I am delighted that my poem ‘After’ has been commended in the 2016 Mother’s Milk Writing Prize. In an email from the publisher, Dr Teika Bellamy, the following feedback from the judge, Becky Cherriman, was shared:
After: a short poem that centres around one unexpected image of a new mother sucking her thumb. I like the ambiguity conjured by the poem’s title and the question in the penultimate line.
I’ve pasted the poem below. Do you agree with the judge?
After
Rolling on my side, the mattress gives.
With my chin against my knees,
I knot my ankles:
try holding myself together.
A trolley rattling with cups echoes
through air thick with disinfectant.
Unclenching my jaw, my parted lips
ache: they’re a target for my thumb.
With the pad, I trace the roof-ridges
of my mouth, make a vacuum
with my tongue and wonder:
where is the babe?
who is the mum?
the writer is a lonely hunter 