Patrick Wright

Biography

Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight of Her (Black Spring Press), which was nominated for the John Pollard Prize. He has also been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Southword, Poetry Salzburg, Wasafiri, and London Magazine. He has a second collection, Exit Strategy, which will be published by Broken Sleep (2025). He teaches English and Creative Writing at the Open University.

Samples

The Mania Doll on Southport Pier In the days of the roller skating rink we had one called Pepé. Boxed-in, his Pierrot wrists jangled, his feet impaled with strings. Now this as you tilt your head like him, your hat of paper cloche, ridiculous; deadpan behind a blind woman’s shades, strange as a geisha. He laughs and laughs as if his head might fall off. And the more he laughs the more you regress to the time you said they thought you sick for not being entertained. Young as I was in the roller skating rink, you recalled how you slunk among kids your age, and went catatonic as your peers laughed and laughed at the freak show, by the bendy mirrors and holograms, the clownish hordes. You went serious and shy as you do so now: shoulders stiff, a form, letting your bag of chips go cold. The kiosk shadows, they crane. A coin-operated doll ends the show.

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