The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.
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Nigel Farage has provided a new explanation for why he accepted a £5m gift from a Reform UK donor in the weeks before he announced he would stand in the last general election. In an interview on Thursday, Farage said the money was a “reward” for campaigning for Brexit. Previously, he had said the gift was given for security purposes, to keep him “safe and secure” for the rest of his life. —The Guardian, May 14, 2026
Concerning gifts,
The story shifts:
Security?
A Brexit fee?
Such camouflage
Befits Farage,
Who claimed, when caught,
I can't be bought.
With this much dosh,
His brag is bosh.
It's not a bribe?
Sure has that vibe!
Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.
Back, back we go,
Britain and I,
back to those heady days
when we sat in our studies
gruff and moustachioed
and barked at the children.
Out, out we go,
Britain and I,
out to our verandas
in rakish hat-and-slacks combos
to take pot shots at Johnny Foreigner.
Ruff-ruff-huzzah!
Off, off we go
Britain and I,
to shake hands with petty despots
and trade their spice and silks
for gold, favours
and averted eyes.
So goodbye, Gerhardt,
farewell, François,
and so long, bland, borderless tomorrow.
Hand me my hunting stick, Britain,
and let us stride on
to glory.
Nina Parmenter is a mother to two busy boys. In her spare time, she is a marketing manager. Her poetry has appeared in Light and Lighten up Online, and on her blog, itallrhymes.com. She lives in Wiltshire, UK, and is currently working on her first children’s novel.
Three years on & Brexit
is still hypothetical, defined only
as itself, by itself. Brexit is Brexit.
It has been measured, weighed.
It is no heavier than
the glue on the back of a postage
stamp (and tastes like God save
us all) and it is no lighter than
the shield of Saint George,
built from jingoism & thin plastic
painted to look like bronze;
it is ungraspable: too like itself to hold.
This land inherits division
from itself. Brexit, Brexit, Brexit,
something is chanting in the street,
I am not sure who is speaking
or what they want from me.
Every day thousands of calls
gush into the home office, each
orison: all these years, I’ve been here,
lived here, pay taxes, have loved, even the rain, isn’t that what home is: the sound of your keys dropped in the bowl by the door, I need to know, how much more, please, hold, please, hold, please, please, listen—isn’t the definition of citizen
those who live inside the city?
Even the smog outside us is swollen
with conjecture. Doubt distorts
thought. Every time we attempt
to perceive the word
it loses some part of itself:
look at a thing often enough,
it loses definition, becomes
sharp toothed & meaningless.
Strip the bones off of a ghost
& you are left only with hot air.
Bodiless, it winds around us all—
certain only in its uncertainty.
Freya Jackson is a writer from Leeds. Her poetry has previously been published in places including Magma, Arc Magazine, The Cadaverine and The Interpreters House. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her graphic short story “Joy” in 2016. She is a winner of one of New Writing North’s New North Poets Awards for 2019.
Theresa May has announced that she will resign on June 7, 2019.
The Brexit poisoned chalice
Releases bile and malice
While people, pub to Palace,
Ask what on earth it means.
But now, to add confusion,
With her plan proved mere illusion
May's reign has reached conclusion
So they plot behind the scenes.
Her power in transition
Sees the country facing fission
And has triggered mad ambition
In buffoons and drama queens.
Referendum or election
To stop Britain's vivisection
And its chronic misdirection
As it plays out on our screens?
Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, and edits the verse quarterly Lighten Up Online. His work has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Light, The Asses of Parnassus, TheNewVerse.News, Better Than Starbucks, Parody, Per Contra, and Snakeskin.
Borders are on everyone’s mind these days.
Not just the ones where two-year olds
are stolen from their parents and sent
to courtrooms to plead their cases.
I’m thinking back to how the way one prays
could turn quite deadly if one strolled
down the wrong street, or someone’s accent
might cause them to vanish without traces
of guilt on men wearing soldier’s berets.
I used to live in Derry’s bogside, patrolled
night and day by those who aimed to prevent
our claims to history’s rightful places.
More than most, I know there are multiple ways
for lines to be drawn. Then, as truth unfolds,
we seem surprised at first, before we lament
our decisions. Occasionally, we wonder if grace is
a solid thing we can retrieve. I am amazed
still at our will to oppose treaties to control
our destinies. At first, peace arguments
made us skeptics. We stared at those sad places
where rigid boundaries left us dismayed
and divided, household from household,
and our viewpoints stiffened in dissent.
We fervently believed that no place is
safe except the one that meets our gaze
with like-minded visions. As tales were told,
we often found it necessary to augment
details that would emphasize the basis
for the walls we built. Soon, malaise
transformed us. As barbed wire unrolled
to top our fences and gates, we vented
and raged while men with briefcases
drew up documents filled with clichés
that some judge would use to uphold
our divisions. Eventually, if we went
on this way, we would be locked in stasis,
staring out from colored passageways
of green or orange, martydom tales retold
until it was time for us to invent
new heroes to take up their places.
The Good Friday accord was praised
for pushing back against the grief we hold.
We hoped it would allow us to reinvent
ourselves after the Troubles had disgraced us.
I am not eager to return to those days.
I drive tourists around now. I’ve been long paroled.
Yet, my days on the blanket can still disorient.
My tribal thoughts will fill in bordered spaces.
Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY. Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age will be published by Finishing Line Press in September, 2018.
Donald Tusk has said Theresa May needs to come up with "a better idea" than the EU's controversial plan to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland. The PM has rejected keeping Northern Ireland in the EU's customs area saying this would split the UK in two. But the European Council president said one of the "possible negative consequences" of the kind of Brexit Mrs May wants would be a hard border. The two met in No 10 ahead of a big Brexit speech on Friday by Mrs May. —BBC, February 2, 2018
There’s strength in numbers so we bond,
then disagree and split apart
from those of whom we once were fond.
A hand extends and we respond,
a glance invites a heart-to-heart—
there’s strength in numbers so we bond.
Then, clashing over all we’ve spawned,
we take back Cupid’s stupid dart
from those of whom we once were fond.
Yet, faced with fighting tout le monde,
our breaking up seems not so smart:
there’s strength in numbers—we re-bond.
But squabbles we can’t get beyond
reset our course—we rip the chart
from those of whom we once were fond.
If Fate could wave a magic wand
and right the upset applecart,
for strength in numbers, we’d re-bond
with those of whom we once were fond.
John Beaton, a retired actuary who was born in Scotland, is a widely published poet and spoken word performer from Vancouver Island, Canada.
The UK passport is an expression of our independence and sovereignty—symbolising our citizenship of a proud, great nation. That's why we have announced that the iconic #bluepassport will return after we leave the European Union in 2019.
I’m dreaming of a blue passport
Just like the one I used to know
When border crossing with Britain bossing
A good deal more of the show.
I’m dreaming of a blue passport
With every foreign trip I do.
May, your words are strong and true,
And, May, all your promises are too.
Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, but comes from Herefordshire, and edits the quarterly Lighten Up Online. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web publications such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Better Than Starbucks, Light, The Asses of Parnassus, TheNewVerse.News, Parody, Per Contra, The Rotary Dial, and Snakeskin.
T. M. still PM? Why is this?
The leader Fortune gave a miss
A faded star that’s on the blink,
A stock which now can only sink,
A Premier who’s lost the plot,
Majority and trust, the lot,
But carries on, a headless hen,
Behind the door of Number Ten?
Not hard, perhaps, to read the runes.
The five-watt bulbs and weird buffoons
The Tories muster to compete
To win her hot and thorn-strewn seat
Prefer to leave the Brexit folly
To blow up on some other wally,
And so until that dismal day
We’re stuck with hopeless hapless May.
Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, where he edits the quarterly Lighten Up On Line. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Light, Per Contra, TheNewVerse.News, The Rotary Dial and Snakeskin.
the season of blame has arrived
returning as it often does after great loss
when it does
the earth cracks with fault lines
there are no sunrises no cooling breeze
only the daily scorching
that blinds almost everything
these days will pass
as they have before
when heat’s unholy memory slips away
only to return
even more frightened and angry
Sister Lou Ella Hickman is a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. She was an all level teacher and a librarian. Presently she is a freelance writer and a spiritual director. Her poems and articles have been widely published in numerous magazines. One of her poems was published in the anthology After Shocks: Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo. Her first book of poetry she: robed and wordless, published by Press 53, was released in the fall.
As if no one notices yet. Falling in places, with
Brexit like a planet aligning as the latest. As if
Coincidence is still the most observable. No
Doors for fleers from carnage, no asylums for
Escapers. They’d rather say no and risk Europe’s
Fragmentation than be part of the solution, the
Greatest refugee crisis as if orbiting, our only
Home heating up like the fever of nationalism.
In my country Human Rights will be hanged, extra-
judicial exclusivity for the poor and powerless. We
Keep divining stars as mankind, rising among us
Leaders with iron hands, lifted to power as
Messiahs, Impunity summarily executing, murder
Negating the promised change, whim from
One man the only law. In the land of the free, where
Power is Jupiter, the worst of human nature
Quickly gains followers. In the home of the brave,
Return to a Dark Age cheers a Demagogue. It will
Shock me if, with this planetary pattern, the
Truest Racist won’t be enthroned in November.
Understand – not underestimate – The Cosmic
Verity, Which (or Who) guarantees The Karmic
Whirligig. Mars should perhaps be walled for
Xenophobes, our nostalgia for the strongman rule
Yoked to our willingness, history with the same
Zeal as the Universe granting our careful wishes
Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, The Philippines. A number of his poems have previously appeared on TheNewVerse.News.
As round the Hall of Fame I daily wander,
O shades of PMs past, you too are there
With legacies displayed for all to ponder −
Pitt, Peel, and Gladstone, Lloyd-George, Blair,
Disraeli, Thatcher, Attlee, Baldwin, Brown,
The bright, the dim, the strong or puny’uns –
But none so dire as Cameron, the clown
Who gambled, lost, and risked two unions.
Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Light, Lighten Up Online, which he now edits, TheNewVerse.News, Per Contra, The Rotary Dial and Snakeskin.
A migrant pushes a wheelbarrow in a muddy field at a camp of makeshift shelters called the Grande Synthe jungle, near Calais in February, 2016. Thomson Reuters via Business Insider.
Cally Conan-Davies is a writer who lives by the sea.
