The clearing at the town’s edge
is a network of stillness muted by snowfall.
Two crows bolt black from the blank
flat skies and shift a hawk out, over
slate roofs, uphill to the miner’s village,
where we left the lines of rabbits’ skulls
along the broken wall.
Ian Farnes grew up in Burntisland, Fife but now lives and works as a translator and writer in Barcelona. His debut poetry pamphlet is due to be published in February 2025. More details can be found on his website.
My grandfather, at eighty years old,
climbs up the olive tree
without looking down.
From up there, his bald head shines.
He’s getting old.
The curly hair covering his chest
was once his shield in the war.
Now, back home, under this sun,
it looks like a layer of foam.
Nazaret Ranea is one of Scotland’s Next Generation Young Makars. Her poetry explores themes of nostalgia, memory, and home. Her work has appeared in over 50 publications internationally. You can find out more about her work here.
There is a quest
–tion about the numb
–er of times
our count
–ry feeds us bull
–ets and we
–eds, and we can
–not remember how to be
–cause the over
–fed has sold his tongue.
Prosper C. Ìféányí writes from Lagos, Nigeria. His works are featured or forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Transition, Magma Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Wales, and elsewhere.
white walls, white walls
i want to rub my hands in ash
watch them whisper on the white walls
i begin to hate my pink Mary-Janes
tongueless, they gape at me
grotesque against beige carpet, white walls
my father asks what i want to do
the weekend is ours, but it is all white walls
i tell him i need new shoes
so that he will matter again
Isabella Waldron is an American-British writer. Her play how to build a wax figure (Assembly/November Theatre) premiered at Edinburgh Fringe to critical acclaim. Plays Jawbone, Things I Never Told The Stars and Chatter were selected as semi-finalists for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival. Her poetry has been featured in Chewboy and won the Ruth George Poetry Award.
It was the year we ran out
of lilies. There was so much loss
that funeral wreaths
were made of plastic bulbs.
That’s all that was left.
All the other flowers
had been pulled
and offered to the dead.
And the new lilies
had yet to bloom.
Jesse Domenech (1985-2023) was a Cuban-American poet and songwriter from Queens, NY, who championed compassion and generosity, often through humor, on the page and in life. He was a student of Billy Collins’ Poetic Hydraulics workshop and drew inspiration from hip-hop, standup comedy, and life’s curiosities. Although Jesse was a prolific author, his work had never before been published. He was a beloved friend to many.
The prize money has been donated to the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Manhattan in Jesse’s memory.
Our stories are crawling, open-clawed,
in another country
where the ground is as soft as the beloved
taking bullets into every piece of them we know.
The mountain pass is an endless line of mourners in the rain.
Walk, at dusk, toward another forest burning,
make new homes in the fire, or
grow wings and soar into the blaze.
Our prayers are with us until they too must be left behind.
Christine C. Rivero-Guisinga works for a humanitarian organisation. A SEA Lit Circle member, she shares short haiku-like poems on Instagram (@storyseamstress). Her piece in the After Happy Hour Review earned a Pushcart Prize nomination.
…crawling, open-clawed, | in another country…
The Briefly Write Poetry Prize is here, there and everywhere.
Everyone, whoever you are and wherever you are in the world, is invited to submit one short poem. This year, we received 1,315 unique entries. From elephants to elegies, heartache to haircuts, we were dazzled by the diversity and quality of themes, styles and ideas. We are grateful to have had the chance to read such a diverse array of short poetry. Inevitably, with so many outstanding short poems to consider, we had to pass on hundreds that we would have loved to acknowledge.
Then, there is a period of several months in which we read, read, re-read every poem (anonymously) and put together a longlist that is full of incredible words and images and ideas and we think how are we ever going to whittle this down to one winner, one runner-up and a handful of shortlisters? So, we take a break, breathe, let the poems rest. Weeks pass. Seasons change.
We dive back in when we feel the urge and can’t wait any longer. We re-read the longlist and fall in love with our favourites all over again. Here, we get a feeling for which poems feel as fresh, as brilliant, as ferociously urgent as they did when we first read them two months earlier.
At the end of this process, we’re excited to share our selection of the best short poetry for 2024. In our fourth year, the disclaimer we wrote for our inaugural competition is still as pertinent:
We hope you’ll agree with all our choices… but acknowledge you probably won’t. Personal taste is a wonderful thing. And poetry is a conversation. We would love to hear what you think – reflections on the poems, discussion of themes or styles, congratulations to the winning poets – in the comments below.
Thank you to everyone who shared their words, stories and little parts of themselves. Thank you to everyone who supported the competition. And thank you for taking the time to read new writing (however you came across this page). The Briefly Write Poetry Prize will be back in 2025. As ever, it will be FREE to enter and FREE to read.
Here are our choices for 2024.
Christine C. Rivero-Guisinga, ‘Everywhere, the Body’
Jesse Domenech, ‘It Was The Year’
Isabella Waldron, ‘my father’s first apartment‘
Prosper C. Ìféányí, ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’
Nazaret Ranea, ‘Field’
Ian Farnes, ‘Local Wildness’
Debmalya Bandyopadhyay, ‘After the drowning’
Eileen Anderson, ‘Marram’
Zoe Davis * Skye Robinson * Jacqueline Jules * Jeff Skinner * Luke Hankins * Claire Lynn * Otuaga Maria Ogheneruno * Creana Bosac * John Jeffire * Atar Hadari * Okafor Michael * Jowonder Woodward * Francesca La Nave * Gloria Sanders * Elena Zhang * Abigail Flint * Deborah Finding * Florence Grieve * Em Prendergast * Laure Sahuguet * Fatimah Bustani * Helen Ferris *
…smeared and stinging with translation…
In its third year, the Briefly Write Poetry Prize continues to inspire, delight, challenge, entertain and move us. We are so grateful to have had the chance to read such a diverse array of short poetry.
Many re-reads and painful decisions later, we’re excited to share our winners, shortlisted and longlisted poets. Each of these explored, crafted and created new worlds, moments and memories. We hope you enjoy discovering these poems as much as we did.
The quality (and quantity!) of submissions still astounds us. Thank you to every single person who entered for sharing your words, stories and experiences. Thank you for supporting our poets, for taking the time to discover new pieces and for simply being here (however you stumbled across this page). Thank you for your comments and encouragement, for all the love and support you have shown our little literary space. And thank you for the poetry.
The Briefly Write Poetry Prize will be back next year. In the meantime, do keep revisiting, re-reading, re-listening and discussing. And keep writing, keep creating, keep sharing.
With wishes for many more literary discoveries together,
Mesrure Onal, ‘small mercies’
Elisabeth Flett, ‘amsterdam’
Ava Patel, ‘Do You Think About the Sea?’
Begüm, ‘now, where was I’
Hana Damon-Tollenaere, ‘Summer Night / Desperation’
Devaki Devay, ‘It’s’
Sarah Dickenson Snyder, ‘You Are Not Your Death’
Alice Louise Lannon, ‘Spring’
Thomas Mixon, ‘Intercostal’
Fiona Ritchie Walker, ‘Rehearsal’
Sara Backer * Linette Marie Allen * Creana Bosac * Esther Yumi Ko * Clara Burghelea * Jack Cooper * Michael Okafor * Adrija Ghosh * Zoe Davis * Susi Lovell * Rosalind Moran * Martins Deep * Kelli Lage * Leyelle * Rishika Srivastava * Jayant Kashyap * Rikki Santer * Liz Verlander * Jonathan Gwaltney * Arundhathi Anil * Edward Hughes * Abi Pate * Jennifer Elise Wang * Anna Kibbey * Amelia K. * Claire Taylor * Sudipa Chakraverty * Lei Kim * Linda McCauley Freeman * Adam Sampson * Karin Hedetniemi * Sobur Adedokun * Angharad Williams
seated across me my parents both
heads tilted in question
olive-skinned and hard of hearing
hardly anglophone
I shrug with a close-mouthed smile
hiding my bloody tongue
smeared and stinging with translation
a passing stranger’s barbs
I cannot chew nor cry nor spit them back out
and so the train shudders beneath me as I swallow them all whole
Mesrure Onal is a Turkish-born and British-raised digital nomad. She mostly works as a writer, editor, and translator for children’s books and small businesses. Her writing tries finding those fistfuls of ink that can make different people from different places feel the same tug at their heartstrings.
I think about trees. I think about seeing a tree,
being a tree. I think about holding, bursting.
I think about being a little seed waiting for spring
and being small enough to fit in a closed palm.
I hate vastness. I won’t live long enough
to forget it. And no, I don’t think about the sea.
Ava Patel won Prole Magazine’s 2021 pamphlet competition with her debut pamphlet ‘Dusk in Bloom’. She’s been published in webzines (London Grip; Ink, Sweat and Tears; Atrium; Porridge) and magazines (South Bank Poetry; Orbis; SOUTH; Dream Catcher; New Welsh Reader, The Seventh Quarry, DREICH).
Briefly Write 