“Every Singaporean Matters” –government slogan The woman at the mouth of the MRT station is hard not to notice. We want to hold her hand, drift towards her siren-voice wailing in Hokkien. Her with the withered white hair, with crumpled face and clothes. But we turn away, too embarrassed to buy her garish kiddie […]
Foyle 2001
Minimum Wage
I have never worked on grass so sharp that it cuts into my feet like glass. under a sun so hot that the soles of my trainers melted welding me to the ground hanging in a sky so empty so spotlessly bare that I can see solar systems wood pigeons are still, […]
Weed Wants To Travel
for Bill and Ben On a normal day, you’d see my stalk quiver towards the moss-free flowerpots which I live behind. But underneath, there’s the legful haze of my crazy roots encountering worms. The furious tingle, of spread-eagling round bricks and buried stones oval and sea-formed in perfection – my treasure. My ambition? To […]
The Sirens
Spring 2001 Was it just sea cows peacefully suckling? When scurvy set in they carried on, until even the captain lay below, his gums red and swollen in his dry face. And then the wind died. Long, long days of the sail sagging. Thin and weak they sprawled on the deck dreaming […]
Wanderings
And next door At number 30, A pig-tailed six year old, Freckled and “angelic” Thinks of dolls houses, Chocolate, And a world take over bid…… The moon, Hangs in the sky, As you walk, Through the sheeting drizzle, Glinting in the light Cast from pink streetlights, Suspended down the nameless street They live, […]
Leah Remembers Stars and Mandrakes
“Go and catch a falling star; Get with child a mandrake root” –Song (Go and catch a falling star), John Donne He spends his days working in the fields, sweating in the wheat’s pale gold. When I go to the well or call the children from their play, I see his back dipping and […]
Waiting for Robert
We have lived here for centuries, Ginger and me. Pressed close between the dust-sheets, We wait for my Robert to return. I pretend to make tea at six. Pretend. Just think about it, In case, by chance, he might Walk in find me unprepared. Ginger chases spiders, he Crushes and crunches Their black ooze […]
Laika
A humming bird treads an invisible thread researching the leafless ground below; a dissertation on silence. You send balloons up, haemoglobin bubbles in the sky dispersing sudden thoughts like Apollo’s limbs – maybe you do not want to be alone now, (after that first fatal wish) wait for the card to be returned; […]
Tom Bennet’s Gold Watch
He’s sitting in his comfy chair, Shouting orders at unsuspecting young cargo workers He hides me in the double bunk, Behind the freezer, With the cans of tinned beans, Me, 7 years old, Listening to his great “Boogie-Woogie” CD, At 6 in the morning, His old Teddy Duck, Sitting faithfully on his […]
Look at the Clouds
I need to change the sheets on my bed. They are thicker, less soft, than they were. I need to brush my hair and go for a walk, and I need to put the plastic bag in the bin to a recycling place, and I need to put ample milk on my breakfast, staring at […]
Pulau Ubin
it cannot be denied that the fields and forests have their minds – after all, morning dew does mix with earth, and they are fields of rain. and the hens and cockerels, they have to defecate somewhere. it is also true that such simple happiness here is often found in thatched houses (that […]
By Patrick Darren Connely
Today’s homework: write your life story. Well I was born in Langdon, Essex. July 13th, almost fourteen years ago. My name is Patrick, although, my Dad preferred Darren. That’s about it. The detention room is like a greenhouse. No windows open, just glass letting the June afternoon heat toast us.
Caleb Yong
Caleb Yong is a winner of Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2001.
Luke Samuel Yates
Luke’s pamphlet The Pair of Scissors That Could Cut Anything was published by The Rialto in 2013. He has been published in The North, THE SHOp, Smiths Knoll and The Rialto among others, and on the London Underground. In 2015 he was named a winner of the Poetry Business Pamphlet prize, with The Flemish Primitives. […]
Ruth Yates
Ruth Yates is a winner of Simon Elvin Young Poets of 1998 and Foyle Young Poets of 2001.
Charlotte Wetton
Charlotte is a page and performance poet whose work has featured in The Cadaverine, Staple, The Frogmore Papers and elsewhere. Her audio collection Body Politic was published by Dead Ink in 2012. Charlotte was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2001.
Jen Wainwright
Jen Wainwright is a winner of Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2001.
Qian Xi Teng
Qian Xi’s first collection They hear salt crystallising was published in 2010 by firstfruitspress. It is an intricate dreamscape where Chinese myths and Western inspirations intertwine with the poet’s personal narrative. Qian Xi has had poems published in various books and magazines including W. W. Norton’s Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the […]
Helen Mort
Helen Mort was born in Sheffield. Her first full-length collection, Division Street (Chatto & Windus, 2013) was shortlisted for the Costa Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize and, in 2014, won the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize. Her latest collection is No Map Could Show Them (Chatto & Windus, 2016). Helen is a five times winner of […]
Felicity Marks
Felicity Marks is a winner of the Poetry Society Young Poets of the Year 2000 and 2001.
Pieter Mark Koehorst
Pieter Mark Koehorst is a winner of Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2001.
Caleb Klaces
Caleb Klaces is the author of Fatherhood (Prototype, 2019) and Bottled Air (Eyewear, 2013). His poetry has appeared in Granta, The Manchester Review, Stand and Eyewear Publishing’s Lung Jazz: Young British Poets for Oxfam. In 2011 he received an Eric Gregory Award. He was a winner of Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2001 and […]
Judith Huang
Judith Huang is a winner of Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2001, 2003 and 2004.
Vicky Hozaifeh
Vicky Hozaifeh is a winner of Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2001.
Rebecca Hawkes
Rebecca Hawkes is a winner of Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2001.
The Wood
It sweeps on for miles, it seems, This creature, of green depth, Green shadow, and green gold, For miles, its bulk, heavy with pines, And lightened only by snatches of pale sun, In clearings, and in the movement of branches, Seems to stretch…. There are places, Near the heart of this creature, Where you […]
Emma Gaen
Emma Gaen was a winner of Foyle Young Poet of the Year 2001.
Queue to leave
A large muffin of a man Leans against a grimy signpost Swathed in a toffee coloured duffel coat Speckled with tears of rain, His coal black hair is slicked behind scarlet ears And a thin snake tongue licks pursed lips. Slitted eyes narrow dangerously as, Glancing at a silver watch Strapped tightly around his podgy […]
Dylan Chaundy
Dylan Chaundy was winner of Foyle Young Poets 2001.
New Life
Who would think that you, a lazy gambler, could hide those sort of secrets in your curled black hair. Dusty roads, trodden by those who would stab your honest son and burn down your farm, forged from blood, sweat and tears. From under the wiry mosquito nets, I remember stumbling out and knocking from you […]