Hazel McMichael’s pamphlet ‘Forgetting’ was highly commended in the Best Unpublished Pamphlet category of the 2025 Disabled Poets Prize. 

the oracles is one of the poems that features in the pamphlet.

The Disabled Poets Prize looks to find the best work created by UK-based deaf and disabled poets.

the oracles

              the future speaks 

with a hundred voices 

                            through the navel 

              where thirsty exiles 

seek new sanctuaries 

              rotting the bodies 

                           of their thought forms 

              to drink one last 

              remurmuring 

                            of future past 

             what will have been 

             echos in want 

                           of echoing 

             conspiracies 

             speculating 

new desires and 

new questions through 

            snaking vapours 

                           in algorithms 

            we become passive 

forms without bodies 

                           in the places 

                          the gods agreed 

           seek not to know 

and abandon all 

          present futures 

                         for the flowers  

About Hazel McMichael

Hazel is a writer, researcher, and educator based in Brighton and London. Hazel has delivered poetry readings, talks, performances, and screenings at literary festivals, open mics, theatres, galleries, universities, nightclubs, and city streets, among other places. Hazel was awarded a PhD in 2023 for a thesis on ventriloquism, feminism, and conceptualism. Alongside facilitating writing workshops, co-hosting the Radical Care Reading Group, and delivering training on care experience, Hazel is currently undertaking a disability focused curatorial fellowship at Charleston.