- Home
- Young poet
Young poet
Faces familiar and those now forgotten
Capturing a moment
Click
Laughter and tears
We were all moving on
All searching for what we wanted to be
Click
Names now vague where the edges are blurred
Smiles, poses, embarrassed shrugs
All for the camera
Click
Friendships now put to the test
Such moments shared
I ponder on the jokes, familiar, yet half-forgotten,
drifting
* Click
A still frame of a lifetime
I keep walking
We blank each other in the street
Claire Twine, 18, Bishop Luffa school, Chichester, West Sussex Michael Laskey, Friday magazine’s guest poetry critic, writes: Photos make wonderful prompts for poems and Claire’s title snaps us to attention.
Driven forward by the three-line stanzas and the monosyllabic clicks, she remembers the intensity of school life, those adolescent identity crises. We get a sense from that economical “laughter and tears” and her wry observation of her contemporaries’ “smiles, poses, embarrassed shrugs” that she’s already started to distance herself. But it’s not that easy. At this point “I” enters the poem. It’s her friendships too that will be put to te test. Will they survive? Already the jokes are “half-forgotten” and the implications of “drifting” are inescapable.
She faces up to the loss without sentimentality, not undervaluing these relationships - “such moments shared” - but knowing they are only moments, “a still frame in a lifetime”. There’s an honesty here that I trust, a bleak power in the final two lines that the poem’s earned. If I were her friend, I’d make sure I stayed in touch.
Claire Twine receives Emergency Kit, edited by Jo Shapcott and Matthew Sweeney (Faber). Her poem was submitted by Joan Secombe and Barry Smith. Michael Laskey founded the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in 1989 and was its director for 10 years. His most recent collection, The Tightrope Wedding (SmithDoorstop), was shortlisted for the T S Eliot prize. Please send poems, no longer than 20 lines, to TES Friday, Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1W 1BX, and include the poet’s name and address, the name of the submitting teacher and the school address. Or e-mail: friday@tes.co.ukThe TES Book of Young Poets (pound;9.99), a selection of poems from this column, can be ordered by phoning 01454 617370. A set of posters is available for pound;3.99.
Keep reading for just £1 per month
You've reached your limit of free articles this month. Subscribe for £1 per month for three months and get:
- Unlimited access to all Tes magazine content
- Exclusive subscriber-only stories
- Award-winning email newsletters