The Wakefield Postcode W winning entry 2021
Our congratulations are extended to Lisa Falshaw for her energetic and exuberant poem. Scroll down for the judge's comments on Lisa's poem and all of the shortlisted W poems. Scroll down further still for all of the poems in question.
Wakefield Postcode W Winner
When all this is over
Lisa Falshaw
I chose this because of the energy of the piece. I enjoyed the use of language, and the optimism. There was a delicious exuberance about it. The rhythm and the repeat line were deftly handled, holding it all together neatly and effectively. It worked in the air and on the page. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it aloud. And the ending was superb. My only question for the poet is…can I come?
Wakefield Postcode W Commended poems
Half term: 21 October 1966 – John Foggin
I liked the way the poet had worked the layout, with a density and weight of words balanced above a simpler use of language in the depiction of the village school. It was two poems in one really, but very effective.
En Suite – Jo Brandon
An environmental poem with a novel angle. A well-written imaginative take on a popular theme.
Constant – John Foggin
A tight piece of writing, beautifully executed, with a perfect ending (endings are often difficult and can be one of the hurdles at which a poem stands or falls).
The Sounds of Silence – Judy Rylance
This was like walking into a bit of 1960s home movie, clearly drawn, all the stronger for the appearance of the train at the end which was unsettling, and seemed to suggest that change was in the air.
Shared Threads – Claire Crossdale
I loved the humour of the opening, which then turned on itself when the poem reveals what it’s really about. Great use of the word “lapped”. It was again a piece I could “see”, and in very few words I felt I knew something of the two characters and their relationship, and I cared about them and about their respective death and grief. Lovely work, with real warmth, that stood out to me on the first read through.
Wakefield Postcode W Winner
When all this is over
Lisa Falshaw
I chose this because of the energy of the piece. I enjoyed the use of language, and the optimism. There was a delicious exuberance about it. The rhythm and the repeat line were deftly handled, holding it all together neatly and effectively. It worked in the air and on the page. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it aloud. And the ending was superb. My only question for the poet is…can I come?
Wakefield Postcode W Commended poems
Half term: 21 October 1966 – John Foggin
I liked the way the poet had worked the layout, with a density and weight of words balanced above a simpler use of language in the depiction of the village school. It was two poems in one really, but very effective.
En Suite – Jo Brandon
An environmental poem with a novel angle. A well-written imaginative take on a popular theme.
Constant – John Foggin
A tight piece of writing, beautifully executed, with a perfect ending (endings are often difficult and can be one of the hurdles at which a poem stands or falls).
The Sounds of Silence – Judy Rylance
This was like walking into a bit of 1960s home movie, clearly drawn, all the stronger for the appearance of the train at the end which was unsettling, and seemed to suggest that change was in the air.
Shared Threads – Claire Crossdale
I loved the humour of the opening, which then turned on itself when the poem reveals what it’s really about. Great use of the word “lapped”. It was again a piece I could “see”, and in very few words I felt I knew something of the two characters and their relationship, and I cared about them and about their respective death and grief. Lovely work, with real warmth, that stood out to me on the first read through.
The Wakefield Post Code Poetry Prize short-listed entries
En Suite
Some left theirs in situ, as relics
or in case it was just a phase,
but most stripped them
as soon as the water ran out.
Gardens cluttered with enamel sinks
filled old-way with stalks
of lemon thyme and mint,
deadmoss-shadowed and sunken,
side by side with cracked Jacuzzi showers,
their silver frames gaffer taped
as make-shift silos to sip rain.
Ceramic tiles smashed and mosaiced
to grout snow-pestled pot holes –
long since dry.
Park benches replaced by rows
of Thomas Crappers, lids down and sealed,
flush-chains seemingly cisterned
into sky-parked dust clouds,
allotments alternating slipper-bath
and corner tub composters;
off-white strips of land contrasting
against the blue-black of solar-panel farms
and British-sky-grey of turbine orchards –
corn-flower and rape seed out of season
for decades.
Jo Brandon
Shared-threads
This is no ordinary old red cardi
This is my vintage red with ten-percent-silk cardi
This is my vintage red with ten-percent-silk M&S cardi
This is my vintage red with ten-per-cent-sil M&S Wakefield cardi
I am lending you
LENDING you mum I say
Before she slipped away with no more to say
my old red cardi lapped round her shoulders
I suppose the Co-op lapped you in disposable black
before they lapped you in cherry and brass
before Rev Pete lapped you in praise and verse
leaving us to eulogise
Still lapped in your love
Claire Crossdale
When all this is over
I want to leave the house
wearing a dress, fuchsia, tight,
definitely above the knee,
take one last look
in the mirror in the hall
and smile, this evening
we had almost given up on.
I want to walk down the road
wearing heels which kiss
and set shivering last night’s puddles.
I want to brazen out the cold,
the stockings, no jacket
and feel spikes of air
sharp on arms and legs.
I want to shimmy
from one bar to the next
where warm lights flicker
like sunset on water.
I want drinks where tiny bubbles
chase up the side of the glass
and pop, triumphantly, on glistening lips.
I want to sashay
to the ladies’, smile into the mirror
and see you all,
adjusting straps, re-applying smudged lipstick,
laugh with you at nothing, just laugh
for the hell of it, the feel of it,
the downright niceness of it.
I want to link arms
with you all, sway
through the town, lean into
each other, close enough to touch
honeyed breath, and somehow,
one of us will lose a shoe,
somewhere on the ring road,
near Leeds.
Lisa Falshaw
Some left theirs in situ, as relics
or in case it was just a phase,
but most stripped them
as soon as the water ran out.
Gardens cluttered with enamel sinks
filled old-way with stalks
of lemon thyme and mint,
deadmoss-shadowed and sunken,
side by side with cracked Jacuzzi showers,
their silver frames gaffer taped
as make-shift silos to sip rain.
Ceramic tiles smashed and mosaiced
to grout snow-pestled pot holes –
long since dry.
Park benches replaced by rows
of Thomas Crappers, lids down and sealed,
flush-chains seemingly cisterned
into sky-parked dust clouds,
allotments alternating slipper-bath
and corner tub composters;
off-white strips of land contrasting
against the blue-black of solar-panel farms
and British-sky-grey of turbine orchards –
corn-flower and rape seed out of season
for decades.
Jo Brandon
Shared-threads
This is no ordinary old red cardi
This is my vintage red with ten-percent-silk cardi
This is my vintage red with ten-percent-silk M&S cardi
This is my vintage red with ten-per-cent-sil M&S Wakefield cardi
I am lending you
LENDING you mum I say
Before she slipped away with no more to say
my old red cardi lapped round her shoulders
I suppose the Co-op lapped you in disposable black
before they lapped you in cherry and brass
before Rev Pete lapped you in praise and verse
leaving us to eulogise
Still lapped in your love
Claire Crossdale
When all this is over
I want to leave the house
wearing a dress, fuchsia, tight,
definitely above the knee,
take one last look
in the mirror in the hall
and smile, this evening
we had almost given up on.
I want to walk down the road
wearing heels which kiss
and set shivering last night’s puddles.
I want to brazen out the cold,
the stockings, no jacket
and feel spikes of air
sharp on arms and legs.
I want to shimmy
from one bar to the next
where warm lights flicker
like sunset on water.
I want drinks where tiny bubbles
chase up the side of the glass
and pop, triumphantly, on glistening lips.
I want to sashay
to the ladies’, smile into the mirror
and see you all,
adjusting straps, re-applying smudged lipstick,
laugh with you at nothing, just laugh
for the hell of it, the feel of it,
the downright niceness of it.
I want to link arms
with you all, sway
through the town, lean into
each other, close enough to touch
honeyed breath, and somehow,
one of us will lose a shoe,
somewhere on the ring road,
near Leeds.
Lisa Falshaw
Half Term: 21 October 1966
A day unlike any other day end of term day holiday tomorrow day
after much rain springs rising under monumental hills built by men
toiling for a hundred years in the dark riddled mountain in the brilliant
dust the bright black coal a spoil of stone and shaly mud and slurry
shuffled out under cold skies making mountains of itself shuttering
down on their sides year on year on year cold Etnas bearing down on
hills squeezing spongy ground its springs its molecules slippery
as a rink it doesn’t take much rain a tip in the balance
can move mountains they can’t take any more
The children of the valley
sit at their desks
Mr Benyon calls the register
the children answer
and Mr Benyon marks them present
from A to B to C to
the moment that the floor
shivers
chalk dust puffs from cracks
in the splintery floor
the window curtains
of small terraced houses
bulge
and the dark pours in
in that silence you couldn’t hear a bird or a child
John Foggin
A day unlike any other day end of term day holiday tomorrow day
after much rain springs rising under monumental hills built by men
toiling for a hundred years in the dark riddled mountain in the brilliant
dust the bright black coal a spoil of stone and shaly mud and slurry
shuffled out under cold skies making mountains of itself shuttering
down on their sides year on year on year cold Etnas bearing down on
hills squeezing spongy ground its springs its molecules slippery
as a rink it doesn’t take much rain a tip in the balance
can move mountains they can’t take any more
The children of the valley
sit at their desks
Mr Benyon calls the register
the children answer
and Mr Benyon marks them present
from A to B to C to
the moment that the floor
shivers
chalk dust puffs from cracks
in the splintery floor
the window curtains
of small terraced houses
bulge
and the dark pours in
in that silence you couldn’t hear a bird or a child
John Foggin
Constant
That day in Edale: a straight white plume
from the tall chimney in the green hills,
grey walls walking up and over the tops,
a castle in a cleft, a boy sealed in the shaft
he could not be moved from; a river running out.
The slumped scar of Mam Tor, the axe-split
pass of Winnats. Snow in the air.
Stone steps cut wet and steep into the heart
of the fell; slick mud, the air is not quite chill,
a long crawl beneath a tombstone slab,
and maybe this is what burial is like.
Resurrection is a widening chamber,
the held breath of water running,
sour odours: limestone, gritstone, marl.
What a thing, to let the voices of children
and their glowworm helmet lamps dwindle
and snuff out in darkness beyond the squeeze
of a fat clay gut. Strange to sit in perfect dark,
to come to know it fits perfectly as skin;
to know silence, to settle into it.
John Foggin
The Sounds of Silence
Sundays were silent then or were meant to be
as if God had just pressed PAUSE
no factory sirens to mark the working day
just the sweeter sound of church bells
and in our house my Mother at the organ
ploughs the fields and scatters
as the budgie pecks his good seed
and the dog whimpers in her dreams
while Nan’s in the kitchen having a natter
and I work the treadle like a bass drum pedal
fashioning a shift for the youth club dance
the Beatles making me wanna twist and shout
but out back looming into view and disgorging steam
the colossal Flying Scotsman whistles and hisses by
thundering through the still of the Sabbath day
Judy Rylance
That day in Edale: a straight white plume
from the tall chimney in the green hills,
grey walls walking up and over the tops,
a castle in a cleft, a boy sealed in the shaft
he could not be moved from; a river running out.
The slumped scar of Mam Tor, the axe-split
pass of Winnats. Snow in the air.
Stone steps cut wet and steep into the heart
of the fell; slick mud, the air is not quite chill,
a long crawl beneath a tombstone slab,
and maybe this is what burial is like.
Resurrection is a widening chamber,
the held breath of water running,
sour odours: limestone, gritstone, marl.
What a thing, to let the voices of children
and their glowworm helmet lamps dwindle
and snuff out in darkness beyond the squeeze
of a fat clay gut. Strange to sit in perfect dark,
to come to know it fits perfectly as skin;
to know silence, to settle into it.
John Foggin
The Sounds of Silence
Sundays were silent then or were meant to be
as if God had just pressed PAUSE
no factory sirens to mark the working day
just the sweeter sound of church bells
and in our house my Mother at the organ
ploughs the fields and scatters
as the budgie pecks his good seed
and the dog whimpers in her dreams
while Nan’s in the kitchen having a natter
and I work the treadle like a bass drum pedal
fashioning a shift for the youth club dance
the Beatles making me wanna twist and shout
but out back looming into view and disgorging steam
the colossal Flying Scotsman whistles and hisses by
thundering through the still of the Sabbath day
Judy Rylance
