VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED; THE APRIL 2025 PICK OF THE MONTH WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS.
Faith runs as an undercurrent through most of not all of our shortlisted works for April 2025. Which writer will you put your faith into?
- Paul Bavister:‘Jigsaw’ which captures a family tradition in a pulsating and moving way
- Elena Chamberlain:‘My trans friends and I just want to go swimming’, one of those poems with a heartbreaking message that speaks to those who really need to hear it.
- Philip Gross:‘Charm’, incanting the metaphysical through language which is embodied and lyrical.
- Opeyemi Oluwayomi: ‘We are no longer what blood is to the body’, powerful metaphorical language and urgent political commentary
- Phil Vernon: ‘After the forest fire’, an allegory for the natural (manmade?) apocalypse which feels to be breathing down our necks
- Heather Walker:‘The Second Coming’, a blend of humour, faith, and the miracles of everyday life.
All six of the shortlist have been chosen by Helen, Kate and IB or received the most attention on social media. They can be found below. (Please scroll down.)
Our ‘prize’ is £20 towards the charity of your choice or an emailed National Book Token giftcard*.
*Book tokens can only be used within the UK. Sadly, we are unable to find suitable cost-effective alternatives outside the UK.
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THE APRIL 2025 PICK OF THE MONTH SHORTLIST
Jigsaw
A family photo, blown up and chopped
into a thousand pieces then tipped
on the table. We found our eyes first,
as they swirled through fragments
of black jumper, dark pine trees
and an orange sunset sky.
The jigsaw became a winter tradition,
and as we got older, the worn pieces
got harder to push together.
Sometimes we’d panic
that one was lost, but then find it
still rattling in the box.
When a side was completed
or a face stared back at us,
we’d nod in recognition.
We were always silent
as we put us all back together
in the winter sunlight.
Paul Bavister has published three volumes of poetry, including The Prawn Season (Two Rivers Press). His work has appeared in numerous magazines.
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My trans friends and I just want to go swimming
in cold water
without a thousand eyes watching.
to dunk our very own heads under
and feel as the breathing world
is wiped out.
to get an ice cream
from a van in the park
and watch it drip down the cone
onto our very own chipped nails
and not care about etiquette.
to go to a poetry night and celebrate
trans joy and feel euphoria.
to read poetry about our very own bodies
and it not be a eulogy.
to stand – not sit – in the shower
because I’ve slept through the night
and I want to spend a day where I’m not told
to tear myself apart at the expense of others.
to be allowed to exist
to wear dresses or
to shave our heads or
to be a caricature or not be a caricature
to be celebrated
to be praised for existing against all odds
to only be hungry for food.
to love one another
without sacrifice.
Elena Chamberlain is a writer and poet from England. El was longlisted in the Outspoken Prize for Poetry in the Performance category (2023), participated in Apples and Snakes’ Future Voices (2023) and Word’s a Stage (2024).
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Charm
Enough of scorch, scald, sore- and rawness.
Sometimes flesh longs for eclipse.
Mesh over mesh, compact me with cool plaster.
Swaddling clothes. Dry crust. Sarcophagus.
A scratch, a bramble rip… a mere sly snick
from a page of your book can open you,
its turn to read you, to the wordless quick.
The shock of pink, upwelling. Yet the cry
is there before it, years before: child
stares at the hurt finger, almost not part
of himself, and his mouth is a quivering
O. Make it better… Or now,
stunned by the all-over blow that age is,
with our medicines losing their grip
on the old ills, old words… How long
before ague, grippe, pox, bloody flux and
Make it better, we’ll cry. Lay a cool
charm, tree words, to our stripped flesh
leaf by leaf as if sap could transfuse
to our veins. And when the cocoon cracks,
plaster peels off, will we come shivering
back into light, in skin too pale, then
Shade us, we’ll say, and for the first
time listen when the forest whispers back?
Philip Gross’ Thirteenth Angel (Bloodaxe, 2022) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, which he previously won in 2009. www.philipgross.co.uk.The Shores of Vaikus, a creative re-inhabiting of Estonia, his refugee father’s birthplace, was published by Bloodaxe in November: www.bloodaxebooks.com
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We are no longer what blood is to the body
After Tiken Jah Fakoly
I
They are sharing the world. This same small
village of ours, where our fathers erected
their huts, & buried their aged. They are
destroying the sky we built with our unequal
fingers. They are piercing knife between
the city, detaching the body from the head,
& squeezing the blood out of the flesh,
so there can be an end to what hasn’t begun.
II
They have shared the world which belongs
to us, without our consent. They have
claimed every part. Still, everyone is
somewhere claiming another part for
himself. They say they want the head
to move without the body. They say they
want the arms to move without the shoulder.
They say they want the head to move
without the consent of the neck.
They say they don’t want us to be what
blood is to the body.
Opeyemi Oluwayomi is a Nigerian writer, an English & Literary student of University of Ibadan. His works have appeared In Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, Art Lounge Journal, Brittle Paper, Shallow Tales Review, Ekstasis Magazine, Eboquil Magazine, SpringNG, and elsewhere. He was the second-runner-up winner of the Shuzia Poetry Competition, 2023 (Journey of the Soul).
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After the forest fire
Because we were four
and I only had strength to carry one
and knew no other way
I carried the one who called out loudest;
threatened us most.
You two were left to walk behind
in the dust of hot, dry summer and
the heavy mud of winter and spring.
Perhaps I thought you’d learn the land –
more likely, I just hoped we’d be OK.
That morning found us silent, slumped
among the charred remains of trees.
The flames, too, were spent after such a night.
But the undersoil still burned, untraceably,
towards where uncharred trees remained.
Phil Vernon’s third full collection is Guerrilla Country (Flight of the Dragonfly Press, 2024). He lives in Kent. www.philvernon.net
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The Second Coming
It was a few days after Easter Sunday that Felicity saw Jesus. He was riding a bike, his long hair flowing like the robe around his shoulders. On one handle bar swung a Lidl bag. It was an odd sight, but his resurrection had just been celebrated in church. Why wouldn’t he go shopping?
She next saw him in the park, eating a sandwich and feeding the ducks. Hardly the five thousand and loaves and fishes, but Felicity knew he cared for all his father’s creatures. Felicity crossed the park to introduce herself, but by the time she reached the bench, he’d vanished, just like that.
On her way home later, there was a commotion in the High Street. Jesus was surrounded by hordes of people, just as he had been back in his day. He must be teaching, Felicity thought. Her heart pounded as she pushed herself forward, only to find Jesus giving CPR to an elderly gentleman lying on the ground. Felicity wondered why Jesus hadn’t just put a hand on the man to heal him like in the bible. Then the paramedics arrived and took over. Jesus slipped away into the crowd before Felicity could follow.
The following Saturday there was a group on the green. People dressed in long robes and colourful clothes wearing flowers in their hair, and there was Jesus, in the mix, holding a goblet in his hand. Mrs Parker came up to her. A woman who always had a nose for gossip.
‘This shouldn’t be allowed,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘Pagan weddings on the green opposite the church. What is the world coming to?’
Felicity ignored her and watched, waiting for Jesus to turn the water into wine, but she’d lost him in the crowd. Damn Mrs Parker for interrupting her.
She went to the vicar and told her Jesus was back.
‘The second coming, you mean?’
‘Well, what would you call it?’
The vicar pulled at her dog collar as if she was having trouble breathing, her face turning as pink as her blouse. ‘Well, we don’t actually know what Jesus looked like,’ referring to Felicity’s description.
‘Of course we do. We have the pictures,’ Felicity thundered.
‘Ah, they are only a representation of what we think he looked like, and of course his skin wouldn’t be white like in most pictures, and probably not angelic looking.’
Felicity was affronted. She had expected more from someone of faith. She left feeling down-hearted.
Two days later, she saw Jesus peddling a little boat across the lake in the park. The day was warm and sunny, yet he was the only one who had taken a boat out. This was significant. Even more so when Jesus waved to Felicity. This was her moment. He was calling to her. Her faith was strong. If Peter could do it, then surely she could.
Felicity stepped off the edge of the path and walked into the water. Shock hit her as she sank. The water was cold and slimy with green algae, but between her splashing she saw Jesus peddling the little boat towards her. He leaned forward and hauled her out with one hand and landed her like a fish on the path. Felicity coughed.
‘Jesus, you save me,’ she said between her coughing fit.
‘Indeed, I did. That was some slip. Are you okay?’
‘You waved to me and I….’
‘Actually, I was waving to my sister. That’s her coming now.’
Felicity sat up in time to see a young woman with long hair, not dissimilar to Jesus’s hair.
‘Gary,’ cried the sister.
Felicity turned to Jesus. ‘Your name is Gary?’
But Jesus, also known as Gary, ignored her as his sister arrived and asked Felicity if she needed an ambulance.
Felicity stood up, her dress and jacket wringing wet. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Thank God Gary was here. We only came to the village for a wedding at the weekend.’
‘Yeah, but we made a little holiday out of it, didn’t we, sis? We’re heading back to London later.’
Gary and his sister fussed over Felicity, but she couldn’t get away fast enough and come Sunday she didn’t mention her encounter with the Jesus imposter. However, Mrs Parker had got wind of it and said what a miracle it was that the pagan hippy had been there to save Felicity from drowning.
‘Someone remarked he looked a little like Jesus,’ Mrs Parker said.
‘Really?’ said Felicity. ‘I wouldn’t have said so.’
Heather Walker is a writer of poetry and short fiction. Her work has featured in various publications, including Banshee Lit, Underbelly and Popshot. Her first full-length novella is due to be published in the summer. She lives in London and blogs at storyandverse.blogspot.com