Hannah Lowe

THE New Journal is delighted to present three poems from the Costa Prize winner Hannah Lowe – two of which have never been seen before.

The author kindly sent them as a contribution to our edition written wholly by female writers after yesterday’s annual International Women’s Day.

Now firmly one of the nation’s favourite poets, she won the Costa Prize last year for her book The Kids, a book of sonnets which formed an ode to childhood and teaching. She had taught at City and Islington College in Holloway between 2002 and 2012.

That Kind

I have done my hitch / over the plain houses – Anne Sexton

I was the kind of woman who would show up

to a party, knowing no-one, having heard

the thud of techno from my window, the blip

of synth like a scent to follow. I’d leave my bed

at midnight and hunt it out, swaying down

a hallway, necking borrowed wine, sniffing

lines of shining powder from a cistern,

maybe a kiss, maybe not – tumbling

back home at dawn. Weekdays, after work,

I’d smoke a roll-up, looking out over

the Clapham chimneys, and once I took my paper

and pen and tried to write the mood that lurked

inside me, a quiet and haunting shade of blue,

not knowing I was that kind of woman too.

A Girl Like You

The last place you’d expect

to find yourself trapped in a toilet stall

with a boy you’ve only just met,

his frame blocking the door,

his eyes gleaming with intent,

and who, you’ve realised, isn’t gay,

is a gay club in Clapham North

where every Saturday the dance floor

teems with men in tight denims

and white T shirts dancing

in a mesh of rainbow light

and always the same mermaid

drag queen smoking at the bar

and while the bass pulses

through the sticky sparkly walls,

he asks again what a pretty girl

like you wants with all these gays,

and your friends, your gentle friends

are clinking shots of goldschlager

in a corner booth, and singing,

you can almost hear them,

it’s raining men, hallelujah

The Pug

Bounce bounce bounce bounce, her apple bottom swinging

like an old farm cart – the only view I see,

her lead wound out the full four meters, straining.

God, she’s strong, I think. She wrenches me

along the path, turns now and then to check

I’m there behind her. Where else would I be? I wonder.

The only time she stops is when she’s shocked

by pushbikes, scooters. In Devon, my dear friend Anna

walks the forests with other women – no phone

or torch, reclaims the night in those silent places

where bad things sometimes happen to girls alone.

Each night I walk the pug through Belmont Park

and see the shadows move, I’m glad for her paws –

bounce, bounce, bounce bounce in the anxious dark.