The winner of this year's Words by the Water - Mirehouse Poetry Competition is Jennifer Copley (Barrow-in-Furness) with her poem, 'Now You’re Gone'.

Congratulations to her and to the 8 highly commended poets:

Jean Atkins (Dumfries) – 'Not Lost Since Last Time'
Mike Barlow (Lancaster) – 'Through the Blizzard a Man Walks'
John Clarke (Wakefield) – 'Megevette, French Alps'
Kathryn Daszkiewics (Grantham, Lincolnshire) – 'Coast'
Michael Foley (London) - 'Meng Hao-Jan on the Lake of the Ten Thousand Mountains'
Terry Jones (Carlisle) – 'Moth-Print Spring'
Candy Neubert (Dartington, Devon) – 'Silence'
Isobel Thrilling (Romford, Essex) – 'Staying Out'

There will be an event at Mirehouse, Bassenthwaite on Saturday 13 March at 11.30 am when the winning poems will be read and John Burnside - the competition judge - will give a short reading of his own poems. This event is FREE but ticketed. Phone 017687 74411.

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Now You’re Gone
by Jennifer Copley
 
                        I hear the creak of next door’s stairs,
Miss Miriam’s footsteps, her early-morning cough,
the squeak on the banister of her blue-veined hands.
From the kitchen there’s the slosh of her water-jug,
the hiss of a tea-kettle, the scrape of burnt toast.
Grates are riddled, steps are scrubbed.
Radio 3 (mixed with the smell of best mince)
floats from her window, doubles back into mine.
She’s always lived alone since Billy Shoesmith…
What? She never says.
                        At night we wind the clocks,
twisting the old black keys till our wrists crack.
As we climb the stairs, the owls return
to our joint chimney pot. The ‘Twoooo’ floats down
as we brush our heads of long white hair.
Bed-springs groan. We reach for our books.
She’s reading the lives of early English kings;
I’m reading the twelve labours of Hercules,
How to Win at Chess, a book on bereavement,
another about a man who invented Cat’s Eyes.


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