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Sharon Phillips
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the poet
Bristolian by birth and upbringing, now living in Otley, West Yorkshire, Sharon Phillips began writing poetry when she retired from a career in education. Her poems have since been published, online and in print, in anthologies and journals ranging from The Bridport Prize Anthology 2019, Under the Radar and The Dawn Treader to Ink Sweat & Tears and The High Window. Her first pamphlet, Liven Yourself Up, appeared in 2024.
the poems
Prelapsarian
He is at his most beautiful.
Motown is behind him,
he’s too strong to be beaten,
his cheekbones are sharp,
acne scars all healed. At last
he feels good about his face.
He looks up with a grin, snaps
his fingers to the bass line,
pushes off the wall with his foot,
leaps, moonwalks, spins, slides.
He sings, easy, unforced,
the songs that mark a decade.
There’s no stopping him now,
you’d like to think.
The hardest thing
about hospital
it’s not the obs trolley rattling me awake
not the overhead light blink-blinking
not the bleep of stalled infusion pumps
not Rachel in the next bed howling
whenever she pisses herself
not the weary nurse who tells me
these ladies are all quite confused
not the maggot in my mind worrying
why they’ve put me on this ward
not cannulas dreadlocking my arms
not the steroids prowling my nerves
not my mouth gaping for words
not the blotches on my brain scan
it’s wanting my mum.
Consider
After Kim Moore
the early morning cleaners,
who rise at five, who dress in the dark
for fear of waking their children,
who eat cold toast at the bus stop,
who lug buckets and hoovers
through empty offices, who wipe
fingerprints from photos
and neaten toys and mascots,
who scrub piss and shit
from toilet seats and floors,
who fear their hours will be cut,
who are desperate for money
for food and rent and the gas bill,
who wonder what it would be like
to have a cushy office job, who sweat
under sky blue polyester tabards,
whose backs ache, feet throb,
whose ankles are swollen, who
worry they won’t be home when
the kids wake up, who'll do it
all again tomorrow.
Publishing credits
Prelapsarian: exclusive first publication by iamb
The Hardest Thing About Hospital:
Liven Yourself Up (Yaffle’s Nest)
Consider: Black Nore Review (August 26th 2024)