Poetry Competition

Our poetry competition was conceived to find an original poem of fifteen lines to be carved onto our plaques.

The winning poem is by Jane Callaghan and wonderfully evokes the history of and our love for the 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

The entry standard was very high and an anthology of the entries is available.