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Poem of the Week: ‘Invasive Species’ by Carl Phillips

17 November 2025

Our Poem of the Week is ‘Invasive Species’ by Carl Phillips, featured in Paul Muldoon’s selection of some of the greatest sonnets ever written, Scanty Plot of Ground: A Book of Sonnets.

Scanty Plot of Ground is the December title for our poetry subscription – take out your subscription by 30 November 2025 to receive this title.

Switchgrass beachgrass trespass little song. Little song years remastering truth    now begins its own truth little song deep in the night. Not a wreath more a    crown little song worn shyly. Past regret little song no weep remembering    nor long for. Little song done with tears though nowhere anyone not somehow hand    in hand little song still lonely undaunted unpersuaded. Persuasion a meadow once    violence the field seeding itself with its own flower. For fist    little song. Up from the dragged lake of the singer’s throat little song severed fist in the light turning. It shines in the light

‘Invasive Species’ from Then the War and Selected Poems 2007– 2020 by Carl Phillips, copyright © Carl Phillips, 2022. Reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press, UK; and Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All rights reserved.

‘Invasive Species’ features in Scanty Plot of Ground edited by Paul Muldoon.

Read all our poems of the week.

Buy the Book

Scanty Plot of Ground: A Book of Sonnets (Hardback)
Scanty Plot of Ground: A Book of Sonnets (Hardback)
Paul Muldoon
£16.99

An essential anthology of beloved classics, hidden treasures and standout contemporary examples of this ever-vital and enthralling verse form.

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