Queerfella

Joint-winner of ‘The Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition 2020‘ alongside Selima Hill's Fridge.

Judge Will Harris said, I feel like they have things to teach me about being human, about how to live with trauma, loss and love.

There’s a real consistency of voice throughout and an indomitable sense of the poet facing up to their subject matter “no wonder we escape bodies that sink / or encage ourselves in sewered shame”. ‘There was a hole’ and ‘Alright really’ are deceptively simple poems – and all the more powerful for it – which make use of a fine storytelling gift. ‘I am not straight’ is a particularly good example of a very tender form of directness. ‘Life imitates porn’ has an extraordinary final couplet: “the cum face is fake/ & the dicks are on drugs”. Great variety and play, e.g. the “demi-ekphrastic poem” ‘Cock & Balls’. The last two poems, ‘Three Crows’ and ‘Half-rotten, half-new’ – both in part about fathers & forgiveness – are stunning: open, redemptive, beautiful.