Elizabeth Osmond

@bethosmond.bsky.social

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Poet and Neonatologist. Debut pamphlet “Hatchery” published with V. Press - you can buy hatchery here https://vpresspoetry.blogspot.com/p/hatchery.html?m=1 https://linktr.ee/elizabeth.osmond

Reading at Waterstones from Hatchery
Reading from hatchery
A reading from Hatchery
The book of bogs
Belemnite I was pretty disappointed to learn it wasn’t a bullet, But the arse-end of a creature, beautiful parts long dissolved.
Poem about Dads in the NICU
Night Owl We become hushed as if our voices are rustling leaves. Ghostly-blue phototherapy glow Not moonlight. I feel nauseous My wooden legs weigh heavy. I watch the orange sky Kiss the city rooftops. May daughter has a book About an owl afraid of the dark.
Neighbours, after the weighing by Jane Hirschfield Why is she there? Asked my daughter, who should be doing her maths homework but is instead Watching through the window, cradling the cat with a bloody nose. She’s bringing in our bins I say. She’s always don’t it, even though I’ve never asked her to. I want my daughter to learn about mass, as Jane did. Our empty bins, measured, counted, pie charted. Kind acts balance against the rest. Over the wall my neighbour says I don’t think our cats have met So I agree
Reading from Hatchery at the book launch in the hospital
Hatchery
Where it Hurts Anthology from the editor of Intima
#MOTH by Eleanor Holmes
I’m not sure is any other pop stars have been into space Men who blasted six women into space Don’t understand gravity Don’t know how it feels to push Against a boundary Don’t know roots reach down Don’t know the sensation Of being sealed in a capsule A Tupperware lip slurps As it loses its vacuum Song lost in endless blackness Turn to look at earth 🌍
Hatchery books
Loved this- Ship Breakers of Bangladesh
The beautiful collection The Way the Water Held me by Catherine Redford
Poem from archives of disease in childhood, 20 week scan
National poetry competition commended poem
Cover of Hatchery A poetry pamphlet about neonatal care
A beautiful handmade hybrid collection from Eleanor Holmes #moth
A strange little poem about the French supermarkets I enjoyed visiting as a child, wanting to revive my French language again and wishing our country was more connected to mainland Europe Desire poem After Kim Addonizio I want to melt you with my glue gun. I want to purr in tune with your laminator. O LeClerc! O Carrefour! You make me weak at the knees. Even though we broke up, I want to climb your pencil case-laden barricades right to the peak. I want to walk for hours through your isles, fritter my francs until l am spent. That's how devoted I am to you. I want to stroke your moleskin notebook, lift the lids of your brush tip pens, trace them over sheets, trawling streaks of blue. I always coloured inside the lines but now I want to break free. To fill this blank page with vers d'amour for you.
Mandatory e-Learning on Consent A poem about the speculum named after a surgeon who tested it on enslaved women
Corinna Baprd Maedwe
My ten year old daughter asks me why she doesn’t have a skincare routine
After the “mouth” prompt
The tiny nappy
Poem written in chemical element symbols about autism
Poem to the new year- from Blackbough 2024
New notebook!
Elizabeth Osmond is a neonatal consultant , national training advisor and prize winning poet… followed by publication history … her pamphlet Hatchery invites readers into the world of neonatal medicine and is forthcoming with V Press in 2026
Trees in winter sun
Mini fudge When I return from the counselling room It is perched on my keyboard Between the enter key and the number pad Orange and purple, a tiny sunset on a dark slab How it arrived is a mystery, I push away suspicion and Unwrap. We give babies glucose gel for painful procedures In the doctor’s surgery as a child I held a lollipop. Sugar full,cherry sweet Washing away the needle’s sting. The sticky fudge coats my tongue. I smooth out the wrapper and fold it into a tiny fan. Outside my office, footsteps pad down the corridor
Grand round- poetry
Spaced Out Poem from Hog River Press Journal about mothers in the NICU
Cling film Bethany handley
A poem for the today programme
I want to show you the sink
Details of how to order
Jumble It came from a jumble sale Like all my toys
Messages When I was a child there were sweets Shaped like cigarettes
Poem- My friend hit her mum in the face with a mini golf iron
The book of Bogs, Ed Anna Chilvers/ Clare Shaw
Poem about Anti D man as if he were in the Traitors
Thin spells by Kristina Diprose
My cat interested in a strange “bird”
My office Poem from public sector poetry journal
Moon of Jupiter I often wonder why oh why oh why they named you io
RCPCH London
Poem called “the railway children”
Clingfilm by Bethany Handley
Reverse poem about pulmonary hypertension of the newborn
Luskentye Isle of Harris
The fat in the cup in the fridge in January There is so much grey Socks, skies, hairs, pigeons, Fat scooped from a Christmas tray Why did we keep it? To coat potatoes like frosted grass under foot To protect a pipe, to transform what was liquid for the food waste bin Thick grey air at dawn Makes it difficult to see the way I could make a candle Set a wick and light a flame
Cute as a button After my grandmothers button box Curled on the bottom stair After an episode. Wet face, Button box pressed onto my lap. Grey flecked cardboard, Which once held court shoes. Plunge fists into cool Bakelite. A waterfall of buttons, Scooped through fingers Later I will sort them: Olive greens, baby blues, Dove creams and Three weighty silver.
Labour ward in the dead of night Is at first not very different from the day. Under strip lights I pass housekeepers Wheeling their trolleys like flight attendants. We are cruising at 31000 feet And time is as irrelevant as interest rates To a child, until we begin the descent. I come in for arrivals, check my bag Under the ward clerk’s desk. At night There are no teams meetings, I don’t lead ward rounds. I sometimes answer emails but probably shouldn’t. We try to keep our voices hushed, We make toast. I pass a couple Anxiously waiting on plastic chairs Below the hand washing sign.
Poem about my dad’s anorak
St Agnes campsite
Photo of Hell bay from Watch Hill
Picture of My Hummingbird Father and Beast
Once I saw a bushfire Hot air thick with fleeing insects A praying mantis Long limbed, triangular face. I looked into his bulging eyes. Fire can jump a surprising distance, Fizzing and popping. I am afraid of cold air, of water, Of lack of fuel. But the embers are Ruby red in the darkness