The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize 2021 Shortlist

A Whistle At Dusk

Phelelani Makhanya

At dusk;

an old lady jumps off from a bus.

She snails on the bus steps

like she is resisting the descent;

like the bus arrived at her

bus stop too soon.

She left at dawn to queue

for her pension grant.

Like a committed guard,

her teenage grandson is already

waiting at the gate.

She walks towards him

like she is crossing a bridge

made of thatch ropes and broken glass.

She dips her hand

between her breasts.

She pulls a worn-out leather purse.

The grandson’s hand is a hawk;

a predator of all things paper.

He pulls out a stack of banknotes

from the purse.

The old lady casts puppy eyes

on her grandson.

The grandson’s eyes

parade untameable lava.

He throws the empty purse

back at his grandmother’s face.

The old lady walks towards her house

like she is walking in a quagmire of shadows.

She wishes her mud rondavel hut

can run and meet her halfway.

Even tonight, she will be boiling stone for dinner,

as her grandson walks victoriously down the street,

whistling;

calling for his gang.

PHELELANI MAKHANYA is a writer born is South Africa, Maphumulo. His work has been published in major South African literary journals like The New Contrast, New Coin, Botsotso Journal and Avbob Poetry Project. His poetry has also appeared in The Kalahari Review and Praxis Magazine Online. He has performed his poetry around the country which includes Poetry Africa 2011 and Poetry Africa 2018. He was shortlisted for the 2021 Time of the Writer Poetry for Human Rights. His poem Vapour won the 2021 Avbob Poetry Prize (reflection on COVID-19). He has two published poetry collections, This Time I Shall Not Cry and My Father’s Blazer.

The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize 2021 Shortlist

pandora’s box

Sue Woodward

the box is barely noticeable

in the detritus of a stalled canal

a picker, seeking brass

pries at the hinges

they give way under

an inner pressure

the lid shifts to reveal

a slit of dark through which

a mass of scuttling

creatures clamber

frontrunners jostling

elbowing shoving flying

into the grey predawn

their wings uncreasing

stingers unsheathed

they cover the globe at speed

piercing the masks of pickers

politicians dancers philosophers

men at the side of the road

women who set off daily

children alone at home

SUE WOODWARD has been a writer and lover of language since studying English and Psychology at Wits University. After many years of teaching and editing, she now has the time to concentrate on her poetry. This year her love of writing and concern about ongoing gender-based violence and sexual exploitation has culminated in the publication of between the apple and the bite by Modjaji. The collection explores the predicament of women through the millennia, from Greek mythology and the Bible through history and into contemporary times. Sue lives in Muizenberg with her husband Rob and Ruby her dog.

The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize 2021 Shortlist

Morning in the Cemetery

Jarred Thompson

The sun eeks, sober, over the koppie. Stoops

low, through grass, around rock, into dust kicked up by crickets.

Granite, designated in rows, chops the light into teeth

grinning, pale yellow, between minor keys of shadow.

The gates are locked. Fences erect, still. What is there to protect?

Names, carved in stone, or philtrums passed through worms.

Here’s the dutiful line of ants, erasing knees’ imprints.

Here’s varnished wood, left tarnished. The last thing we see must always be

our own shining.

The thorn trees know their burgundy seed sacs are bound for more. Wine skins ripe for bursting.

The new digger on the job, the one who follows the veteran out into early morning,

is somehow already familiar with that soft earth-shoveling sshh..sshh..sssshh—

its own kind of cooing.

JARRED THOMPSON is a writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, living and loving in Johannesburg, South Africa. Find Jarred on Twitter @JarredJThompson or on Instagram @poetic_impulse.