HPPH Poetry Competition Winners

So many of the poems relating to the cinema were incredibly moving and revealed that HPPH has a lasting impact on lots of people's lives which was really beautiful to read. We loved reading every poem we received so thank you to everyone who took the time to write and enter. Here are our overall winners which we hope you enjoy reading as much as we did:

1st Prize: Jenna Isherwood - Reopening, BYOB

Some sleepless mornings I dragged us, dazed
From one darkened room, nightlights replaced
With gas lamps, gifted coffee and perhaps 
The small victory of seeing a whole film elapse
Though it seemed impossible at first
With postpartum piss-control, runtimes outpaced
Or plot-twists lost to nappy change, but oh
The places we went while she mostly slept or played
Tokyo, Madagascar, Asteroid City, Rome 
Other lives still out there, however remote 
Beyond the reduced horizons of early motherhood
And yet here too were conversations on the steps
New folks to meet and maybe lunch at Anand Sweets
A needed marker in the week, a thing to do
With hard, slow days that race past too soon
Until it was already another thing she outgrew
And me, a little more myself each trip
Gradually remembering how to have views
About films or the things their characters do 
Their arcs, redemptions, joys, rage 
Links back to before-times, a seat with my name
Though the building itself had changed
Through a long gestation, pandemic isolation
And persistent love and care, some version
Of itself reborn, welcoming weary parents
Into its reshaped form, familiar and strange
Like our worlds on the flipside of a huge life shift
And don’t we want this from movies too?
To be called past a threshold into darkened rooms
And be held for a time, with others alongside
Before we’re sent out, blinking, altered
Renewed.

You can find Jenna Isherwood on Instagram (@jennaisherwood) and X (@JennaIsherwooo).

2nd Prize: Tim Sturrock - The Hyde Park Clock

In the sepia tinted world of the 1940s
My grandparents lived out their youth
A mundane existence of terraced houses
Tripe, rationing, lard, Woodbines, and outside loos
Two streets away was a means of escape
A palace of dreams, lit by a solitary gaslamp
Inside was adventure, romance, heroism
Tobacco fumes filtered the projector’s beam
The Hyde Park clock remained lit throughout
The stark bright reality of time a distraction
The seconds of their lives slowly counting down

They are long gone now, Annie and Alfred
Lives over too soon, the end spent in bitter fury
Directed at each other – the dreams bought for
Two and six too lofty to match their own reality
The cruel realisation that there would be no perfect
Endings they only had each other and that
Would never be enough oh they loved each other
In their fashion but he was not Errol Flynn
She was not Bette Davis, Leeds was not
Oklahoma that feeling of resentment that
Their love was somehow second rate because
It could not compete with Bogart and Bergman.

In my mind’s eye I see them now
In that long ago world
Holding hands in the dark
Mesmerised by magic
Hyde Park clock now hidden
Time has no dominion
In a palace of dreams.

3rd Prize: Anna Duffell - Hessle View With A View

I move to my new home in ‘22 on Hessle view, with a view
Out my bedroom window of history renewed.
9am drilling, builders singing, restoring a building.
Stories of the past and screen coming together
Cementing the bricks to restore this landmark endeavour.
Visiting Durham, I turn to Granda Bobby,
I show pictures of this cinema, our shared hobby.
We discover old relics: Kia-Ora Orange Flavour Drink Carton,
Sun-Pat Raisins and Chocolate,
Senior Service - Tobacco at Its Best
He tells me stories of watching Doris Day, Howard Keel and the rest.
He tells me how he’d save his pocket money, one shilling for a ticket,
A respite from a day on the miners strike picket.
When this nonsense is over, I promise him we’ll visit,
But the only film we got to see,
was the one that he formed with his memory.
Let me roll back the tape, let me keep the canister.
I move back to Hessle View in ‘23, the refurb is finished.
I watch a film, two-year-grief never properly diminished.
One sweet and salted popcorn, and a can of lemonade.
Using my earned money on the ticket, five pounds I paid.
Maybe when I grow, when I’m eighty three,
My granddaughter, excited and running, will show me
A post online of an old can of Karma Cola, a future relic to be,
And I’ll remember the Picture House, I’ll remember Granda,
And I’ll take my granddaughter
to the Hyde Park cinema.

Shortlisted: Agnes Seraphine - When You’re in Doubt, Mr. Child

I assure you,
it is worth the risk:
the loss and the heat,
the sweat and dust on your handkerchief,
believe me.

What you once built
is now the last one standing.

Our grandparents sit wide-eyed -
reminiscences of laughter, tears, chocolate and cigarettes
recalled each time the curtain draws.
Even the trashes they threw below its seats
are now the treasure troves on our front page.

Wars try to shoot you down
only to come back begging,
please, turn back on our only door to peace.

Sir,
wars are now trying to shoot us down, too.
Nameless comments inexhaustibly judge.
Our pair of eyes perpetually intruded.
Our reality forcibly defined,
yet what you build stop us from accepting what is -
so I beg you,
please, continue.

Refurbish, refurnish, restart if you have to.
The history of who we could be
screens in the daring red of its bricks.
The gas lights lit what has faded in us:
the faith and spirit of what’s beyond.

We’ll parade an elephant if we have to,
re-mortgage our home if we have to.
This picture house
is the home for hearts of the past, and
a present presented to our present.

May this palatial place
live a thousand years more.

You can find Agnes Seraphine on Instagram (@agnes_sarapin).

Shortlisted: Caoimhe Mallon - Now and Then at the Pictures

On the corner,
under the dusty haze of a red street light,
is a storyteller made of brick.

Mosaics of many worlds
cultivate the silver tapestry,
enchanting spectators since Nineteen Fourteen.

Red velvet seats,
like a warm hug from Granny,
project a reunion of pasts 
that come together in a medley.

Under the floorboard cracks,
is the archive of treasured trash.
Ticket stubs and ice cream tubs,
Kodak film from the flicks we loved. 

Cinephiles a century gone,
or the ones standing in the popcorn queue,
rejoice as the sepia lights lose their hue.

We find likeness in the pictures flickering.
A house, a home, a Yorkshire Oasis, 
a landmark for the locals,
epochal entertainment. 

You can find Caoimhe Mallon on Instagram (@caoimhe.mallon).

Shortlisted: Mark Burrow - The Cinematic Ghost Light

When doors are bolted and vaulted,
The curtain shuttered down,
There’s said to dance a flicker,
A ghost light – in the manner
                             of our theatres.

In hours of darkness a flame-like
Light flutters behind the curtain –
                             a cinematic lightbulb.                

Visitors who arrive first often
Comment on seeing a tiny glow
Suddenly switch off – yet no such        
                             ghost light exists.

Visitors have often said they had
Felt an unusual warmth in certain
Seats, a warmth on their shoulder
Like someone is patting them on
Their back. Some hear a whisper
In their ear, some say it’s the voice
                             of Harry Child.

Shortlisted: Joe Williams - Barbara Goes to the Pictures

It has to be the front row,
where no one else will sit.
She’s always liked it there,
since she was a girl, spending
pocket money pennies on
the faces of the day.
Grace Kelly, Dean Martin, Cary Grant.

She never went with boys who tried
to tease her up for back row plays.
It’s harder on her neck now, but
she still thinks the same.
If you don’t have to turn your head,
you don’t feel like you’re there.
Liz Taylor, Julie Christie, James Dean.

It’s a bus ride away, these days.
There used to be half a dozen
places she could walk, but
they closed them all, one by one.
The few that are left hardly
ever show the oldies.
Jimmy Stewart, Paul Newman, Doris Day.

Two hours to herself.
Time not to think about
what Stephen’s teacher said,
that letter from Bobby.
For her head to be that girl’s again,
to hide inside the screen.
Rock Hudson, Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood.

You can find Joe Williams on his website, his Facebook page, Bluesky, Instagram and YouTube.

Look out for filmed versions of the poems read by the poets soon!