Thank you to all who entered this year’s competition

Thea Ayres

The House

My dad loves storms and when I was a child
we would watch them together
from between the curtains and the window
counting the thunder’s journey to our ears
and in the morning go out
to smell the air and see the water collected in our tank. 
I jump at loud noises easily now, remembering
how the branches of your anger smacked against the panes;
how the rain of your desires drummed the tiles all night long;
how the cold wind of your cruelty got in beneath the door
while I listened to the creaking of the beams.
I never cried, did I, no matter what you did?
A lot has happened to me since I knew you:
impressions of love
other than that blunt fist of yours banging on the door
of my sealed self: a braving of the cold together,
a letting in, a warm fire blazing, a braving of the cold again.

Daphne, a Girl Again

Inside me, nothing gory,
nothing foul—
that was a mercy—
even as the dirt held onto
my roots: wood
all the way through,
and water. But I could feel
the layers of myself:
my outer bark to be taken care of;
my softer cambium;
my flowing sapwood;
my dense, packed heart.
I couldn’t see anything,
but I could tell in my
own way when the sun
went behind a cloud.
I could taste my food in the earth.
I knew something about it:
grazed, nested,
pecked at, pollinated,
burrowed into, ruffled,
scurried on. I suffered
each winter without fuss,
but registered the cold.
I had to wait until things
were over
to really look at them.
But everything that happened to me
happened to me.
Everything I did
I did with a body that
in one way was my own.
Changing back:
picking the soil
out from between my toes,
finding insects under my arms
and between my thighs.
I think about
what might have happened
to the leaves he took:
if he might have a lock of my hair.

Thea Ayres is a poet from West Yorkshire. She is a graduate of the Writing Squad. Her poetry has appeared in The Scribe, Strix, The North, Ink Sweat & Tears and Poetry Wales (forthcoming) and has been commissioned by the Dead [Women] Poets Society.

Lucy Dyer

Cigarette

Playing
With fire
Means you’ll get
Burnt. This willow growing
Weeping, this thick cancer stick
Brandishing its power to kill, invincible
Like the most loved weapon of all.

I don’t know why I started it now.
They told me this little thing was bad but
She did it so he did it so I did.
A daisy chain of chain smokers, a pretty addition to my
Fingers, a pretty addiction till it lingers and lunges into my lungs.

Such small things have such big power over life and death. Do they?
Why would I give up?
Something will get me one day.
Megalomaniacs I say.

Lucy Dyer is an Oxford graduate of French language and literature. She started writing poetry this year after returning from travels in Japan. From an unpublished collection she has recently written called ZOOM OUT, she is pleased that Cigarette is the first of her poems to have been published.

Lana Silver

Otto Frank with an espresso

(Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, published her diary in 1947.)

Memories of my youngest stream
Slowly across the forest path
In the same way as the gravel’s
watery rainbow scars.
 
Ahead of me a hedgehog
Leaves behind his shady hedge
Tries on the puddle’s tiara
When he goes to get his drink.
 
Nature is the only thing that’s left
That reminds me there are still
Things left behind
 
Left behind like breakfast
A freezing jug of milk handed down
Clearing away leftover crust,
spots of jam and laughter.
 
Hailstone starts,
The sound of their laughter
Breaks free of my grasp.
 
I trudge to my writing desk
I reach for her diary.
Kettle hisses, spoon stirs.
Whole beans say no words.
 
The publisher’s arriving
in fifteen minutes
better wait before I
 
make another coffee,
So, he can share some
Of what’s left behind.

Lana Silver lives in Cardiff and is studying a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. Her poetry lives in a few anthologies including Renard Press’ Spectrum: Poetry Celebrating Identity, Secret Chords from the Folklore Poetry Prize, and Barbican Young Poets anthologies. She was commended in New Voices First Pamphlet Competition 2021 and 2023, and longlisted for two entries in Frosted Fire First Pamphlet Competition 2023.

Iona Bowden

The abandoned hotel at Southend (Argyll)

There is an abandoned hotel at Southend 
She looks out over the violent thrashing sea
Barren hollow collapsing from within herself
I wonder sometimes if she misses the guests
If they would gaze from the sea front just like me
Thinking what a lovely view

There is an abandoned hotel at Southend 
From afar she looks white 
Like the strand of pearls 
Of my grandmother who grew up mere miles away
I asked her once if she ever went inside the hotel
She couldn’t remember 

There is an abandoned hotel at Southend 
Last year I went down to get a closer look
On the gate it says danger keep out
So I climbed over and scraped my knees
She was grey and crumbling 
Her weariness contagious and suffocating

There is an abandoned hotel at Southend 
She has been alone for 30 years now
Bought and sold by various men over the years
Lots of plans that never made it to conception 
Because her structure is too difficult 
Too complex too time consuming

There is an abandoned hotel at Southend 
When I wear my grandmother’s pearls 
I think about the degenerating debutante 
How she was once bustling and happy
With red polkadot parasols on the seafront
I wonder if the sea was calmer then

Iona Bowden lives in Edinburgh and has written poetry since she was a child as a secret hobby. It is now a slightly less secret hobby that she takes more seriously. Most of her poetry is inspired by her mother, her life and Scotland.

Georgina Savage

you always said you wanted winter to last

i’m slicing through the countryside—
a bullet slipped down the gullet
of a piercing night

it is spring
and the crocuses are peering up through the plastic slush of half melted snow.
the year has never been so bashful before:
renewal prices are inflated.
hope is in short supply, and is being saved up in time for easter.

i rattle and stay still as the world moves past me
an ancient sky rotates around my stationary throne of faded felt.
the windows keep secrets and like to write in idioms of absence

i let the night swallow me
and sit in damp silence waiting to dissolve
as i make idle conversation with the redacted litters of city lights slipping past

floating underground,
laughing lets the rich grit of the dirt in.
the glass sun cuts colour into my outsides
and i am shy and bullet shaped in the late frost

stuck in springtime
the world spins in censored clauses
clutched like the blank spaces in a blackout poem

i get home in the witching hour
and don’t make a wish

spring’s homecoming

this morning my breakfast is the decadence of a daffodil in late march
the yolk is a rich weighty orange; the whites are light and just set
against the twisting stroke of the skipping wind.
there is a splash of water to wash it down:
the ducks are shaking off the shallow river in beads
strung together in a flurry of flat grey fluff cut through with jewel tones.

this morning my commute is to let my mind be buoyant
in the currency of an early year.
spring is finally here- and hope is in abundant supply.
the sun tips me in notes, and I peel off winter to feel the change
ping about in the collection box my thoughts are kept in.

i eat the day.
licking my fingers to find the drips of summer right at the end.
it is sweet and cold and tastes like lemon.

i drink the night.
it is clear and bright and speckled with hundreds-and-thousands.
it is loud and crass and comes with ice.
it is warm and spiced and pulls me to your bed like a drug.

spring is finally here
spring!
                        has finally come home
now, tread softly…
or you’ll wake my flatmates up.

Georgina Savage is a poet based in London. Her work is driven by a love for nature, intersectionality, romance, and unabashed sincerity. She graduated with an MA Hons in English Literature from the University of St Andrews, and alongside poetry, she is a scriptwriter and works in publishing. 

Gaia Lauretani

Petition for my mother to start an affair

Mamma,
I present this petition to you
To humbly ask you to
Start cheating on dad

We both know he’s never here
Always away from home
As you both can’t stand each other anymore

He is never there to hold you
At night or when your
Horrible daughter makes you cry

You want someone
Who can listen to you
When everyone else is too busy to do so

You want someone
Who takes you on expensive dates
Like dad used to do before you pushed him away

You miss the warmth of sleeping
Next to someone
Because ‘he snores too loud’
(I know it’s an excuse)
Or more realistically
You need to get laid
And then you’d be less angry at the world
And me and everyone ever

Wouldn’t it make life less boring?
Someone to share things with
Instead of being bitter and lonely all the time?

It could be your dirty little secret
An affair in your workplace
A holiday fling
A young toyboy

In conclusion
if having an affair is what it
would take you to stop
treating me as a punching bag
I am all for it
so please
tear your marriage to shreds

Gaia Lauretani was born in Ascoli Piceno, in Italy. She has always loved classical poetry, especially Ancient Greek and Roman literature. After graduating from Classical high school, she pursued an English Literature and Creative Writing degree at LJMU. Currently, she is enrolled in a Masters’ writing course at the same university.

Basil Aurelian

the clockless louvre

Audio of Basil’s poem by Marilyn Timms

(there is no clock in the louvre rooms to
indicate the passage of time. there is only
the passing through passages of paintings,
history scenes and portraits by the world’s most famous.

there is no clock in the louvre rooms to
hear an echo of tick tocking, no dramatic
falling of seconds into the waterfall of hours till morning.

there is no clock in the louvre rooms to
keep track of time. the visitors left what feels like forever ago.)

nineteen-eleven.

august twenty-first.

vincenzo perugia is in his white smock.
he’d waited so patiently, like a big cat hunting, for
the visitors to leave, and now he’s at the ready.
the gallery’s empty, no one around except for the mice,
but he still looks carefully around like a cartoon villain,
exaggerated peeking around corners and tiptoeing.
he reaches his destination. he stares at his goal.

the mona lisa stares back, enigmatic smile and all.

justice! he thinks, as he takes her off the wall. justice
for italy! justice for florence! justice for all
italians who’ve ever mourned her loss!
he holds her in his hands, triumphant and wrong.
then he tucks her under his smock, and hides away,
waits for morning to wake.

and then he will walk out of the clockless louvre without a trace.

(nineteen-thirteen. november. perugia is caught.
the mona lisa is returned
to her place in the louvre.
and through it all, she
never once stopped
smiling her strange smile.)


i toil in the garden

Audio of Basil’s poem by Marilyn Timms

i toil in the garden. god
calls on the landline.
pick up the phone!
i am sisyphus for aeons.

six dial tones.

when he speaks his voice is
the brash wave sipping
sand as it brushes the shore.
crash. crash. crash. cra—
shit is crazy slow these days.

he asks me how i am. i say
i don’t know. i say
i am sisyphus for aeons.
he asks me what i mean. i say
shouldn’t you know?

my palms are wretched red.
push. push. push. pu-
shit is crazy slow these days.
this hill is a monument
in sand; his voice thieves
the grains from beneath my feet.

the birdbath overspills. i say
i have to go. emergency’s come up.
he says ‘kay. call me back.
i nod even if he can’t see it
over the phone.

hanging up on god is like knowing
there won’t be a tomorrow but
needing to make the bed anyway.
i say goodbye. the dial tone answers me.

walking on a sunbeam

Audio of Basil’s poem by Marilyn Timms

sunbird! i kiss the sweat from the back of
your hand, a gent taking his lady to dance.
they stare at us on the carnival pier, a pair
of cherried guests at the funhouse where
the mirrors sweat silver from the sweltering
heat of the sun. yet they still reflect our salt
aired hair, frazzled and curled like a newborn’s.
sunbird, you are bronzed, coppered, gold;
burnished in the afternoon sky’s eye.
i want to chew on the thin clouds but they roll
too fast, i want too much and i also want to
give the spinning teacups a go. i want to
take the band on the bandstand home.
we listen to music hall classics as we walk
on burning stones, shoes in hand and hand in
hand; sea so blue and bright it blinds. there
is only one true mirror in this land that won’t
melt or show a lie, and that is the gaps between
land wherein aquarius pours his forever supply
of water. the sun reflects. the far away waves
catch its light, bring it closer to us in an
intangible possibility. a magnifying glass.

Basil Aurelian

Alice Brooker

Secret Language

It was everything I ever wanted, to not talk like the others.
Our vowels birthed themselves in brushings of hand, lip corners or the frequency
Of your foot tapping a skirting board. In winter we translated the anxiety

Like an old friend, washing up eggshell comforts whilst distilling our
Air of confusion. Perhaps, everything I have ever known could be reduced
To exhales in your sleep, I have traced each breath in silent gasps, an attempt
To temper your dreams. Other worlds have whispered I am

Foolish, at times, but how could I have foreseen
Your dilated pupils and childish coos as anything less than a fate string,
Still it is certain I die with you and so all these meanings

Of exchange and lingering must exist somewhere, all we
Won’t speak about        was it not disentangled?            the night

We trespassed their perpendicular mouths

Blue Crush

A celestial thing, like my affinity
For the moon,
Or your knee high boots.
The blue was the walls
Of our classroom, where I could
Call you gorgeous with no
Embarrassment. It was always
In my ocean aura to compliment
People, but with you it felt
Different, I wanted to whisper

The tops of your nails have moonlight
In them, would you let me craft
A candle scented by your denim jacket?
We could buy that house we always pass:
I’ll paint the walls eggshell, make your coffee
Ice cold with vanilla syrup, lay Buddhas
On our windowsills…

Of course, this was all a blue crush,
A twilight dream I let through the open
Window. If I had loved you a crimson
Red it would have been boring,
You would’ve blown us out.

Abroad in Thought

Casa Milà, Barcelona

Where the walls curve is movement, my palm rests
On the limestone and electrons dance among themselves.
Had I been more intelligent… or smaller… or just thin

Air

My fingers would’ve dropped in like carbons,
Rising and falling beneath the balconies.

The architect mouthed nothing is invented

These walls arrive from watching waves
And
This house has not yet become. It retreats
And retreats further, back to an origin lying
Somewhere in the ribcage of a
Blue whale. 

When I am inside and being digested I see

You

Staying whole, and he explains to me that this is normal.
Here you are a discovery to be left untouched,
Like the walls you have movement, lying in the stillness.

So I notice your arms, the joints angled like branches
Breaking out from the blossom trunk.
Thick green tears sprout from your hands but only fall
As orange flowers, slowed by the thin air.
Thin air holding carbon.

And if I were carbon, I’d fall again.
Disappearing through your wooden rib cage and
Retreating, retreating towards an origin and 

Becoming

Maya’s Garden

Look! I dug life from your name, watered it
With your signature. Growing your echo,
Maya, takes a dewy kind of love, sipped
In sunken blues before I snap the flow
Of water to branches. I’ve made shelters
For ants, is it too late? I could never
Capture butterflies, rose hazes, or furs
Of your dandelion kisses. Heather
Meadows where I was your funny friend, a
Small mess avoiding her larger red crush.

Then you got lost, tired, and slipped away
So I grew hibiscus, colours you flush…

Now it is a garden to grieve at night–
Weeds of us wilted and absent of light.

Extinguished

Knowledge was always far too
Adult to stomach, and harms the girl in
Small and cyclical ways–

For what she knows has grown into
Oblong shapes, and past, it stretches
Into the shadow of a house so

Naked and honest and horrific,
The reaper has his estimates:

Her mind will be extinguished soon
Enough, by the light of the world
She chased only to be left with

A stench of wax and a room full
Of consequences: some lives
Are too real for their owner,

Flesh arriving so warm that
She had to stop eating.

I follow the woman’s way,
Swallowing fibs and parallel universes
And diminishing with their vacuums.

I have shrunk with my aversion
To truth, as small as a white lie,

I find it all rather scientific, don’t you?
How I was killed off before the children.

Alice Brooker is 19 and an English Literature undergraduate at the University of Oxford. Her poetry has been published with Artemesia Arts and Last Stanza Poetry Journal, as well as the Young Poets Network. In 2023 she was short-listed for the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize. She primarily writes about mental health and its effect on love, memory and identity.