WINNERS 2022
FIRST PRIZE
Red borscht
March; gunmetal sky.
Crepuscular light slants down
On tattered parchment.
Despotic easterlies possess the steppe,
Spray bitter hail like bullets;
Restless forests prowl with beasts.
A people seeking refuge, borscht
Around old cauldrons tarnished in
The flames: sour-sweet, the crimson
Beet uprooted from black earth
With onion tears, salt bread
And warmth of kinship, meat.
Frost darkness pierced with iron shrieks;
The acrid cumulus of motors, churn of wheels.
This planet gasps, free nations choke:
A spectral Stalin at the feast –
Cold Caesars gorge their monstrous meal;
At fractured hearths red borscht congeals.
Andy Dalgleish
SECOND PRIZE
counting the cost
“In 2019, diabetes was the ninth leading cause of death with an estimated 1.5 million deaths directly caused by diabetes.” World Health Organization
vial pancreas
bottled in the fridge
ready to infuse
its metallic scent
sticks to my fingers
a sick smell lingers
my body’s betrayal
an unkept secret:
since I was six, I cannot
secrete this
must inject/slow drip
what looks like water
costs $s/£s/shadow-
hours of effort spent
on surviving/trying
to gain…explain…maintain
some kind of dream
let’s-pretend normality
to justify existence we’re worth it
in a world where, sometimes
the right birthplace
is still the price of life
Sarah Leavesley
THIRD PRIZE
The Lodgers
The red ant boards under the rim of the toilet pan.
Suspended from a Sistine ceiling
the armadillo pipe-dreams in a hammock.
The radio plays far-off needle tunes.
They dance to the tightened carcass of a drum
while Hidden Pain plays on a loop.
The air smells of hopeless feathers
from wisdom that flew through cracks.
Outside the lizard lifts one eyelid
in the solar-powered stone wall squat.
Jack clings to his beanstalk
while the giant squints at aphid clumps.
these worried beasts
on the charts livid bruised.
In italics: from A Far Cry from Africa, Derek Walcott
Hidden Pain, by A Star Ft Leké, about sickle cell anaemia
Moira Garland
SHORTLISTED
Mark Burrow ‘You All of You’
Ken Evans ‘When This is Over’
Helen Kay ‘Whole Tooth’
Marie-Christine Lucron ‘FGM’
Alwyn Marriage ‘Spontaneous Response’
Chris Muskett ‘Emotion Sickness’
Joe Williams ‘Untitled Erasure #2’
Glen Wilson ‘Beachcomber on Bunce Island’
Red borscht
March; gunmetal sky.
Crepuscular light slants down
On tattered parchment.
Despotic easterlies possess the steppe,
Spray bitter hail like bullets;
Restless forests prowl with beasts.
A people seeking refuge, borscht
Around old cauldrons tarnished in
The flames: sour-sweet, the crimson
Beet uprooted from black earth
With onion tears, salt bread
And warmth of kinship, meat.
Frost darkness pierced with iron shrieks;
The acrid cumulus of motors, churn of wheels.
This planet gasps, free nations choke:
A spectral Stalin at the feast –
Cold Caesars gorge their monstrous meal;
At fractured hearths red borscht congeals.
Andy Dalgleish
SECOND PRIZE
counting the cost
“In 2019, diabetes was the ninth leading cause of death with an estimated 1.5 million deaths directly caused by diabetes.” World Health Organization
vial pancreas
bottled in the fridge
ready to infuse
its metallic scent
sticks to my fingers
a sick smell lingers
my body’s betrayal
an unkept secret:
since I was six, I cannot
secrete this
must inject/slow drip
what looks like water
costs $s/£s/shadow-
hours of effort spent
on surviving/trying
to gain…explain…maintain
some kind of dream
let’s-pretend normality
to justify existence we’re worth it
in a world where, sometimes
the right birthplace
is still the price of life
Sarah Leavesley
THIRD PRIZE
The Lodgers
The red ant boards under the rim of the toilet pan.
Suspended from a Sistine ceiling
the armadillo pipe-dreams in a hammock.
The radio plays far-off needle tunes.
They dance to the tightened carcass of a drum
while Hidden Pain plays on a loop.
The air smells of hopeless feathers
from wisdom that flew through cracks.
Outside the lizard lifts one eyelid
in the solar-powered stone wall squat.
Jack clings to his beanstalk
while the giant squints at aphid clumps.
these worried beasts
on the charts livid bruised.
In italics: from A Far Cry from Africa, Derek Walcott
Hidden Pain, by A Star Ft Leké, about sickle cell anaemia
Moira Garland
SHORTLISTED
Mark Burrow ‘You All of You’
Ken Evans ‘When This is Over’
Helen Kay ‘Whole Tooth’
Marie-Christine Lucron ‘FGM’
Alwyn Marriage ‘Spontaneous Response’
Chris Muskett ‘Emotion Sickness’
Joe Williams ‘Untitled Erasure #2’
Glen Wilson ‘Beachcomber on Bunce Island’
