This work was first published in Spread the Word’s Young Writers Collective Anthology, 2025. This anthology stands as a testament to the courage, creativity, and growth of a remarkable group of young poets who have spent seven months exploring the power of language and self-expression. The anthology is more than a collection of poems—it is a celebration of emerging voices, of stories told with boldness and vulnerability.
All of the poems can be read here on our website, or you can download the Young Writer’s Collective Anthology to read as a PDF.
Kodak Moment by Anya Hunt-Byer
So, we meet again.
She picks it up: the Minolta 404 DSI—
The lens: D i S f I g U r I n g I t’ S s E l F
To focus on the moment.
A flash
A dark room;
Two bodies lying in a bed at 1 am.
A bokeh of hands wrapped around each other,
Heartbeats shuttering against chests
Chiaroscuro bedsheets kissing naked skin,
Pillows cradling heads
Freeze –
What is the opposite of time?
Then –
Flash sync, 1/90th of a second;
Lens shifts to double exposure,
Double exposure,
Gives way to
Thaw
The hitched sound of a rib cracking;
Fragmented into augmented fourths.
The sound of it falls on empty ears.
Lens irrigating under the weight of realisations,
Autofocus gives way to manual,
Tears tonguetied by time
Captured by a wide aperture lens
Two bodies lying in a bed at 1 am.
About Anya Hunt-Byer
Anya Hunt-Byer (she/they)is a writer, actor, and artist. Her work explores the complexities of Sapphic love and the disabled experience. In 2024, Anya debuted on stage at Theatre Peckham with Poetic Unity’s Spoken Word Theatre Company and showcased their art in NC Production’s “Shades of Resistance” exhibition at the Bomb Factory, Marylebone. Anya trained at the Oxford School of Drama on their foundation course and holds a First Class Honours degree in Creative Writing from Birkbeck University.