The Sunday Poem 5 – Suzannah Evans

For once, I’m going to be in good time for this week’s Sunday poem!  Let me introduce Suzannah Evans, who was one of the other winners of the Poetry Business pamphlet competition this year (www.poetrybusiness.co.uk ) She will also be launching her pamphlet on May 26th in Grasmere.  Carol Ann Duffy  said that her pamphlet contains

“Tough/tender poems in which the language crackles with life whether addressing the urban or the rural and possessed of a truly exciting inventiveness”

I would definately agree with that – and also add that Suzy is the type of poet who writes about the things you wish that you’d noticed yourself, often with humour as well as crackly language!

Suzy has been previously published in Magma (www.magmapoetry.com) and The Rialto (www.therialto.co.uk) amongst other places and blogs at suzannahevans.wordpress.com

Suzy is one of the poetry editors for the online magazine Cadaverine, aimed at promoting the best new poetry, prose and non-fiction from under 30’s (www.thecadaverine.com)

Here is her wonderful poem ‘Leeds International Swimming Pool”

Leeds International Swimming Pool – Suzannah Evans

We took a crowbar to a locked door.
Inside, the paint flaked.
Changing room curtains
shivered with unseen rats.
Sweeping headlights
silhouetted rows of empty tip-up chairs
as we edged onto the diving board
testing its spring
and stared down into a mess
of table legs, road cones and spilled glass.
Grit dropped, crackling applause
into the pit.
The graffiti said:
Welcome to Leeds, Now fuck off, thank you.
We stood in the deep end
on yellowed tiles,
a place our feet had never touched.