Sun Over England from Mexico 2026
Mike Jenkins
16th July, 2026
4am the sun came up
all over England as if in
aftermath of a miscaluated war
men, women and children
stumbled bleary eyed through the day
thinking perhaps:
is this what is was all for?
This light
a certain kind of light
not seen before 50 years hence
when a pint of beer would knock you back
for tenpence.
Beers and beers and
years and years to ferment such a
sweet, dazzling light.
The sun that day rose in our eyes
shone from our skin and
sound of the victory rang in our ears.
This morning
the sun came up again
as it does every day
with a different kind of light
a different kind of play
upon our hearts.
We do know what it’s like
you know?
We’ve always known
that certain kind of togetherness
making us who we are.
The sun still
came up.
It was here at home.
It never left at all
we did
left flesh and bone
in some long burried injury
in some field in Flanders.
The sun came up on a new kind of England
the one that always comes home
to the glow of eachother where
once more we begin
re-made in a new
kind of kin.
I’d call that a win.
You Are Better Than My Pen
A powerful new voice in contemporary verse. From the streets of a Belfast childhood to wandering in Downtown New York, from meditations on life in rural, cathedral-town Sussex to the deep, flowing rivers of desire, this first collection of poetry from Mike Jenkins mixes the numinal with the everyday, the earthy with the spiritual, and the romantic with the carnal.
With stories of hope, love, and happiness in fleeting moments, and pain, longing, and despair in others, these poems are never less than beautiful, honest, and breathtakingly original – sharing the voices of mothers, fathers, lovers, and – at times – of darkness itself. But at the heart of this collection is a simple idea: trying to capture the essence of moments that are sometimes more powerful than the pen.