The poem links the plaques, a couplet carved into each one.
This wonderfully evocative piece was written by Jane Callaghan – read about Jane and the competition.
Click on a line to take you to the relevant plaque.
15 Voices
read
‘Beck’
Bradford Beck
- On westerly moors
- Rise Chellow, Pinch, Pitty
- Energy once harnessed
- To power this wool city
- Goit and Beck in parallel
- Power in, waste out
- Spectral Saxon elders
- Mourn memory of trout
- In pure flow below Sunbridge
- Fish once chased
- Disregarded water
- In gothic vaults encased
- Culverted, covered
- Forced underground, hidden
- Cherished sparkling Beck
- Degraded to a midden
- Fouled by industry detritus
- Sky just a dream
- Under our city lies
- A misused, abused stream
- Awaiting a rebirth
- Whispering in the dark
- Water sighs, eddies, races
- Unseen, unremarked
- So small a waterway
- For Bradford dale drained
- Beck fed the canal basin
- Its miasma ill-famed
- Skip across the broad ford
- Bradford is named
Jane Callaghan.
FOBB © 2015
You can buy a copy of Jane’s poem in an anthology of all entries to our competition from Fire Tree Press, cost £4. Click here for access to their shop.
You can also buy a CD of all of the entries for £5 plus £1 p&p. Click here to place your order.
Reading credits: 1-2 Emily Bland, 3-4 Shazia Ashram, 5-6 Bob Mark, 7-8 Irene Lofthouse, 9-10 Deborah Redfearn, 11-12 Sara Dixon, 13-14 Eddie Lawler, 15-16 Ahmer Bashir, 17-18 Tony Emmott, 19-20 Charlotte Murie, 21-22 Lelsley Bruce, 23-24 Ann Morgan, 25-26 Shamim Akhtar, 27-28 Ed Butterworth, 29-30 Jane Callaghan.
