The Poetry Society

Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2008

Once We Roadtripped

International Winner

Erica Berry

eight hours in the car—
mid july and our necks stick to the back of the seats

cornfields and mustard fields
i want to crawl out the open window and dash across the highway
leap across the yellow divider and into the tall golden stalks
press my cheek against the cool brown earth

we pull up to a motel
a tv, an empty mini-fridge and 27 channels
a squirrel on a tightrope and a kitchen renovation

there’s a golf course outside one window
and a huddle of trailers outside the other
slouched behind a tall chain link fence
yellow striped awnings and satellite dishes

we run towards the manicured 9-holes

sprinklers ticking in semicircles on the bright green grass
(you think you understand it
and then tztztztz they spin around and spray you)

we leap over the little knolls
spin round the red-flagged poles
do a little marimba cha-cha
our feet skating across the moist green blades

looking back, this is a fleeting moment
before the sun sinks below the willow trees
and the hotel manager runs at us like we’re the crazy ones

You Envied the Stars Their Height

Amy Blakemore

The day folded;
Like a Cabbage White closing its wings
On a windowsill.

With the old, worn-out risk,
the unexplainable, skewed
trigonometry
of drunkenness

you climbed the fire escape.

Got on the roof.
But once you were there, you
envied the stars

their height

and could not get back down.

Unrhyming Verses

Jennifer Clarke

I’m tired of the way you pull the sheets off my mattress
and leave wearing my jacket,
forgetting the painting I’ve given you –
even if it is only the back of a cereal packet
covered in cheap Crayola paints
with bits of brush stuck in the colours
like the dirt from your shoes stuck in my bed.
 

Tonton Andre

Marin Cramer

In loving memory of Andre Adam.

From the treacherous acidic green skies,
To the cerulean heavens your white plane flies.
I would always have remembered you, Tonton Andre,
From when you lived, vingt rue Amiral Bouvet.

While your plane soars above the water,
You are aware of every danger.
I would always have remembered you, Tonton Andre,
From when you lived, vingt rue Amiral Bouvet.

As the engine rambles in the firmament,
The aircraft begins its tranquil descent.
I would always have remembered you, Tonton Andre,
From when you lived, vingt rue Amiral Bouvet.

But when the airliner hits the ground,
It forms a big black mound.
I would always have remembered you, Tonton Andre,
From when you lived, vingt rue Amiral Bouvet.

And as the smoke rises to the heaven above,
My uncle flies away like a delicate white dove.
I would always have remembered you, Tonton Andre,
From when you lived, vingt rue Amiral Bouvet.

Northern Soul

Bethan Crossley

Yes, I’m partial to a drink or two, sweet martini then a strong brew
To sooth the self inflicted migraines that invariably ensue
And recounting the tales of drunken antics is one of my favourite
        things to do
But I’m not a binge drinker it’s just my Northern soul coming through

I’m a staunch devotee of “coal not dole”
I just can’t understand Mrs Thatcher and her ideas of job control
In fact I’m not a fan of the Tories' policies as a whole
Is that the hints of my embryonic communism or just my Northern soul

I love it when I get called “r kid” in that synonymous Northern drawl
And seeing old men, with the mandatory bags of chips coming back
        from the pub crawl
All nigths spent in working men’s clubs as restrictive as the
        abdominal wall
And with Liam and Noel, can anyone wonder why the North will
        always be my first port of call

When it rains up here it belts it down, really pours and pours
And to get away from it all everyone goes on Wallace Arnold coach tours
To Tenefife or Benidorm, with their Brit polluted shores
But it’s always back home to Jerusalem that was built on these
        Northern moors

I’m proud that we produced Madchester, Morrissey and black lace
And its not a lounge but the front room that we call living space
But surely the Royle family, the one with Jim and Denise is our 
        coup de grace
And I’m sure that the North will always and forever be my holy place

I drink cups of tea in cafes that have seen better days
And the women behind the counter's talking about a party buffet
        not buffet
So I accept I might be full of a load of cliches
But believe me being a Northerner’s in my heart and soul it’s not just
        a generic phrase

Rose Petal Mouth
Madelaine Jones

The lazy slope of those polished lips is a work of art.
Give me those.
Never mind the belligerent twinkle in her fluttering emeralds
or the firey rubies in her hair,
clinging to the marble arches of her cheekbones.
I want the lips. Full stop.

Forget her flawless figure, gilded in perfect proportion,
or the curl of her glittering talons beneath the spotlight.
Keep her sultry stilettos and the milky feet that she weaves into them.
Not even the smooth contours of her glimmering bronzed legs
could dissuade or detract me
I just want the lips.

I could buy a picture frame and lock them inside forever,
selfishly enjoy the breathless whispers
that I know they’re so keen to give.

Or a gallery.
The perfect pout would turn the heads of a millions beauties,
envy shading their faces as red as your pretty mouth.
But never quite the same.

I could take a photograph, leave behind the dripping of another time
and bury myself in sheer black and white. And red, of course –
their bold subtlety lies in the scarlet.

Or maybe I should just claim them for my own?
Lay my rose petal mouth against hers and watch
them entwine before they walk off hand in hand into the sunset,
my newly claimed prize.

But I don’t really care. Speculation aside, I have only one desire.
Just give me the lips.

Confession
Emma Jourdan 

I want to stroke the faces of strangers on the tube.
They’ve got skin like modern art,
all texture and bluff. Like guts on the surface,
stringy and pressable. I want to touch them.
I want to kiss them good-night.
I’d tell them stories as I did, if they'd tell me mine.

I love them. I love their dry skin,
like it’s about to fall apart.
Their stomachs, soft and round
or crushed right against their bones.
Their flash light eyes notice
or don’t notice me.

When one of them gets off
it’s a loss,
it’s an emptiness.
It’s lucky that they are always replaced so fast.
I want to run my fingers down their arms.
I want to dance with them,
I want to hug them till they bleed.

But I won’t, I can’t,
so I’m touched inside my head instead,
while outside
lights carve up the darkness,
and disappear. 

Bar mitzvah Blues
Michael Kalisch

And just as I consider going
I catch the eye of Sara Cohen,
Who - I’m sure you would agree-
Is a knock-out in the first degree.

Who knows, I may even have half a chance,
So long as she does not see me dance
For I can only step a waltz,
And Jewish girls don’t like that schmaltz.

(And I curse myself for staring,
I realise I am wearing
A quite awful shirt.
And that the cuffs are marked with dirt.)

It’s a bar mitzvah, and I’m half Jew, half Gentile,
And so everyone offers a sympathetic smile,
Seeing me caught, as I am,
In this cultural no man’s land.

English, Jew, Gentile, What a mix!
As if God was intent on having me fixed,
somewhere betwixt
A rock and the Western Wall.

And what to do, what to do
To pretend to know the Hebrew too?
All the time aware of He all-knowing
with thoughts only of Sara Cohen.
***
And it turns out that Sara wasn’t looking at me.
But Avi Goldburg behind.
I don’t mind.
Honestly-It doesn’t bother me.

Anthems

International Winner

Sawsan Khalaf

The same way pink-faced college kids
Yelled at the President, the war, the country
The same way the hipsters stood and said
“What the hell” to America with cigarettes
                    between their teeth
The same way us Bahrainis scrawl graffiti over
The rulers' heads, amputated by headshots
In their glorious photographs
The same way they said we ain’t standing for this
Only in Ikea couches and in a
                    soft voice
The same way I lie in bed at 4:26
Turning the pillow to the cold side and
Watching the city through dirt-stained
Glass panes and wanting to break though
To that cloud up near the Grand Continental
And deliver the world’s message
To you. 

I Remember
Abigail Maskill

I remember –
In a gala field watching a message board that I couldn’t read
the letters flickering past, just red shapes and lines.

I remember thinking that men physically couldn’t cry,
and that babies came from mummy’s tummy via a zipped opening just above the belly button,
and I remember thinking I could find Neverland in the Netherlands
(first country to the west and straight across that channel ‘till dawn).

I remember playschool –
and insisting my name was written Agail
(after all, it is my own name – I’ll write it how I like. Now give me that crayon back.)
I also remember the first day at “Big” school –
and I had a Minnie mouse dress.
Bright puce – I remember it twirling as I spun till I was dizzy in the schoolyard.

I remember being fought over and tugged between kids at breaktime, and I remember going
for months with no one to play with.
I remember sitting on a doorstep and feeding the “imps” that lived in the undergrowth just outside the library –
I remember I must have been older than eight,
because I remember the class four teacher with a vendetta against me,
and all I stood for.
(Or at least my handwriting and vacant nature.)

I remember a horrible hoax.

I remember the fresh start, new leaf, clean slate –
I remember wanting to go to that school beacuse it looked like Hogwarts
(nothing more, nothing less).

I also remember the first impressions of everyone who made one.
I remember now, looking back, that they were mostly right.

I remember putting parmesan and pepper in Pizza Hut ice cream, and sitting in a back garden
at midnight avioding slugs, and singing Queen songs in a foreign country, and the locals joining in.
I remember tears at the window of a wet paint room.
I remember streamers and party hats in the park – and remembering, I realise we must have looked insane.
I remember a crumpled Daily Mail article that gained blotches and stains as it did
the rounds – but I remember finding it first.

I remember someone noticed I wasn’t doing too well, and I’ll always remember them for that –
and I remember long, long phone calls and sound-proofing my door.

I remember loud music, whether in the back corner of a stadium or being crushed into the
amplifiers, feeling the beat pulsate at the back of my head and sicken my stomach, and
jumping along out of time anyway.

I remember finding an old friend, quite by chance – finding we had turned out the same after
all.

I remember writing these lines –
At least five times
And remembering.

I Talk Lyk Dis
Chinedum Nwokonkor

Cos I talk lyk dis
I’m a boi from da street
Gat in ma back pocket
my life’s incomplete...

Child support income,
parents separated,

I talk lyk dis...
so i’m not educated...

Cos I talk lyk dis
I’m a criminal...
Deceptive, corrupted
individual...

Only i can see
the backs of my generation
on the wall of society,
Anxiety...
Completes ma emotion entirely

Oh my dayz!
You’re tryna give me advice?

“Don’t smoke?
Don’t drink an’ drive?
Hit me at 30
and i’ll stay alive?”

U know what?
All i’m sayin is

Let your heart be your heart,
Let your mind be your mind,
An’ let your soul be your soul

But keep it in control!

Geez, u think its
Boy against brotha,
Girl against motha,
Friend against otha,
BANG BANG!
You’re dead!
‘Nuf said...
And all cos i talk lyk dis....

Terragogous

Andrew Wynn Owen

Rock-reptilian, land bound, looking round,
cumbersome thundersome, the wondersome survivor.

Schildkröten, ground besotten, age rotten,
wide thrown, seed sown, unknown.

Abdominally-all, steady canopic crawl,
Terragogous, analogous, one solus.

Rising up, mountain top, tired not,
mountaineer, buccaneer, aged seer.

Strong, striking pillar, salad killer,
Desert tracker, can’t walk back-er.

Tortue, fought-few, end due, never new,
Stronghold, bulky bold, winter-told.

Armoured for battle, a pebble rattle, tiny cattle,
Mud spattered, shell flattered, egg shattered.

Tartaruga, shambling mover, ancient hoover,
blithering, dithering, all withering.

Lizard face, mammoth base, body-mace,
Lion claws, bear-scaled paws, plated sores.

Testudo, Greek named, truculent-famed,
Unmatched, unmastered, untamed, unreal.

Steadfast thing, resilient king,
Shuffling, ruffling, tussling boulder.

Ancestry great, dino-fate, Jurassic-late,
Wizened race, egg based, carapaced.

St. Chagrin
Adham Smart 

“The temple road is a high one,”
said the beetle to the man,
“but whichever way you walk it,
“you end up at St. Chagrin.”

But o! To kneel before that crown,
to greet that gobbled man.
To find again the woollen hearts
of the nuns at St. Chagrin.

To know again the monoliths,
their frog and copper-greens – the man,
the monolith, the Reman wolf:
old ghost of St. Chagrin.

The drinking drums are filled with wine,
in measure cavernous to man.
There are one thousand thirsty oceans
bleeding under St. Chagrin.

One bolder priest confessed to me
his thoughts on every man:
“Let the greedy take more than their share,
and let the weak take what they can.”

For every sin that goes un-judged,
for every gobbled man,
there are ten more, dead in the mud,
in the garden at St. Chagrin.

A drunk sobs in a bitter cellar:
“I am the god of every man!”
But he knows not of flood and sot.
He knows not of St. Chagrin.

Sestina

Sophie Stephenson-Wright

Weeds dance gently in the greenish
River, spreading nets to catch
The muddy sticklebacks,
Who watch as tickled pebbles
Squirm away from pulling water,
Bursting in their effort to keep still.

Alongside, slacks lie brackish, still,
And everything hides green
And cool behind the heavy water
While the dark dead leaves catch
In the stillness, beached on pebbles,
Trying vainly to swim back.

Browning algae, seeping up the back-
Bones of damp reeds; it’s spreading still
And mottled like the pebbles
Blooming soft, wet green
And sifting, caught on catches
Cankerous and sticky through the water.

Other things lie buried, watery
And hidden like the sticklebacks,
Who heavy, watch the minnows catching
Mayflies, until battlefields lie still
And floating, drifting down to greenish
Mulch that drowns the anchored pebbles.

Just listen to the sound of chatting pebbles,
Chattering with gossip, washed and watery
That lie about, blushed green
And pulled, uprooted, and then rested back
By streams of water, quickly still,
Then waiting once more to be caught.

Small things are carried, catch
The light from sun-reflecting pebbles,
Flicker in and out, and still
The soft-ish sound of water
Falling thorugh and flooded green,
Impetuous, refusing to come back;

The greenish stream plays catch up,
Calling back those sun-smoothed pebbles
Snatched by water that just won’t be still. 

Other people’s gardens

International Winner

Charlotte Trevella

When you were
five years old, you knew
how to pick up an
ant
between thumb and
forefinger

a small miracle on six
legs that traced
the outline of
your hand.

In other people’s gardens
while conversations smouldered
insects grew huge
and carnivorous,

swollen cicadas
turned their skins inside out,
left eyes beneath leaves
to remind you.

In other people’s gardens
it was autumn
forever

with roses in perpetual
sepia and the
ground rotting
into mushrooms.

How you listened but
did not understand
as they talked
about who would mow
the lawns now?
and how much bluer
agapanthus was
when Harry was alive.

Commended Poets

Emily Allsopp, Matthew Aydon, Claire Elizabeth Barnes, Zack Berman, Daniel Bright, Ufuoma Brume, Iona Byrne, Rupert Cabbell Manners, Catherine Cable-Chandler, Emily Carpenter, Stephanie Char, Joy Chee, Camilla Chen, Imogen Clare-Wood, Laurie Clarke, Ciaran Clibbens, Phil Coales, Oliver Colegrave, Austin Colligan, Julia Cornell, Louisa Dawes, Sarah Daymond, Jonathan Deacon, Betty May Deary, Hannah Dilkes, Setareh Ebrahimi, Rowan Evans, Claire Ewbank, Freya Ferguson, Jennifer Gilbert, Deepthi Gopal, Heather Halliwell, Jennifer Heath-Brown, Toby Hickman, Rachel Hoffman, Alice Homewood, Charles Hooper, Madeleine Humphries, Jonathan Jedrczak, Beth Jellicoe, Suzi Jones, Patrick Kennedy, Andrew David King, Gah-Kai Leung, Benjamin Leverett-Jaques, Megan Florence Mansworth, Jack Marling, Sadie McCarney, Joseph McManners, Evan McWilliams, Isabella Mngadi, Beth Nandwani, Oliver Nejad, Gregory Alva Ng, Jed O’Connor, Isaac O’Grady, Hope Olorunleye, Ciaran O’Rourke, Cristina Osborne, Jonathan Parkin, Alex Parsons, Tommy Pia, Erin Pooley-Cooper, M.L.Powell, Tor Robinson, Rachel Rowan-Olive, Ella Ruuskanen, Charlotte Salter, Bennett Sanderson, Alex Saunders, Scarlett Saunders, Emma Scott, Mine Serizawa, Hugh Sillitoe, Jack Snoddy, Barbara Speed, Benjamin Steele, Janey Thornton, Amy Trevethan, Michael Wee, Rachel Wilkie, Devawn Wilkinson, Teresa Yang, Ezra Zacharia.