Lovely to have a first review of A Little Bridge on Write Out Loud! And written by one of my favorite poets, Jenny McRobert.
A Little Bridge: Alex Josephy, Pindrop Press
by Jenny McRobert
Friday 21st August 2026 11:21 am
Alex Josephy lives and writes in East Sussex and Italy. She has worked as a UK state schoolteacher and university lecturer and as an NHS education adviser. Her published collections include Other Blackbirds (Cinnamon Press, pamphlet 2016), White Roads (Paekakariki Press, 2018), Naked Since Faversham(Pindrop Press, 2020) and Again Behold the Stars (Cinnamon Press pamphlet award winner, 2023). Her poems have won the McLellan and Battered Moons prizes, been placed in Troubadour and Hippocrates prizes, and have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies.
A Little Bridge begins with a quotation: "The poem is a bridge, extending across time and encompassing all horizons", from the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani. Josephy's poetry is subtly complex, moving between people, places, and most skilfully exposing the human need to connect. Its keenly observed images and sumptuous language make it a compelling read. In this third collection, the poet continues her love affair with her dual life in the UK and Italy; the latter's Befana Witch images, its wild boars and badgers wandering through cobbled streets, its characters. The elegant title poem in the first section, 'Passerella' (literally, a small footbridge), sets the tone as the physical description of a fragile footbridge becomes something deeper:
not much more than whim, a grip between one slope and other ...
... every pace is a little bridge.
little by little, it could fall into the dried-out ditch
or pass into disuse, past repair, difficult to find
among overgrown reed, barely spanning the pass
between a hope and a memory of water
A striking poem about the ever more frequent earthquakes in Italy and their effect is 'Frammenti', with its concrete layout displaying fragments of people’s shattered lives. Also, the last stanza of the poem 'Afterlife':
in a broken gutter; lush red fruit
spills in the road. A wall
is half-rendered. Everything
is perhaps. Perhaps it always was.
Two poems about Italian culture and superstitions stand out: in 'Why the Merlo Sings', a neighbour keeps a blackbird in a cage:
it frets, like when a woman on the bus
rolls out her troubles to a friend
across the aisle
and in 'Precautions', the belief that the copo d’aria wind causes ailments:
Keep your soft neck under wraps:
This is the treasure every breeze
yearns to ransack.
In the second section, A London Bridge, the poem 'Fern' transports us back to the UK and the gloom of lockdown in a way that resonates with all who experienced it:
half uncurled
segments, the shape of little flames
reaching for the window.
This is the boundary of our days
the fern and me, this room, its view
A home haircut becomes a tender moment in the poem 'I cut your hair'. We experience London life with the poem 'Yoda, outside the National Gallery', and the sadness of 'Witness'; the "cleansing" of an old house:
Blistered layers of wallpaper
printed with bows
and blossom wreaths
fall open in the rain.
A roll of threadbare carpet
unspools like a tongue.
The third section, Easement, takes us on a journey through habitats and wildlife, with some beautiful images as in 'Leaf Life':
Leaflet after leaflet they spread gossip
shush one against another
in tremblebreeze or sway
shaken hammocks scattering rain
'Robert Hook Considers his Discovery' is a clever and original poem about the naming of cells with these arresting images:
Oh, these smallest purses,
rich beyond all expectation,
true as the store-chambers of bees
or music in the silence of a nunnery.
In the final section, Portals, there is an unexpected revisiting of childhood. We see with clarity how the past and present join seamlessly together, the one informing the other. In 'Ghost of a Volcano', like a preview of what is to come, the child plays with a pumice stone in the bath, eschewing other toys, fascinated by its race to "burst through the surface/ again and again".
This brings us back to the earlier earthquake poems that are so relevant right now, but in childhood there is no fear for what the future may hold, no concept of death.
One day, he thinks, I’ll sneak it out,
my small grey traveller,
hide it in a pocket.
Hold it to my ear, like a shell,
listen for a firestorm
or a phoenix
In the poignant final poem, 'Call her Hope', the poet writes about the precarious future of our children, with great sensitivity:
Child of the child my child
decided not to have
if you have lullabies
and a bedroom window
I’ll send you a song that carries fox calls
and the soft wings of an owl
gliding down a valley ...
... If you have a swimsuit
hopscotch a skipping rope
I’ll float you a fin I stole from a flying fish
so you can know
when the seas were still alive
how they took the air.
This vibrant collection encourages us to savour each moment, each stage of our lives, laid out by a poet with great heart and skill.
Alex Josephy, A Little Bridge, Pindrop Press, £12
Jenny McRobert is a poet living in Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in The North, The Rialto, Under the Radar, and online magazines The Ghost Furniture Catalogue, The High Window, and Ink Sweat & Tears. She won the Kathryn Bevis Prize 2024 and the Welsh Poetry Competition 2023. Her debut collection is Silver Samovar, The High Window Press (2021). She is a founding member of Winchester Muse, a hybrid monthly poetry platform with a local, national and international presence
A Little Bridge: Alex Josephy, Pindrop Press
by Jenny McRobert
Friday 21st August 2026 11:21 am
Alex Josephy lives and writes in East Sussex and Italy. She has worked as a UK state schoolteacher and university lecturer and as an NHS education adviser. Her published collections include Other Blackbirds (Cinnamon Press, pamphlet 2016), White Roads (Paekakariki Press, 2018), Naked Since Faversham(Pindrop Press, 2020) and Again Behold the Stars (Cinnamon Press pamphlet award winner, 2023). Her poems have won the McLellan and Battered Moons prizes, been placed in Troubadour and Hippocrates prizes, and have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies.
A Little Bridge begins with a quotation: "The poem is a bridge, extending across time and encompassing all horizons", from the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani. Josephy's poetry is subtly complex, moving between people, places, and most skilfully exposing the human need to connect. Its keenly observed images and sumptuous language make it a compelling read. In this third collection, the poet continues her love affair with her dual life in the UK and Italy; the latter's Befana Witch images, its wild boars and badgers wandering through cobbled streets, its characters. The elegant title poem in the first section, 'Passerella' (literally, a small footbridge), sets the tone as the physical description of a fragile footbridge becomes something deeper:
not much more than whim, a grip between one slope and other ...
... every pace is a little bridge.
little by little, it could fall into the dried-out ditch
or pass into disuse, past repair, difficult to find
among overgrown reed, barely spanning the pass
between a hope and a memory of water
A striking poem about the ever more frequent earthquakes in Italy and their effect is 'Frammenti', with its concrete layout displaying fragments of people’s shattered lives. Also, the last stanza of the poem 'Afterlife':
in a broken gutter; lush red fruit
spills in the road. A wall
is half-rendered. Everything
is perhaps. Perhaps it always was.
Two poems about Italian culture and superstitions stand out: in 'Why the Merlo Sings', a neighbour keeps a blackbird in a cage:
it frets, like when a woman on the bus
rolls out her troubles to a friend
across the aisle
and in 'Precautions', the belief that the copo d’aria wind causes ailments:
Keep your soft neck under wraps:
This is the treasure every breeze
yearns to ransack.
In the second section, A London Bridge, the poem 'Fern' transports us back to the UK and the gloom of lockdown in a way that resonates with all who experienced it:
half uncurled
segments, the shape of little flames
reaching for the window.
This is the boundary of our days
the fern and me, this room, its view
A home haircut becomes a tender moment in the poem 'I cut your hair'. We experience London life with the poem 'Yoda, outside the National Gallery', and the sadness of 'Witness'; the "cleansing" of an old house:
Blistered layers of wallpaper
printed with bows
and blossom wreaths
fall open in the rain.
A roll of threadbare carpet
unspools like a tongue.
The third section, Easement, takes us on a journey through habitats and wildlife, with some beautiful images as in 'Leaf Life':
Leaflet after leaflet they spread gossip
shush one against another
in tremblebreeze or sway
shaken hammocks scattering rain
'Robert Hook Considers his Discovery' is a clever and original poem about the naming of cells with these arresting images:
Oh, these smallest purses,
rich beyond all expectation,
true as the store-chambers of bees
or music in the silence of a nunnery.
In the final section, Portals, there is an unexpected revisiting of childhood. We see with clarity how the past and present join seamlessly together, the one informing the other. In 'Ghost of a Volcano', like a preview of what is to come, the child plays with a pumice stone in the bath, eschewing other toys, fascinated by its race to "burst through the surface/ again and again".
This brings us back to the earlier earthquake poems that are so relevant right now, but in childhood there is no fear for what the future may hold, no concept of death.
One day, he thinks, I’ll sneak it out,
my small grey traveller,
hide it in a pocket.
Hold it to my ear, like a shell,
listen for a firestorm
or a phoenix
In the poignant final poem, 'Call her Hope', the poet writes about the precarious future of our children, with great sensitivity:
Child of the child my child
decided not to have
if you have lullabies
and a bedroom window
I’ll send you a song that carries fox calls
and the soft wings of an owl
gliding down a valley ...
... If you have a swimsuit
hopscotch a skipping rope
I’ll float you a fin I stole from a flying fish
so you can know
when the seas were still alive
how they took the air.
This vibrant collection encourages us to savour each moment, each stage of our lives, laid out by a poet with great heart and skill.
Alex Josephy, A Little Bridge, Pindrop Press, £12
Jenny McRobert is a poet living in Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in The North, The Rialto, Under the Radar, and online magazines The Ghost Furniture Catalogue, The High Window, and Ink Sweat & Tears. She won the Kathryn Bevis Prize 2024 and the Welsh Poetry Competition 2023. Her debut collection is Silver Samovar, The High Window Press (2021). She is a founding member of Winchester Muse, a hybrid monthly poetry platform with a local, national and international presence
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