I am Alison Hramiak: poet, writer and tutor. Welcome to my web site: a place where you can discover more about me and my writing. A place to share my love of poetry.
I spend my time writing poetry, reviewing and editing poetry, and delivering 1:1 tuition in a variety of subjects at all levels. I have been published in journals and anthologies and on various websites including Forward Poetry collections, New Contexts, Dirigible Balloon, Impspired, and The Causley Trust as well as a number of anthologies dedicated to charities.
I edit and review poetry for Consilience, which explores the space where scientists and the arts meet. I review books for ‘together in the uk’, a place where migrants and refugees share their stories and receive advice, as well as for ‘grist – a journal of the literary arts’. My reviews have also been published in ‘The Other Side of hope’, a UK-based literary magazine edited by migrants. When I’m not writing or reviewing poetry, I write and read about history, and review history books for ‘The Historical Association’.
I write poetry because I believe that there is a beauty in language that poetry unwraps, one which reaches out like a sound that resonates, and which, in doing so, helps others to feel less alone. I write poetry to express my feelings and to convey a message about the things I feel strongly about. I write poetry because I love it.
If you’d like me to write something for you, or to review and edit for you, please contact me on LinkedIn or on Facebook.
Broken Lies
Too well I slaked my thirst
On truth untold.
(Alas) Too well.
Half life dream
Slow. Awakening.
Half unencumbered by sleep.
Dreams in the pseudo light,
lay fuzzy in the lilac dawn –
cooked up in a kitchen of unconsciousness,
they emerge unrecognizable even to the chef.
Stretch memories on the rack of your mind,
to see if the truth will out.
Pieces of a mish-mash dream,
float separately just beyond reach.
Meanings remain meaningless.
(Did anyone ever get anything real from torture?).
When you can only remember half the trials of your night,
(then) there’s not enough evidence to convict you,
is there?
Corpus delicti
Slow. Awakening.
Fully unencumbered by sleep.
Greet the day and leave the unfinished in the ether,
leave the half life dream to decay over time.
A radium cur(i)e.
Anguish is an Algorithm.
This was written in November 2025 not long before Paul’s birthday weekend in Whitby to celebrate his life and what would have been his 60th birthday and retirement. I wrote it as straight forward text in three verses, and then decided that it would look good as a flow chart, to link with the theme of the poem – that of code. It was published in New Contexts: 8 alongside my son Ben’s story about his grief over the loss of his uncle. A fitting tribute from us both.