Imogen Wade

The 2023 New Poets Prize Runner Up

We are delighted to showcase four poems from Imogen’s pamphlet Fire Safety which was runner up in the 2023 New Poets Prize.

There’s a wild and magical energy at work in these evocative, sensual poems. Desire and violence, safety and danger, hunger and satiation co-exist uneasily in the same landscape, where the Green Man can wink from the ceiling of a church, and the world itself can seize you by the shoulders.

 â€“ Kim Moore

Imogen won First Prize in the National Poetry Competition 2023. Her work has also received praise in awards such as the New Poets Prize, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, the Moth Poetry Prize, the Plough Poetry Prize, the Winchester Poetry Festival Prize, the Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition and the Wells Festival of Literature Poetry Competition. Her work has been published by The Poetry Review, Amsterdam Quarterly, PN Review, Perverse Magazine and The London Magazine. She contributed to Bi+ Lines: An Anthology of Contemporary Bi+ Poets. She can be found on Instagram @imogen_wade_poetry

Snow Child I remember you with spots on your chin as you packed snow into your hands and built a smiley face against the wall in your mother’s driveway. You were wearing the black duffel coat I bought you for Christmas. You said something to me along the lines of you don’t need to be special when staying alive is the mission and some days I repeat that like a mantra. No one else’s wisdom outdoes yours. Snow child: when rain punches my roof and I wake up at night, scared to be alone, for a moment it’s like I never left that quiet street. I move my hand over the white sheets – but really I’m standing in the driveway with you once more, cupping snow.
Triptych in Motion Life went on without ambition & every twilight was the same. It all felt like a dream; her hands too rough to feel the melody of the days. Her tongue used to be heavy with want. But she couldn’t taste fruit, even in days of longing. Every apple was as sweet as the one before. On this panel, the details are rich. She holds a tangerine; she peels it.
I never thought that it would be like this When I thought about your death, I imagined the going-away part of it – not the dying, like packing before a trip. I knew that one day I would wave you off as you wheeled your case down the drive but I never prepared for you taking down the paintings, polishing off perishables, not buying more. What I expected: your house in its childhood sameness, green carpet, piano against the wall; one morning getting the call to say you’d upped and left. Not full boxes and jumping when I hear an engine. What comes after the preparation? You going away, which I’ve imagined; then you staying gone, which I haven’t.
First published The Ware Poets 24th Competition Anthology
Fire Safety A man came into my office to test my door. Twice a year, he tests ten thousand doors. I wonder what home looks like for the inspector – is it doorless or fireproof? I decide there’s one door – the front door – then arched all inside. Honey I’m home but this first hurdle is so very hard … blue paint; bristly letterbox; silver knocker. So then Honey goes down the hall, lets him in – there he is – her man, in his love-hate relationship with doors. It’s toxic, what they do to him; he pinned a shower curtain over the bathroom, and even painted shut the cat-flap after one bad year. Opening – entering – turning locks – leaving. These are his nightmares. Doors, it turns out, are cruel mistresses.
First published in The Poetry Review, Winter 2022
https://poetrysociety.org.uk/

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