Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.
Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2025: Ghazal: Too full of words
by Matt Barnard
Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2025: Ghazal: Too full of words
The face of the woman weeping on the news is shaped
Like a leaf and her voice is a swollen river, too full of words.
Relatives call out the names of the lost and the unlost
And the world puts its hand over its mouth, too full of words.
Fear suffocates in the basement of a building,
The future spelt out in the ABCs of a news feed, too full of words.
At the assembly, so many people are speaking at once
It is like hearing all the voices of a nation, too full of words.
The lines in books that tell stories of the past
Are overprinted with the new laid on the old, too full of words.
And Matthew – ‘gift of God’ – what is your speech act?
Is poetry enough or are you, too, too full of words?
A special thank you to our WordView 2025 poets.
Hear from some our winners this year on what the Archive and winning has meant to them:
"I feel deeply grateful to be taking part in the chorus of voices honoured by PAN Worldwide 2025. Leonard Cohen famously sang that “every heart to love will come, but like a refugee.” For me, the same might be said of poetry. I came to the writing of it late, and thank The Poetry Archive for providing the encouragement to continue being brave in sharing it." - Michelle Robin Visser.
"I think it shows the importance of live spoken word to share poetry as equally as the printed word for some audiences." - Steve Harrison.
"Being part of the PAN Worldwide 2025 collection alongside 17 incredible poets from across the globe is both an honour and a reminder of the unifying power of poetry. Moving forward, I think this experience will stay with me, it has encouraged me to continue writing with honesty and openness, and to remember that my voice is part of something much larger than myself." - Panya Banjoko.
See the collectionWatch the full Wordview 2025 playlist