Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2020: Watchmen

After Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

 

When all this is over, thought the watchman,

I shall take to my garden, where

the light will be long as tomorrow

 

and the larks will not depart from me.

I shall lay on my lawn, lord of the morning,

and shed my black self, my shadow.

 

My watchlights will fill with the glisten of wings,

the tinkle of wrens on the terrace.

My whiskers will lift on the lip of the wind

 

and I’ll swing to the stars from the trellis.

When all this is done, thought the watchman,

and I stand at the gate of the day

 

my garden will never know absence.

My swallows and sparrows will stay.

Recording provided as part of Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2020. Used by permission of the author. Photograph by James Hudson Photography

Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2020 Winners

Welcome to the Poetry Archive Now! WordView 2020 Collection. For the first time the Archive opened its doors wide to poets from around ...

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Laura Potts

Laura Potts is a writer from West Yorkshire. A recipient of the Foyle Young Poets Award, her work has been published by Aesthetica, The Moth and The Poetry Business. Having worked at The Dylan Thomas Birthplace in Swansea, Laura became one of the BBC’s New Voices in 2017. She received a commendation from The Poetry Society in 2018 and The Edward Thomas Fellowship in 2020

A special thank you to our WordView 2020 poets.

Chair of the Judging Panel, Imtiaz Dharker, says: “The hundreds of entries we received blew in to the Archive like a breath of pure, unpolluted air from all over the world, revealing something of the time we are living in, some telling it straight, some slant. It was exciting to check in to the Poetry Archive’s Youtube channel every morning and come upon one unexpected voice after another."

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