Oz Hardwick
Winter 2026 | Poetry
Fossicking
Mudlarks dip and pluck out traces of who we were before. There are strata of potsherds, from clumsy clay beakers to fine china ornaments, each bright as they are broken, and coins with queens and emperors from lands of merchandise and myth. Then, there are the apotropaic tokens, lead and silver likenesses of saints and sexual organs which both gain and lose precise signification as they are lifted once more to the light of day. Unable to resist such bounty, I wade into the silt and reach down into our shared history and draw out a child from around 500 BCE, leather-skinned and perfectly preserved. The tight thong at his throat speaks of sacrifice, but he bears no one ill will. He looks at the light on the river, the ducks paddling by, the boats bobbing at the simple jetty, and he smiles.
Oz Hardwick is a widely-published, award-winning prose poet living in the north of England. His most recent collection is the chapbook Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2024). He has an inexplicable and frankly unbecoming enthusiasm for space rock, and his spoken contributions can be heard on albums by Space Druids, Incubus Lovechild, and Otherworld. Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University.