Winners 2002 : Runner-up : Christopher Edwards

Summer School 2012

The 8th Tower Poetry Summer School for young poets aged 18-23 will be held in Christ Church, Oxford from 28-31 August 2012. The tutors will be Alan Gillis (University of Edinburgh, Scotland) and Kevin Young (Emory University, Atlanta, USA).

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Poetry Matters

Poetry Matters is an exciting on-line poetry magazine which provides a fresh, dynamic perspective on poetry issues through a mix of news, reviews and comment.

Christopher Edwards

Rising from the damp, muddy sprawl of the moor,
Bubbling up through its mouldy stamping ground.
Reaching the surface. Breathing.

Cascading down the rocky track,
Crashing against stones like knives. And faces
Of granite; grey and dead. Laughing.

Reaching the level, the town; the end.
Building up in itself, destroying all with itself.
Get washed away, my friends. Get soaked.

It’s good for the soul, this is. When
you have to bail yourself out
Of what used to be your home: your own.

Evicted by the very substance
that keeps your revered life ticking over.
But master, what served you so well, is now

what laps at your feet and
breaks your hope and your resolve.
A dirty brown revolution. Flooding

your mind. And blurring
the edges of photographs.

III

Now it has gone. But somehow, after
the torrent and the fright have flowed away,
it remains, in soul and in memory. Biting.

The walls of the past are now stained, and
a lonely piece of weed is settled and still,
in the carpet. Squatting.

You can return, you can reside. You can even
hope and pray. But after the event,
nothing can be the same again. This is

not your house. Not now, not anymore.

So much to take in; so much to see; so much to think. But all you can do
is to keep cursing over those crooked picture frames.

About Tower Poetry

Tower Poetry exists to encourage and challenge everyone who reads or writes poetry. Funded by a generous bequest to Christ Church, Oxford, by the late Christopher Tower, the aims of Tower Poetry are clear: to stimulate an enjoyment and critical appreciation of poetry, particularly among young people in education, and to challenge people to write their own poetry. Creative writing should be a central element in literary education, and learning about writing poetry can help students to think about ways of reading poetry.

Publications

The Twelve:

Poems from the 7th Tower Poetry Summer School 2010
Edited by Daljit Nagra and Jo Shapcott
The Twelve contains 56 poems from the 12 young poets who attended the Summer School.