Kayleigh Willis
THE WINNERS PT 1: HIGHLY COMMENDED CATEGORY
Updated: Sep 21, 2021
Here are our three winners in the 'Highly Commended' category (all from the north of England!):
'Thirteen' by Natalie Crick
Julie is still mine – but maybe
only for another year, or less.
Her window is open and she is looking
past me, to the end of the road,
where the streetlamp glows sodium pink
where the road meets the dark sports field
where the boys have gathered
in black hoods to smoke, their breath
wisps of smut kisses.
I put my hands into Mam’s
Sunday meat in the big pot
just to feel the blood.
There may not be a reason why
Natalie Crick (Newcastle, UK) has poems published in The Moth, Banshee, The Dark Horse, The Poetry Review and elsewhere. She is studying for an MPhil in Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Last year one of Natalie's poems was commended in the Verve Poetry Festival Competition 2020 and awarded second prize in the Newcastle Poetry Competition 2020. This year a poem was highly commended in the Folklore Poetry Prize and highly commended in the Wales Poetry Award. Natalie is co-founder / poetry editor of a small literary press based in Newcastle and Prague, Fragmented Voices.
'the knife' by Jane Kite
the knife in the kitchen drawer
was just an impulse away
it was mild steel
made in Sheffield
six inches of blade and had appeared
in my mind insistently for weeks
had to gather my nerve
had to be quick
took it and put it
in a strong brown envelope
the knife
and like a mad woman
wrapped it in layers of newspaper
as you would broken glass
layer on layer of protection
like the parcel at a children’s party
then string round