Amethyst Review

Please join Editor Sarah for online writing hours and writing workshops via Zoom! NEW SESSIONS FOR SPRING/SUMMER 2026

Generative Online Writing Workshops on Tuesdays (new block starts Tuesday June 16 2026) 6-7pm UK time. £25 (plus registration provider fee) for each block of 5 sessions.

Join Editor Sarah online for a weekly hour’s generative writing worshop! Each Tuesday session will have a theme with a connection to writing and the sacred. We will look at poems, extracts from fiction and creative nonfiction (usually 2 examples per session), and there will be time for writing in response to prompts.

There will be the opportunity to read from your own writing, if wished. This is a generative workshop rather than a place for extensive critique, so you should find it supportive, friendly, and, hopefully, creatively inspiring. We have a focus on spirituality and the sacred, but welcome a varied and generous response.

The sessions are not recorded, but the handout of texts and prompts will be emailed to all who have registered after each session.

Register Here

Provisional themes for our next block are as follows:

June 16th Voices

June 23rd Dreams

June 30th Birds

July 7th Patterns

July 14th Grace

If you’d like to know more, see a handout from a previous session, or try out a single workshop, please contact editor Sarah at editor@amethytmagazine.org

Epiphany on a Day in June
After “Love, your waters, your melodies,” by Rumi (translated by Haleh Liza Gafori)

Love of summer brought us here: 
Your swift feet led us where 
waters meet in the meadow.
 
Your voices, your laughter
—melodies—
whirl. They swarm
me, like mayflies  
and minnows,  
whirl all through  
me, like my breath.
 
I’m almost dizzy with
the joy that drifts like a 
wheel of cottonwood seeds 
in the breeze,
a scattering from nature’s   
mill. And as we race in a
whirl over the grass—you two, 
me—I glimpse this day shining   
forever.

Laura Hannett’s poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Ink Nest Literary Journal, Willows Wept Review, Abandoned Mine, Macrame Literary Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal and The Bluebird Word, among others. Her work can also be found in several anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry’s Winter & Holiday Anthology, Vol. 6 and Go, The Prayer Has Been Sent: Poems for Christmas (Orenaug Mountain Publishing). Her micro-chapbook, Little Songs Brought in From Outside, was published by Origami Poems Project. She carries on the quest for the right words in Central New York.

The Ninth Lesson
(The Gospel of St. John 1:1-14)

What is it in these words 
that brushes centuries of science 
aside, to reach the heart?
How does St John’s ‘true Light’,
sustained through distance, 
changing tongues, and years
of tarnishing by priest and prince,
trump our Enlightenment?

It’s safe, familiar: virgin birth, 
the forty days of wilderness, 
the water into wine, King James’s 
scholars’ pace and poetry. 
We heard it in our childhood choirs 
and hear its echoes everywhere
in poems, politics, TV; 
it may be coded in our genes.

But take away the magical
and listen closely: safety disappears. 
We’re on the edge, unconfident 
of what we knew, our candle almost 
cancelled by a darkness glimpsed 
but too complete to comprehend; 
a darkness we’re compelled, 
and afraid, to explore.

Phil Vernon lives in Kent. He returned to the UK in 2004 after spending two decades in different parts of Africa. He recently retired after many years in the international humanitarian and peacebuilding field. His version of the mediaeval hymn Stabat Mater with music by Nicola Burnett Smith has been performed internationally. His most recent publications were Foreshadowing, a micro-pamphlet based on the life of Martin Luther (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2024), and his third full collection Guerrilla Country (Flight of the Dragonfly Press, 2024), which brought together his interest in landscape, peace and conflict. www.philvernon.net

The Candle

I’ll leave the candle on tonight,

Don’t quite know why. I think the light

Would comfort me, though why I need

Such comforting I’ll not concede.

I’ll tell myself it’s atmosphere,

But needing that is just as drear

As needing comfort. So I’ll flout

My need at large and blow it out.

Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, Amethyst Review, America Magazine, Pensive Journal, Forma Journal, and The Society of Classical Poets. He is a certified catechist with the Archdiocese of New York, a Benedictine oblate of St. Mary’s Abbey in Morristown, NJ, and editor of The Catholic Poetry Room.

My Horse and Her Rider

When I went out to my shade garden
to sit under the trees with my journal,
Jesus came to me,
sitting tall in the saddle,
inviting me with his quiet eyes

to trust my voice enough to ride.
I didn’t know why he came
on horseback, only that it was time
to climb up and wrap my arms around him.

When we gallop, I can’t see
where I’m going,
I don’t hold the reins,
I can’t control the speed.

But together we ride
the wind in me,
leading me into
all I am made for.

Michelle Wiegers is a poet from Maine and author of the forthcoming memoir, Wildness Within. Her poetry has appeared in The Wonder of Small Things, How to Love the World, The Path to Kindness, One Art, The Wayfarer, Third Wednesday and Birchsong, among others. In her new podcast, Creating Space, she shares poetry and stories from her life to inspire listeners to free their authentic and creative selves. Find her online at michellewiegers.com

Worship Sails


Learning to play worship songs
on my tongue drum
is feeding my cheesecloth soul,
knotted tension and angst.
 
Is this what joy tastes like?

Wildflower honey dapples the numbers
tensed along the grooves of the turquoise drum,
now transformed as ancient ships
firmly sailing turbulent waters.

I don my sailor’s cap
and play on.
 

Becky Parker is an award-winning writer from Tennessee who loves glamping with her husband. She is the founder of Briar Haus Writes.

Embodied Prayer


Muscle memory propels my morning rituals
and routines. I don’t have to think
as I sleepily hustle and bustle—

letting my dog out, brewing coffee,
dispensing pills. The animals’ bodies
move automatically too.

My dog gently thumps her tail
in anticipation when she sees the flash
of her stainless steel bowl in the sun.

The cats tussle and tumble with gusto
when I fuss with their meals—
they know the wonder of breakfast is near.

We’ve repeated our morning rituals so often
they’ve become embodied prayers.
We’re filled with joy. We’ll trust this day. 

We give thanks for the gifts 
of good food and good health.
Such abundance. Such luck. Such love. 

Sheila Wellehan’s poetry is featured in On the Seawall, ONE ART, Maine Public Radio’s Poems From Here, Rust & Moth, Thimble Literary Magazine, and many other publications. She served as an assistant poetry editor for The Night Heron Barks and as an associate editor for Ran Off With the Star Bassoon. Sheila lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. You can read her work at www.sheilawellehan.com.

Jerusalem

It feels strange going south; 
dust and divots 
   punctuate the road
   like a pocky moon.

Where are we? 
I drive on.

If we abandon our dreams like meccas
   and all you call manna – illusion…

Then which way is Jerusalem?
Maybe nowhere but somewhere east of here;
   I am not sure.

I follow the road to Pipiriki, 
hoping it will flatten, 
admiring the dark green hollow
   that hides a river:
the Whanganui lies exposed.

Once it carried men, wills set on wandering; 
   men of few words.

Jerusalem -- follow the river.
Here lived a man of several words
   poet, rascal, friend of priests.

I remember being shown pages bible-thin 
   words spent in a night of readings and laughter.
   gone now, remote and hidden 
      like a landing in the overgrown bush.
 
Tamed, the poet’s words rise as prayer:   
   ‘Heaven is with us when you are with us…’
I will go no further today
   but pause to retrieve a stone, gray
      to prop by the cottage door.

My son wants to go to the Four Square, 
   not Jerusalem after all.
So we turn before the water rises 
   and slip upstream, 
   gathering supplies for a voyage to come.           

Nell Starr is a poet and priest in New Zealand, trained at Iowa (MA) and Duke (MDiv). She writes poems and prayers, and while in Iowa City, helped Windhover Press print poetry by hand, a letter and word at a time.

Let 
	after “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon 
 
Let the morning sky be a prayer,  	
clouds dappled peach and purple. 
 
Let memories of a loving marriage  	
be a prayer for our children. 
 
Let strong faith and hope for the future  	
be praise, a forever prayer. 
 
To the poem that sings, the world that turns,  	
let there be prayer. 
 
Let the blooms of dogwood and redbud  	
be a prayer of promise. 
 

Patricia A. Joslin is a poet living in Charlotte, North Carolina. She writes about music, memory, and the magic of life in later years. Her first collection, I’ll Buy Flowers Again Tomorrow was published in 2023 as “literary therapy” following the death of her husband. A second collection, No Packing Necessary, Poems for the Solo Journey is forthcoming from Main Street Rag. Poems have appeared in a variety of publications. Patricia travels widely, often alone, seeking immersive experiences that inspire her poetry. She believes that every stage of life holds its own magic. Online: patriciajoslin.com