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21 April 2026

Posted by Harley Truslove

The Big Blue Sea

Ali got our writers to have a read of some sea-themed poems and vote on their favourite (for instance, By the Sea by Emily Dickinson and Honeymoon at Weybourne by Luke Wright). Going off of those examples, we had a think about some oceanic words, such as:


  • sharks

  • shoals

  • trench

  • submarine

  • tide

  • surf

  • squid

  • salt

  • fossil

  • cold

  • seaweed

  • bubble


And loads more! Ali then asked our writers to use this list in order to write a sea poem themselves, as this was something they could put forward to be published in Brevity. Our writers, contrary to their usual MO, were asked to try and be serious in their work; we had some lovely poems about mourning lost lovers and narratives from a sunken ship’s point of view. 


Given that no entry to Brevity can be more than 500 words, Ali had our writers practice being succinct by filling in the middle of a one-page story, where the beginning and end were already completed. Our writer of the week was Katie for both her evocative sea poem and story about a sudden flash flood!

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