People have been asking to read the winning poems from this years competition ahead of the awards ceremony in April. Here's Claire Dyer's winning entry 'Trust and the Horse' for you.
We’ll share each of the other winning and highly commended poems here every Friday in the lead up to the event so you can take your time with them. Enjoy and share far and wide.
Always it is by bridges that we live, Philip Larkin
One day I will ride to the poem on horseback.
The poem will be far away, built
from the spaces between lines and wires,
from words made with the voices of birds.
My horse will sway, his coat
dusty with heat and the company of flies;
his head will nod with a wisdom and rhythm
that’s hypnotic, powerful, blind. The bridge
we’ll cross will be of hope and oak,
echoes and orphans will live in the shadows beneath.
And below us will be water and sometimes sand.
And below us will sometimes be sky.
What I fear is trust, but my horse will step surely
in the daylight and the nightlight.
My horse will step to the pop of fish breath
and the shudder of shorelines.
My horse will step through blue air.
My horse and I will step together,
will measure our footfalls
in millions and in small numbers.
