(bluechrome, 2003); and Laws for Honey (erbacce-press 2020). In 2005, he edited The Review of Contemporary Poetryfor bluechrome.
His work has been translated into German, Romanian and Italian. A U.S.-based indie publisher took on his first novel, A Letter for Alice in 2019, and a collection of stories, Bizarre Fables, in 2021. These were illustrated by his wife, Heather E. Geddes. His second novel, Sleep not my Wanton, came out in January 2022.
Other recent poems