Through the fog of this past few weeks I’ve been a judge. There’s
been over fourteen thousand, a record number in the history of the prize.
Fourteen thousand poems for the Foyles young poets prize.   With my top one hundred I arrive at The
Poetry Society on Betterton Street in Covent Garden to meet the other judge for
the first time.

Selima Hill is
sat in the cafe.  She has her choice one
hundred poems I have mine.  I open the
door. It’s a scene of a western.  The bar
 woman behind the poetry cafe counter at the far end
of the room polishes a glass and looks at me. I enter with my fistful of of A4.
The door swings closed behind me. Selima turns in her seat.  The table’s covered with her A4. Could be a
gun. 

A moustachioed man draws his fingers across a Spanish
guitar: One Chord.  Selima squints as the
sunlight splashed across her face.  I
walk slowly towards the table. Another hand draws across the strings of the
Spanish guitar. I chew my fat cigar “hear
yer judging the competition….” Selima looks down and tilts her cowboy hat
backwards “maybe I am” she drawls then 
spits into a spittoon. Ting.    A bead of sweat trickles down my forehead
and skydives towards  the table in slow
motion. She catches it in her fist.   I draw my right arm over to the bag . She
flinches. “slowly now slowly” and we both sit down watching each other for one
false move and the judgeing begins.