The winner of the Coventry Writing Competition has been announced as Martin Brown, for his poem Coventry Heritage 2000.

COVENTRY HERITAGE 2000

What does the history
Of his adopted city
Mean to him as he moves
From office to car
To home for some grub
Watch some TV
Make holiday plans
And get changed to grab
A pint or two down at the pub?

Perhaps the fluid meaning
Of Being Sent To Coventry,
Godiva, St Osburg, the Phoenix
Ribbons, watches, cycles and cars,
The Lunt, Cofa’s tree and the Blitz
Seeps into the brain, which it feeds
Like rain sneaking into the earth
Bringing to birth long-buried seeds

Or maybe things that we learn,
Fell, and should know
Dribble away and secretly flow
Down sewers and drains
Rivelets and streams
To the Sherbourne and Sowe
Avon and Severn, and into the sea
To be washed up on shored
Like never-remembered dreams,
Each one dried out, abandoned, alone
Waiting for exiles wandering the coasts
To find them and carry them home