Poetry and prose capture things in a blur sometimes, images just on the peripheral with the occasional sharp blast of clarity. Which of the following shortlisted works attracts your gaze?
- Cath Holland,‘THE JUMBLE SALE’: short prose that take you to the ‘good’ place that is the jumble sale, treasure found in every line.
- Daniel Cartwright-Chaouki,‘The Lean-to Glasshouse’: a crumbling yet strangely compelling edifice as metaphor for the end of a life.
- Ian Hickey, ‘Stop’: unsettling as an image on the page as it is in its meaning, as the darkness grows and the silence creeps in and time for the poem runs out
- Jackson,‘Patterned with cows’: a poem that uses the mother’s possessions and the narrator’s present use, or discarding of them, to suggest their differences.
- Robin Lindsay Williams, ‘Miss Betina Wauchope Disappears’: painting as an act of erasure and poet as art historian and critic.
- Winifred Mok,‘Wildflowers’: what is, or is not acceptable, in a flower, in a citizen.
All six of the shortlist have been chosen by Helen, Kate and Zakia or received significant attention on social media. They can be found below. (Please scroll down.)
Please VOTE HERE. Voting will close at 6 pm on Sunday 7 June.
Our ‘prize’ is £25 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.
THE MAY 2026 PICK OF THE MONTH SHORTLIST
THE JUMBLE SALE
The entry fee for the jumble sale at the homeless mission costs 20 pence or a pair of men’s jeans. I don’t have a pair of jeans with me would you believe. My quiet piece of silver plinks into the plastic bucket, and I reflect what you can’t get for 20 pence these days. Jesus watches in approval from his cross above the fire extinguisher because blessed are the proles on a bargain hunt for cheaps. Jumble sales of my childhood, I’m not sure if Jesus was present all those times in the 1980s scout hut stewarded by flinty-eyed women knowing their own sly tricks, snaffling the best stuff before the doors open.
Slummy in margarine tubs, fingers stinking of copper coins, they refused to haggle, stood strong in their unique brand of sisterhood, charging people based on whether they liked them or not. Wielded a benign authority, tutting down noses at sharp elbows embracing the vulgar. They thought everyone was there to steal. Maybe they were right. Rolled eyes at the queue outside lengthened, thickened by kids like me holding a place for John Wayne of the jumble sale to stride in first like he’s boss of everything. Everybody. Our fathers and uncles smelled of sweat and oil and confrontation, toxic masculinity before it had a name. Mine bare knuckled outside, blotted his bloodied nose with a blouse hung up for sale and tossed the floral chiffon back down, marking True Grit territory. That day, the women were nice to him for once. All quiet like.
Yesterday is years ago but no time at all. Goes past in a blink. Today a table by the door is piled with stuffed toys. There’s a danger the jumble will tumble and kill me. Only it won’t and don’t. A cheery fellow sells hand cream and socks and is that Sanctuary SP Covent Garden Illuminating Moisture Lotion? SPF 15? Is it going for 50p? Yes, it is! He tells me his wife doesn’t understand him. His fondness for jumble and car boots that is. She just don’t get it. He sees I’m a kindred soul, gives me the skinny on next week. ‘20p a book, love’.
I float from stall to stall in this nothing’s over a quid heaven. Where one woman sees trash another finds beautiful treasure. No one’s kicking off, churchy folks smilin’. One asks if I go to church and I say no but I’ve been thinking about things lately. It makes her so happy it switches on a light. She floats with me, carries a Tupperware of cupcakes slathered in cracked icing, glace cherry on top. I grab one when offered, bite the wonky shiny sweet nipple right off. My tongue dips into an unexpected cream middle. Sugar rushes my brain. I go with it.
Words here are flavoured by PG Tips, and well-thumbed Bibles of soft loved leather. I breathe in this good place. Take a snapshot with grown up eyes. Keep it still. A precious painting, the kind you fall for in a gallery or a book you want to live inside and you think to yourself, this is peace.
Cath Holland is a writer living in Birkenhead, Wirral covering themes of grief, class and feminism. She is published by Mslexia Magazine, Dead Ink Books, Arachne Press, National Flash Fiction Day, Fictive Dream, Indie Novella. Website: Cath Holland Cath Holland (@caththewriter)
*
The Lean-to Glasshouse
Its timber frame held together by the waste
of its own decay
The rot a kind of glue undisturbed
Cracked panes of glass hold their fractures
still
Hearts tongue ferns grow beneath
the dripping tap
And at the end in the damp where
all the water pools at the bottom of the sloping
shingle path
Bricks crumble to dust
Their profile left behind
miniature terracotta towns in relief
Grey plastic sockets intrude
Dried cardoon heads hang upside down
from routed conduit pipe
Loose stacks of brick and timber slats
make staging for rows and rows of potted
plants
This is where things grow
The wind threatens with a conditioned
response
So I cup my hands to catch it
And wait for somebody to say
words like short unexpected illness
And devastating loss
Daniel Cartwright-Chaouki is a gardener and writer from Birmingham, England. He writes about trees and plants (mostly) and people (sometimes) and other unimportant things. His work has featured widely both in print and online.
*
Stop
When the half-light drops below the horizon
the birth of darkness comes and I can see
myself in the mirror of the moon
madness shining in the moonlight
The birdsong gone The hedges
silent The world edges
to a place of no
return and I’m
trying to
tell it
stop
.
Ian Hickey lives in County Clare, Ireland. He was winner of the Waterford Poetry Prize in 2022. His poetry has appeared in The Waxed Lemon, The Belfast Review and The Stony Thursday Book.
*
Patterned with cows
I want to tell my mother,
I made a successful loaf
in the bread machine you didn’t know
you were leaving me
which has sat untouched
on the benchtop since you went
as Dad sat untouched on the couch
I used your stick mixer, too
I made some hummus
And thank you for buying
such an excellent set of pans
I want to tell her,
I sometimes wear
your cosy blue wool jumper
but I gave away most of your clothes
I gave away all the homespun cardigans
Sorry
I gave away your red thermal top
It was warm, but I found it scratchy
I want to tell her,
I donated the ornaments to Hospice
but I kept the engraved teaspoon you won at golf
and the solid silver serving spoons –
were they your mother’s?
I found the polish
at the back of the laundry cupboard
I want to tell her,
Look! I photographed this rainbow
from your deck
I’m surprised you never tried to paint
the view
I’m living in your house
I never imagined that – did you?
The bedroom had no mirror! How did you stand it?
I want to tell her,
I’m looking after Dad
He’s in a home
I bought him a dressing gown
and winter socks
and – can you believe it? – they’ve got him
using deodorant
He traded in the old Swift
for a fancy new one
then had a stroke
He left the house in quite a mess
but I’m fixing it up. Do you like
my red vinyl floor? So easy to clean!
It was the only colour I could find
that went with the timber
I want to tell her all these things
but I know she wouldn’t have listened
except for the bit about Dad
Deodorant! Good heavens! she would have said
The loaf smells delicious
It needs to cool
I’ll wrap it in one of her tea towels
patterned with cows –
definitely not my thing
but too good to throw away
Jackson has four published poetry collections and a PhD in Writing. Their poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook. They were born in Cumbria, grew up in Australia and now live in New Zealand. writerjackson.com facebook.com/writerjackson Instagram: @thewriterjackson
*
Miss Betina Wauchope Disappears
From the 1927 painting ‘Interior: Orange Blind’ by FCB Cadell.
The single crimson rose
she wears in her lapel,
to test his imperfections,
draws him into detail;
pointing a thinner brush
at her wintery cheeks,
the bones of her hands.
A face ready for regard,
emptied with white spirit,
cancelled with a rag wipe,
begun again with doubt.
Behind her, the orange blind,
fuses matter and antimatter.
It guillotines space and time,
until there’s no judgment.
She pretends to love art,
as the rose petals soften.
She tries to love herself,
while he paints her portrait
as orange stupefaction.
She feels anonymous,
not responsible for sunset,
or the malice of the furniture.
Her immortality is powerless –
his contempt is complete.
Robin Lindsay Wilson is a prizewinning playwright and poet. He has three collections of poetry published by Cinnamon Press. His forth collection, ‘The Tender Shore’, is scheduled to be published in Spring of 2027 by Cinnamon Press. Robin’s work has appeared in many national and international poetry magazines, including, Acumen, The Amsterdam Review, Magma, The Rialto, Ink, Sweat & Tears, New Writing Scotland, Dream Catcher and Poetry Salzburg.
*
Wildflowers
No one has ever told me to
Go back to where you came from
Perhaps it’s because
I look like
I’m just passing through
They know I know
I don’t look like I belong here
I fall into the category of guest
The perpetual rambler
A forever tourist
All’s fine: roaming landscapes
Of poppy, cornflower, ox-eye daisy
The native ecology of
Where I might have come from
Versus where I want to be
Winifred Mok is a poet, filmmaker and podcaster. Based in the UK, her writing has appeared in various publications, and her poetry has been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize.
Note: Some wildflowers that are considered ‘native’ are actually neophytes — a plant introduced into an area relatively recently and has since become naturalised (in the context of the UK and Europe, this is defined from 1492).