Forward Prize Commended Poems

“I am heartened that in a very strong field, two Poetry Wales poets were chosen to be Forward Prize commended. Most of the Forward Prize commendations seem to come from full collections so I am especially pleased that Poetry Wales has two poets in the Forward Book of Poetry this year. I am also thankful to the poets: first is Madailín Burnhope whose poem was inspired in part by vigils after the murder of Brianna Ghey, and second is Sara Abou Rashed, a Palestinian-American writer whose poem laments the suffering of war. Both are poets of the greatest integrity who I was delighted to publish in Poetry Wales.”

Zoë Brigley, Editor of Poetry Wales, October 2024

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‘You Wouldn’t Last Five Minutes as a Woman’ by Madailín Burnhope

From Poetry Wales Summer 2023

Content warning: mention of British trans girl Brianna Ghey, murdered in 2023, and a local vigil for her that the poet couldn’t attend for disability reasons.

You Wouldn’t Last Five Minutes as a Woman
this cis lady said to me
on the Internet. It made me think
of how I’ve survived, one stage of grief
for each of the last five years of my life.
This year is Acceptance.
Nobody, nothing
died but five godly
dreams of a family.
In Summer 2017, before
I separated from their mother
I helped her youngest of four
on with their coat; they came out to me
as nonbinary at their very first Pride.
After that, in my one-bed flat, I spread
an altar cloth for three deities,
each with their own expertise
in loss and keening, working
their various notes of ancientness
into my skin
so I may last a thousand more years
as women, men, uncountable others
in the transmigration of souls.
I lit three candles, snuffed them out,
for a moment heard her voice again.
You won’t be able to start, girl
from the beginning
having her first hot
flush of desire, the first
wick lit in their candelabra.
Maybe not, I answered her
with my own voice, surviving
still and silent
in the catacombs of my throat,
chest, echo chambers
where women breathe
their first and last, form
curses to their killers
in a stretch of time between.
But I can take over from here.
I was invited to a vigil
for Brianna Ghey, a trans girl
murdered by two other teenagers,
a year younger: fifteen.
Bring a candle, maybe a sign.
Bring a coat, it’s going to be cold.
But really, it’s only necessary
to bring yourself.
She was every one of us.
The vigil was held
beside the HIV and AIDs memorial
and ‘Alex’, the homeless hoodie
sculpture for SHELTER in town.
I was too tired, and I can’t
hold a sign while propelling
my chair but if I had gone
I’d have brought my one coat
to wrap every one of us
warm, in the long
five-minute night.

“This poem’s title is something that’s been said to me – directly and subliminally – all my life, and, like many trans women, I deeply internalised it. I still hear it, now that I’m out and aware. It hits different, now I have tools to really understand what’s being said, and snap back. And yet, life, personal loss, and community tragedy never stop, whether we have whatever arbitrary thing we’ve decided it takes this week, or not.

So I started thinking about some of the little “five minutes” that I’ve survived over the years – one or two stretching out like an eternity of grief, asking to stay longer – and there was the poem. It’s a riposte, really, to a pretty nonsensical insult, “challenge”, threat. The truth is, if we are women, when were we ever given a choice? It’s life, or nothing.“

Madailín Burnhope, October 2024

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‘Reading Heaney’s ‘St. Kevin and the Blackbird,’ I Think of Children Orphaned in the War’ by Sara Abou Rashed

From Poetry Wales Spring 2024

'Reading Heaney’s ‘St. Kevin and the Blackbird,’ I Think of Children Orphaned in the War
That day, St. Kevin prayed for usefulness, and a nest 
between his fingers appeared. Three turquoise eggs
then knew him, like the churchgoers, a Father.
If blackbird motherhood is abandoning the young
for a chance at more of them, fatherhood is any kind
of presence. In a different part of the world, minarets
and a Mediterranean view, I imagine St. Kevin begging 
for courage. Near a window, he’d wave his hands
through broken glass one moment, wrap them to his chest 
the next. Kevin would grow paranoid. Develop PTSD, 
even. He’d wait to do the same, now an expert at sacrifice, 
but there would be no birds, only flocks of bullets 
separating fathers from children, bodies from palms.

“What began as an exercise in a writing workshop to speak back to Heany’s words turned into my poem, “Reading Heany’s ‘St. Kevin and the Blackbird,’ I Think of Children Orphaned in the War,” which answers Heany’s invitation as he writes, Imagine being Kevin, and brings forward my own Palestinian-Syrian background, rife with everyday sacrifices and saints. The image of St. Kevin holding out his hand with a nest was unshakable from my mind—I found it so honorable what he did, becoming a father to the nest, that I wanted to take him with me to the Mediterranean, repeat the noble act against a different context.

There, I imagined he’d quickly transform. Kevin would grow paranoid, I wrote, Develop PTSD even, to signal the extent of violence, that he’d lose his emotionally regulated sainthood and descend to the level of ordinary people, who like him also look out windows, only to find broken glass everywhere, no suitable conditions for an act of ultimate asceticism. 

Except, there, saints and sacrifices truly are everywhere. At a time when the Syrian War continues its 13^th year and the occupation on Palestine its 76^th, in a single moment, a father is transformed against his will (unlike St. Kevin) into a hero, an unimaginable embodiment of sacrifice, grief, loss. If anything, this poem is not one I wished to write, but one that is true— as harrowing as it is, it is also of hope, that one day, between the Mediterranean and the minarets, we can willingly claim the birds, as St. Kevin once did, for I am certain there would be lots and lots of birds, cause enough for sainthood.”

Sara Abou Rashed, October 2024

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