New writer 2025: Flora Leask Arizpe

Flora Leask Arizpe is a writer from Glasgow. She has had short stories and poems published in Gutter, Interpret Magazine, Propel Magazine, and Wet Grain, among others. She was twice long-listed for the University of Edinburgh’s Lewis Edwards Memorial Prize, where she completed her undergraduate degree in English Literature and Philosophy in 2023.

She self-published the risograph poetry pamphlet 'Flower-star & Other Poems' (2023) while working at Edinburgh’s Typewronger bookshop. She has performed her poetry for the launches of Gutter, Interpret Magazine, and Palimpsest Arts Magazine. She has been a member of the bilingual UK/Barcelona based artist collective ‘Age of Concern’ since its founding in 2020.

Find out more on Flora's website(this link will open in a new window)

Writing sample

Please note: the following poem contains images of an adult nature

The man acting strangely in the sauna is not a pervert, he’s just thinking about that well known novel by Milan Kundera 

Wood steams. I stretch,  

force my next breath   

and think about sex  

with my first girlfriend  

years ago. Sweat 

licks the hairs  

on my stomach, 

while I remember  

the down of her  

upper lip on mine.  

The slick-haired 

women on the right 

whisper  

about their degrees, 

a young  

man leans, 

pink and folded 

eyes shut tight.  

She’d keep  

hers open, like Tereza, 

from that book I used to read.  

She told me off for wringing 

my hands at the window 

like an old man. I’m an 

old man now,  

Tereza. 

Why 

did I say nothing  

when you expected a reply? 

Maybe  

I couldn’t bear  

your questioning 

eyebrows, cold caressing 

hands, wandering feet, 

your legs expressive 

that said ‘stay 

in bed with me, won’t you, 

‘till three?’  

We each struggle 

to breath  

forced down  

by the temperature, 

the pressure 

like you’re still here 

lying on me: 

forty-five years  

of absence disappear.  

I say enjoy  

that precious heat  

while you have it.

The young man sighs loudly   

face red, eyes squeezed.  

The women stare 

silent, then  

get up to leave.

Flora says:

'I’m over the moon to receive the New Writers Award – hearing the news has been surreal. It has come at a time when I've really felt in need of guidance, so I'm hugely grateful for this opportunity. I can’t wait to meet others in the community and develop my writing.'