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Steve Whitaker
Features Writer
@stevewhitaker1.bsky.social
P.ublished 8th August 2026
arts

Poem Of The Week: The Pheasant By Ali Lewis

The Pheasant

breaking cover -

its fluster of browns
and greys
like the unpainted sides
of piano keys
you only see
when it's played.


Ali Lewis' poems often reside on the margin of suggestion. That, in 'The Pheasant', he appears to have achingly little to say need not obscure the vista of meaning that his threadbare, but steadily observed, lines open on to.

For here, the unfocussed bluster of a bird as it explodes into the day - its colours meld in the cacophony - yields to a vague resemblance of piano keys whose concealed colours are revealed only at point of application.

Resolving a single image into the limitless human possibility of music and creativity, Lewis invests a natural phenomenon with renewed anticipatory, vigour.


'The Pheasant' is taken from Absence and is published by Cheerio Publishing (2024)

More information here.

Also by Steve Whitaker...
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Poem Of The Week: Heredity By Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
Poem Of The Week: The Old Pantry By Peter Scupham (1933-2022)
Review: There's No 'F' In Wonderful By Bill Broady
The shortened address for this article is: newspub.uk/020fq
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