Patricia Piccinini, Doubting Thomas, 2008. Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, chair, 100 x 53 x 90 cm. McClelland, Langwarrin, Australia. Photo by Mark Ashkanasy.
‘Reach out your hand and put it in my side’ moved at hearing of Thomas’s act – that extraordinary moment its intimacy, the invitation to trust and touch, imagination travels to the theatre with gowned and masked figures bent in concentration over human souls prone, delivered to the knife the testing, probing fingers both intimate and distant in their sides.
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Chris Ringrose is a poet and fiction writer living in Melbourne, Australia. His latest poetry collection is Palmistry (ICoE Press, 2019). Creative Lives, a collection of interviews with South Asian Writers, was published by Columbia UP in 2021.
Do you ever gaze upon the ocean and fall quiet, struck by its vastness, by the way it stretches beyond sight, yet answers to a shoreline?
A body so immense, it feels eternal, yet born of a Presence that called it into being.
It remembers beginnings. It foreshadows endings.
It has claimed ships and carried them home. It has held both storm and stillness in the same breath.
And I wonder, what kind of God writes himself into water and wind, into tide and undertow, into depths no eye can measure?
Somehow, I find myself in its rhythm, my thoughts rising and retreating like waves surrendering to an unseen hand.
In its ceaseless motion, I learn submission. In its return to shore, I glimpse grace.
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Buki is an emerging poet exploring love, grief, identity, and the quiet thresholds of becoming, shaped by her life across Nigeria, the UK, and the USA. Having only recently begun writing, she uses restrained language and intimate imagery to trace the spaces between fear and tenderness. Her work has been published in Wingless Dreamer and is shared on Instagram and Substack.
Mary Twomey, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man. Silk aquatint, monotype, collagraph, drawing, 25.4 x 53.34 cm. Private collection.
If you’re a poet who has ever found yourself drawn to the figure of Jesus of Nazareth – whether in faith, doubt, curiosity, or outright resistance – Wayfare magazine has a contest with your name on it.
The inaugural ‘Behold the Man!’ poetry contest is open now, with submissions accepted until 29March 2026 (Palm Sunday, fittingly). The prize pool is generous, with honorable mentions also published in Wayfare.
What makes this contest particularly interesting is the scope of the invitation itself. Wayfare is explicitly seeking poems from any faith tradition – or none. The subject is Jesus of Nazareth, but the angle of approach is entirely yours. Skeptic, believer, agnostic, curious outsider – all are welcome, provided the poem engages its subject with freshness and genuine thought rather than settling for easy praise or easy dismissal.
The reference poems cited in the contest announcement give a sense of the range they’re after: Gerard Manley Hopkins’s rapturous devotion, Mary Oliver’s tender human sympathy, James Wright’s moral ambiguity, Anne Sexton’s anguished wrestling. These are poems that take a stance, feel something, and refuse to look away. That’s the company this contest wants to keep.
A few practical notes: you may submit up to two poems, each no longer than 50 lines (or 300 words for prose poems). Judging is blind. Simultaneous submissions are fine. Poems must be unpublished and entirely human-written.
Full guidelines and the submission form are available here.
I cursed God and there was nothing. He must be dead.
I never thought he might have been waiting – to see how far I’d go.
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Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years, with his work appearing in a wide array of literary magazines and websites – many now vanished, and a few, such as Ink Sweat & Tears and Poetry Scotland, still holding their ground. For a decade, he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies before settling into a quieter life in Scotland with his wife and, when it suits her, the neighbour’s cat. He – i.e., Jim, not the cat – is the author of two poetry collections, a short story collection, and four novels.
Roots coil beneath the soil, veins of the earth pulsing with quiet grace. Rain seeps, soft as mercy, through clay and stone, and the green shoots respond like hymns that never end. I walk among cedars, hands brushing bark, fingering the faith written in rings of patience. God is here, in fibre and leaf, in the slow breathing of the world, in every shadow and shaft of light.
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Khayelihle Benghu lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, and has been writing since 2008. Alongside her writing, she nurtures a deep love for photography, with a particular focus on the natural world.
In my head was an ocean of thoughts, And monologues of indistinct voices Floating, trying not to drown
In my depths of silence. Faceless entities broke through my mouth And spoke to the wall with my eyes closed.
But no sleep— just teleportation Through nostalgia’s portal. No amount of noise was enough
To pull my eyes back to life. I hoped to doze off and dive Into the waves of my mind
In the light’s absence. Here, The darkness was the screen Framing the invisible
Like a monochrome photograph. So, I swiftly clapped and clasped My hands to trap the elusive entities.
In poetry’s mystical conjuring. I hoped to wake in a dream Where my mind becomes a small room
Peopled with voices urging me To keep going, without showing me The way. Sometimes, I listen
To dying whispers Singing life into my ears. Like Milton, dark is the sight I wield
In the socket of my skull, but not My foresight of the road ahead. Sometimes, I feel like a seer
Who has seen it all, but To what end? Through this tunnel I go, making the narrow path
My only map in and out Of my hallucination, because I must chase this shadow.
I keep running after this tail of mine That leads my head In a soothing cycle of trance.
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Tukur Ridwan is a Nigerian writer and the author of three poetry chapbooks. He serves as a poetry mentor with the SprinNG Writing Fellowship, and, in March 2018, he won the Brigitte Poirson Monthly Poetry Prize. His work has appeared in publications such as Aké Review, Poetry Potion, Coalition Works, Stripes, Engendered, Afrocritik, and ArtisansQuill, among others.
Fasterfaster even faster Fly the wheels of industry – turningturning Hurry hurry keep moving never stopping All is synchronization regimentation
We the workers cannot stop The machines ever smarter ever smarter swallow us Faster faster ever faster humming like insects The machines talk to each other, a frenzied tune
We workers cannot sing sweet songs anymore Our music is crushed like grapes by the sharp blades Of the machines that command that control us
Only the whispers of a few old men resound in these Haunted halls -- muttering bbbbbbbbb ggggggggg Endlessly screeching tzzjxzprtz! myzzxltwz! unintelligible Lamentations – for the dead.
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Norma Felsenthal Gerber is an educator, journalist, and photographer whose work spans literature, public affairs, and the visual arts.
Gods are like clouds, rain, rainbows; you can see &feel but can’t touch God chatting in the forest, among the trees, God is justice, not books Light shines, out in the darkness The subconscious energy guides your body The void within you drives you to express. You have given life to me, you have given joy to me You gave what was behind me You will give what’s ahead of me Her ways are many, her ways are mysterious Her interpretations are many, her meaning is one She’s an editor, changes my manuscript Holding your voice deep within Filling with feelings of pleasure to treasure There’s a certain slant of light, there’s a certain slant of sight Thanks to the morn, thanks to the noon Thanks to the flower, thanks to the valley This blessed life, this blessed grace To act, to find, to feel, to live Poems are written by bores like me But only God’s grace showers freely
Paul Mitchell, High Spirits. Puncher & Wattmann, 2024.
In an era when poetry often retreats into obscurity or dissolves into mere confession, Paul Mitchell‘s High Spirits offers something refreshingly different. Reviewed by Jason Goroncy in TEXT Journal, this collection demonstrates how poetry can be both deeply personal and universally resonant, spiritually grounded yet artistically sophisticated.
Mitchell’s work achieves a delicate balance where the spiritual illuminates the mundane without overwhelming it, where the sacred emerges from careful attention to the world as it is. His poems capture the texture of daily life – family dynamics, the rituals of domestic existence, even conversations about Bunnings that blend seamlessly with apocalyptic imagery – while extending beyond the personal to encompass broader cultural and environmental concerns.
One thing that distinguishes this collection is Mitchell’s conversational tone that feels like overheard conversations with a particularly thoughtful friend – accessible without being casual, profound without being pretentious. Whether satirising Australian suburban masculinity in ‘Weekend Warriors of the Apocalypse’ or writing an epistolary meditation to Franz Kafka, Mitchell demonstrates remarkable range and wit.
The collection’s fundamental conviction is that the world is enough – not through complacency, but through hard-won wisdom. Mitchell’s terrific humour never cheapens the gravity of human experience but illuminates it from unexpected angles, finding epiphanies of grace amid chaos.
In a cultural moment characterized by cynicism and fragmentation, High Spirits suggests that careful attention to the ordinary might reveal it to be, if not perfect, then sufficient – and perhaps, in its sufficiency, sacred.
Art/s and Theology Australia 