Grace Phillips is the 14th student to be awarded the University of East Anglia’s Ink Sweat & Tears Poetry Writing Scholarship (MA). This was established by IS&T publisher Kate Birch in 2011 and followed seven years later by the Birch Family Scholarship, set up to support MA students from the Black, Asian, Latinx and other global majority communities. On Zi Rui is the eighth Birch Family Scholar.

I Left the Better Version of You in a Scandinavian Knick-Knack Shop

You promised to be mine
and I was sick for a week.
The onslaught, the regurgitations
of you unnerving my safe haven.
You bought peppermint and bubbles,
monologued in the corner.
You barely looked at me twice.
(Worse than your distaste;
my staying power).

You don’t like people who wear dungarees
or listen to stupid bloody cowboy music.
I turn the volume down.
When you do an impression
of how my friend kisses,
I hold my tongue.

You mused over being ‘good’;
told me that you should never punch someone
just once. “Hit them again
when they’re down, or they come back
twice as strong.” The flannel-in-the-mouth
hushed child of you
likes to keep me quiet, too. You lost
a baby tooth that day. Now you don’t ask if I’m okay
but if I’ll hate you. Over the phone,
your voice is flat; you’ve thought it through,
the past day or two. You miss
your solitude, think it rare
and treasurable as Martian grass.

I think of your hand,
refusing to let mine go.
Your performed affections
and affectations of flirting.
My spurned hurting. I
never knew a word of you.

Grace Phillips (she/her) is a poet, writer, and MA student at The University of East Anglia. She was a commended poet in The Foyle Young Poet competition in 2020 and received the UEA Jarrold Prize for outstanding work across her undergraduate degree. She is also the recipient of the 2024 Ink, Sweat & Tears Scholarship. You can find her on Instagram @gracelolapoetry.

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Neon Lights
(They are the most beautiful in the dark)

I looked at the neon lights
Gazing, I asked myself :
“What am I sourcing for now that I am without you ?”

Without you was the hard part to get over.
Didn’t our years together matter ?
Now no more ?

Why are the most beautiful things the shortest ?
I still think of you till today.
I can’t seem to forget – forget that you.
You were once my best – didn’t you know ?

You said before that we were the most suitable for each other.
Why did your words fell in the end ?

Now in this darkness,
I am starting to see the beauty of the neon lights.
It’s so ferocious under those shades.
But I am not that strong. This became so clear to me.

You were my most beautiful past.
But also my most regrettable past.
Know that, I really did love you !

On Zi Rui is currently studying on the prestigious UEA Creative Writing MA Poetry course and is the recipient of 2024/2025 Birch Family Scholarship, signifying creativity and excellence. He publishes his original creative writing poems content on his LinkedIn webpage www.linkedin.com/in/yunzirui, and has 2500+ followers. You can also find him on Facebook, Weibo, X as well as Instagram where, as @_thepoetword, he has more than 160,000 followers and posts motivational, inspiring and poetic quotes