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Niki Strange
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the poet
Brighton-based poet, workshop facilitator and academic Niki Strange is the author of two pamphlets: Flight of the Dragonfly Press' Body Talk, and The Hedgehog Poetry Press' Stickleback XXXI. She was longlisted for the 2022 Palette Poetry Sappho Prize, and placed second in both the 2019 Sussex Poetry competition and 2021 Second Light Network competition. A passionate believer in poetry’s power to support health and wellbeing, Niki rediscovered poetry while undergoing cancer treatment. She went on to secure Arts Council Funding as Poet-in-Residence for Macmillan’s Horizon Centre, where she delivered 16 poetry workshops for people affected by cancer.
the poems
‘Broken In’
(Sidcup 1985)
We savoured stolen hours on the steps
outside Lamorbey pool
exercising nothing more than freedom.
It was there that two older boys
curtain-haired, reeking of Aramis and the horn,
pulled us away to snog at The Glade.
I’d been tadpoling there with Mum
carrying home a trophy globe
of darting promises to becoming more.
Soon after I found the jar full of drifting remnants;
the strongest had turned on their own.
Broken In – Definition 1:
Comfortable through habitual use or familiarity. Like a pair of well-worn shoes.
Not like party sandals stiffly box-fresh beneath torn tissue
or pumps danced supple from lessons in the local hall.
Peggy’s ringed fingers clattered on the keys
as we whirled through tendrils of her fag smoke and Harmony hairspray.
Not like finding my feet in those white stilettos
a tottering dressage of lengthened legs and raised arse,
trotting not running.
Broken In – Definition 2:
Tamed or trained to obey like a horse broken to the saddle.
Ridden. Bidden.
Broken In – Definition 3:
To force entry into something.
Closed legs, underwear, no.
Barriers breached by such brief and banal brutality.
I never told anyone.
I didn’t know how to speak it.
Broken In – Definition 4:
To cause a disruption in a conversation or discussion.
We learn not to do this.
We learn that when we do this
we will not be heard.
We learn that when we do this
we will be heard and not believed.
We learn that when we do this
we will be heard and believed
but they will likely go unpunished.
The first time I heard
the term 'broken in'
I was 14 by The Glade,
with its cupped tadpoles,
its slippery sticklebacks,
as I was told this was
becoming a woman.
Longlisted for the Palette Poetry Sappho Prize 2022
First one gone
One December our grief took us
out in search of a barren landscape.
Our car slid on ice
into deep snow
and came to rest.
Swaddled. Still.
Then engine coughing, straining.
Seeking traction against
futile revolutions. Fruitless cycles.
Finally we were shifted
by the forward momentum gifted
from others passing by.
Their shoulders pressed
to the cold metal as if
armoured for battle.
This takes more than the two of us.
This takes more than the two of us.
Second prize in the BHAC Sussex Poetry Competition 2019
I can write myself
into an open top car,
careering on corniche roads
in the Cote d’Azur’s brûlée noon.
No factor 50,
for the facts of my melanoma
are of little consequence.
All is shadowless velocity.
I am heliotropic to the blazing sun,
lit up, let loose.
Letter by letter,
I am matter transported.
Written reckless.
I can write myself
sprung from a high board,
suspended in defiance
of Earth’s pull,
my balance restored.
Lost nodes, radiated breast,
sleeved right arm
parts of this new entirety
that tucks, revolves
then plunges
as steel into the
quenching water.
Written stronger.
Second prize in the Second Light Network Competition 2021
Publishing credits
'Broken In' (Sidcup 1985): Stickleback XXXI
(The Hedgehog Poetry Press)
First one gone: Body Talk (Flight of the Dragonfly Press)
I can write myself: Flights (Issue No. 1)
