Poem of the month
Colette Bryce
The Full Indian Rope Trick
There was no secret
murmured down through a long line
of elect; no dark fakir, no flutter
of notes from a pipe,
no proof, no footage of it -
but I did it,
Guildhall Square, noon,
in front of everyone.
There were walls, bells,
passers-by;
then a rope, thrown, caught by the sky
and me, young, up and away,
goodbye.
Goodbye, goodbye.
Thin air. First try.
A crowd hushed, squinting eyes
at a full sun. There
on the stones
the slack weight of a rope
coiled in a crate, a braid
eighteen summers long,
and me
I'm long gone,
my one-off trick
unique, unequalled since.
And what would I tell them
given the chance?
It was painful; it took years.
I'm my own witness,
guardian of the fact
that I'm still here.
To celebrate 30 years of the
National Poetry Competition we
ran an online poll to find the most
popular winning poem. The poem
with the most votes was Colette
Bryce's 'The Full Indian Rope
Trick', winner in 2003.
© Colette Bryce. Used by
permission. Colette Bryce's Self
Portrait in the Dark is published
by Picador on 5 September.
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Listen to Sinéad Morrissey read her winning poem 'Through the Square Window', as well as other highlights of the National Poetry Competition 2007 prizegiving, which took place on 27 March 2008, at the October Gallery.
You can now watch Nikola Mijović's film about the Poetry Day at Buckingham Palace, featuring 28 poets, almost 200 schoolchildren from around London and the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.
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Poetry in the news
7 Aug
Colette Bryce's poem, 'The Full Indian Rope Trick' , has won the Poetry Society's online poll to find the most popular winner of the National Poetry Competition. The competition is now in its 31st year and the deadline for entries is 31 October.
4 Aug
The shortlist for the Forward Prize for Poetry 2008 has been announced. The five collections nominated for the biggest prize (£10,000) are Sujata Bhatt's Pure Lizard (Carcanet), Jane Griffiths's Another Country (Bloodaxe), Jen Hadfield's Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe), Mick Imlah's The Lost Leader (Faber), Jamie McKendrick's Crocodiles & Obelisks (Faber) and Catherine Smith's Lip (Smith/Doorstop).
Simon Barraclough, Andrew Forster, Frances Leviston, Allison McVety, Stephanie Norgate and Kathryn Simmonds are on the shortlist for the best first collection category, and Don Paterson's 'Love Poem for Natalie 'Tusja' Beridzeve', first published in Poetry Review, is among those shortlisted for the best single poem prize.
31 July
The Times Literary Supplement has launched a poetry competition with a first prize of £2,000. Readers will vote for the winning poem from a selected shortlist. The closing date is 12 September.
7 July
Poet Dannie Abse has won the Wales Book of the Year Award for his memoir, The Presence (Hutchinson).
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