little one

by Geraldine Clarkson

the baby arrived with stitched lips
no matter how hard the midwife tried
she couldn’t undo the stitches
and, shrugging, handed her over
for the needle-eyed mother
to see to

A winner of the Poetry News Members' Poems competition on the theme of 'The Tiny World', judged by Katy Evans Bush.

Geraldine Clarkson is the winner of the Anne Born Prize 2015. In 2015 she also won the Poetry London Competition, Magma Editors’ Prize and the 2015 Ver Prize. She was included in The Best British Poetry 2014 (Salt) and she was ‘Selected Poet’ in Magma 58. She has two poems in This Line is Not for Turning: An Anthology of Contemporary British Prose Poetry (Cinnamon Press). She was a Writers’ Centre Norwich Escalator winner in 2011 and she was shortlisted in the Arvon International Poetry Competition in 2010. A selection of her poems were included in Primers (Nine Arches Press, in conjunction with the Poetry School) in April 2016, and her first pamphlet is forthcoming in the Laureate's Choice series (Smith/Doorstop).