Natacha Bryan has won the Poetry School/Pighog poetry pamphlet competition, with her pamphlet  If I talked everything my eyes saw. London-based Natacha has been working as a workshop facilitator for the last five years on various projects, including the London Teenage poetry slam.                    

Judges Simon Barraclough and Catherine Smith whittled down more than 600 entries to a shortlist of 13. They said: “The final judging is excruciating because it is essentially an elimination round - but the pleasure lies in revisiting all these poems and sharing thoughts and ideas about them.”  They praised the winning collection’s “incredibly fresh and vigorous imagery”.

 

'It was summer and the heat made everything blurry

just like the windows of Alvin's truck covered in sheets of water

me cuffing an arm to clear a streak so he could see.

I wanted to crack a window but I wasn't even supposed to be there

under the dinner table, spying through the legs of a chair.

It was a strange noise, coming from a person, anyway,

the same as the radio would give on trips to Mandeville

static making me crave fried snapper in garlic

but the hiss coming from Elsie told me

something terrible was about to happen ...'

 

an extract from 'Elsie', from the winning pamphlet

 

Natacha will now prepare her pamphlet for publication with John Davies, Pighog editor. Runners-up in the 2014 competition were Sarah Barnsley for The Fire Station and Katie Griffiths for My Shrink is Pregnant. They both win a selection of Poetry School courses.