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Polly Walshe
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the poet
Polly Walshe is a poet and painter, whose pamphlet, Silver Fold, was published in November 2024. Her poetry has appeared in PN Review, The London Magazine, 14 Magazine, Shearsman Magazine and The Spectator, and has been longlisted three times in the UK's National Poetry Competition. In 2019, a selection of Polly's poetry featured alongside Melissa Ruben’s paintings in Night Vision(s) at the Atlantic Gallery, New York. That same year, Polly won The Frogmore Poetry Prize. She also scooped a Betty Trask Prize in 1995 for her novel, The Latecomer.
the poems
One Small Case Only
Have you ever packed your bag before a war,
Grabbing a few things hurriedly,
Paperwork, some underwear?
What, you wonder, will you really need?
Will it even be possible to change your shirt
During the war while on the road
With nowhere to stay? You throw
In a hairbrush, lipstick, evening shoes
But who will have time for these? You know
That in a day or two you’ll be laughing
Dryly at choices you’ve made,
At your ridiculous ideas. As if anything
Will be normal! As if washing in clean
Water might occur, or going to bed
At a predictable hour after a meal.
Something inside you knows this dance
As if by memory, the need to thrift
And thrift to pay a slave’s remittances
And how there’s always someone more
Forced out of you, a hedgerow poet
Or a hidden priest, a conjuror
To heal those wounded by their shame,
Uncover words that fit when hope expires
And cold stars offer no grace.
Brand Sharpening
Section A:
Core Concepts
(i) Now
Now is your only home
And will make you authentic
Across all platforms
Not franchised to the future
Or the past
As many operators are.
The progress of shadows
Cuts up the hour
But Now – and who knows how? –
Has seamless power.
All representatives and strategists
Must beware of actioning
Precise time terminology
When Now is always streaming
Perfectly,
Licence up-to-date.
Our Now is flashier,
A great deal more Kardashian,
Than tomorrow,
Next week,
Or the endless wait.
Extraordinary Rendition
There was a woman who turned into a shadow,
You could pass your hand through her quite easily.
It was her desires, she could not overrule them,
They chaperoned her everywhere and wore a hollow
In her and the hollow grew into the whole of her.
Mostly she longed for random retail objects,
Heart-breaker shoes or a small Norwegian table,
But her longings also looked for unprotected people
Who lacked the strength to pull against the pull of her.
This person drifted round a little spitefully and yet
You pitied her. She was so small, so guinea grey,
And getting greyer, more transparent, every day,
While the hollow in her grew insatiable, hanging
Out of her like Bonnie Parker to suck the strangers in
Who stopped to talk to her. The hollow
Would swallow her too, eventually, her nose,
Her rings, her smile and her broken-brimmed fedora,
Closing its portal to the human world and shooing
Its desires back to their dark stable
For refurbishment, but not before enticing several
More unguarded strangers, showing them the charm
In her and dragging them to the far side of her
Where they remained, lost in a modish purple fog,
Not understanding where they were and dreaming
That they still lived modern independent lives,
Following the news, et cetera.
Publishing credits
One Small Case Only: Pennine Platform (No. 95)
Brand Sharpening: Shearsman Magazine (Nos. 131 & 132)
Extraordinary Rendition: PN Review 269 (Vol. 49, No. 3)