Serenade

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Longlisted for the Write about Walking A/way competition 2023


Someone has replaced the vape and takeaway debris that loitered here when I last walked this way with a trail of jasmine flowers, skyfall lucidae on sun-bleached asphalt.

At the canal, lovers on the towpath weave through willow fronds sure as a cleat hitch.

A woman with proper running shoes

shares a metre with her lurcher— their loose-ankle skip wisps above the path like hovercraft.

That one couple waiting at the school gate,

a generation older than the rest, the way he tucks her hair, bends to kiss, like she has nectar only he can siphon.

And a girl, 6 or 7, calls out

over some back garden wall, Hello, Hello, You hear me?.... to all of us or none.


Eilín de Paor

Eilín de Paor

Eilín de Paor lives in Dublin, Ireland. Alongside poetry, she works in services for people with disabilities and is studying towards a PhD in that field. Her poems have appeared in The Stony Thursday Book, Banshee, Skylight 47, The Frogmore Papers, 14, Ab...

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1 Sep, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Write about Walking A/way competition.

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Foul Weather, Wild Fowl

1 Sep, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Write about Walking A/way competition.

Post
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1 Sep, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Write about Walking A/way competition.

Post
Clear Line of Sight

1 Sep, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Write about Walking A/way competition.

Post
Walking Away from Fear

1 Sep, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Write about Walking A/way competition.

Post
Walking Down Temple Steps, Paestum

1 Sep, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Write about Walking A/way competition.

Post
stump speech

1 Sep, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Write about Walking A/way competition.

Post
Affinity to Stardust

1 Sep, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Write about Walking A/way competition.

Post
A Way of Noticing

1 Sep, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Write about Walking A/way competition.

Post
Walking A/way with the prizes…

24 Sep, 2023

At the Sound Walk Stories Sunday showcase event of new writing, at which the shortlisted poems and stories from our 2023 Walking A/way themed writing competition, were read by their inspiring authors, we learnt which of them walked away with the prizes.

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