Tomorrow, the South Bank Poetry Magazine launches issue 11, the ‘London Poems Anthology’, with prize-winning, commended and short-listed poems from the inaugural South Bank Poetry Competition judged by Niall O’Sullivan. The event is at the Poetry Café in Betterton Street and will include readings of some of the poems.
In the meantime, for those who won’t be there, here’s a London poem. Coincidentally, the original notes were taken when I was going to the award ceremony of the Barnet Poetry Prize a few years ago.
Towards High Barnet
We’re moled and burrowing
through London’s longest stretch
of tunnelling dark, until East Finchley
where sudden sunlight dazzles us.
A shock of daffodils tousles the embankment.
Ivy-drab drapes a dull brick wall
beyond which, an old man digs for victory
against perennial weeds in his allotment.
don't confuse the narrator 