Each year, we select our three submissions for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem from those winning and shortlisted poems from our Pick of the Month series that remain eligible. This year our choices are Eve Chancellor’s Two Girls on a Greyhound, The Sorry Letter from Michelle Diaz and Gay Chicken by Arun Jeetoo.
Reacquaint yourself with these fine poems below and do please keep your fingers firmly crossed for three excellent poets.
Two Girls on a Greyhound
The older girl turns her face towards the window. Hides
behind her curtain of long brown hair. Her sister is asleep.
They are never going back there. Stepping off the coach,
the seat of the young girl’s jeans is stained with blood.
Her sister takes off her sweatshirt, ties it around
her waist. The older girl takes her sister to the restroom
to get her cleaned up. In the mirror, she thinks of cutting
her hair. She could be a dancer. Call herself Roxanne.
Sniffing, her sister comes out of the cubicle. We need
to change our names, the older girl says. I’ll be Lola.
I want to be Catherine, the younger girl replies.
Like Catherine of Aragon: the Spanish princess,
who became a British queen. She was a survivor.
I’ll call you Cate, her sister says. It will be our secret.
They try on their new identities for size. They could be
anyone. Do anything. Go anywhere. Two girls, on the road
and it feels essential that they keep on running, running
Eve Chancellor is an English Teacher in Manchester. She has previously studied in Liverpool, Melbourne and Glasgow. Her short stories are featured and forthcoming with East of the Web, Reflex Press, The Ghastling and Sixpence Society Literary Journal. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals, including: Apricot Press, Celestite, Dream Catcher, Green Ink Poetry and Hyacinth Review.
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The Sorry Letter
I’m nine years old & it’s 6pm & I’ve been sent to my room.
I open a new pack of felt tips & grab some Victoria Plum paper.
It’s time for The Sorry Letter.
I want to be in the laughing living room,
watching Knight Rider with my brothers.
I don’t want to write The Sorry Letter.
But I’m a good writer, so I give it my best shot.
I draw a dragon in a hat & some wonky green flowers.
I draw a mini me kneeling,
with one long stick of black hair
& a downturned mouth
& little blue lines coming out of my eyes.
Inside a speech bubble I write –
I’m sorry for my behaviour mummy.
I’m sorry I left my dolls in the hallway.
I’m sorry for answering back facetiously.
(Spelt correctly).
Then I throw in a bit from Sunday Mass:
‘I’m sorry above all things for having offended thee’.
I draw a sad God with a thought bubble over his head
& the words ‘Miserable Sinner’.
This is my best ever Sorry Letter.
I make an envelope and decorate it
with vibrating hearts & flowers.
I dab it with Mum’s Lentheric Tweed.
Then, I tiptoe down, carefully avoiding the creaky stair.
I post my exceptional missal under the door.
From the other side, my brother whispers,
Look mum. Look down there!
There’s a rustle & a silence that goes on
for what feels like an aeon. I start climbing
back up the stairs, then sit on the halfway bit,
like a muppet or Christopher Robin.
There’s a tut and a mutter,
then a series of swift, determined rips.
Michelle Diaz has been published by 14 Magazine, Poetry Wales and numerous print and online journals. Her debut pamphlet The Dancing Boy was published by Against the Grain Press in 2019. She is working on her first collection.
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Gay Chicken
This is how it starts.
Champion of every round, player,
Don’t care to cleanse yourself
from the corridor rumours. Lunchtime
fixtures are your ritual: Lynx opponents,
your lips dew heavy scared shitless
ticking a different box after one act.
Your girlfriend says, ‘what do you notice first?’
This is how it ends, and it shows you up.
You like being hungry more than being fed.