The Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition

1st Prize Winner - John Goodby

John Goodby was born in Kingstanding, Birmingham, in 1958, and attended schools in the city before taking degrees at the universities of Hull and Leeds.  Since 1988 he has taught English literature at the University of Leeds, University College Cork, and the University of Wales Swansea, where he is currently a Senior Lecturer.  He is the author of a study of modern Irish poetry, Irish poetry since 1950: from stillness into history (MUP, 2000), and has edited books on Dylan Thomas and on Irish Studies. At present he is on AHRC-funded research leave, completing a new study of Thomas’s poetry for publication by Seren in 2007. He is also the author of a poetry collection, A Birmingham Yank (Arc Publications, 1998) and a translation of Heinrich Heine’s Germany: A Winter’s Tale (Smokestack Books, 2006). John Goodby lives in Swansea with his wife and two children.

The Uncles

Uncles, talking the camshaft or the gimbal connected
to a slowly oscillating crank. The Uncles Brickell,
Swarfega kings, enseamed with swarf and scobs, skin
measled with gunmetal but glistening faintly, loud
in the smoke. Lithe and wiry above the lathe, milling out
a cylinder to a given bore. Uncles, pencil-stubs at their ears,
spurning ink, crossing sevens like émigré intellectuals,
measuring in thous and thirty-secondths (scrawled
on torn fag-packets); feinting with slide rules, racing,
but mild not as mild steel. Pockets congested, always. Uncles
with dockets for jobs, corners transparent with grease,
with a light machine oil. Time-served, my Uncles, branch-
ing out into doorhandles, grub-screws and the brass bits
that hold the front of the motor case to the rear flange
of the mounting panel. Release tab. Slightly hard of hearing
now, the Uncles, from the din of the shop, slowly nodding.
Uncles in ‘Red Square’; uncles swapping tolerance gauges,
allan keys, telephone numbers, deals and rank commun-
ism. Forefingers describing arcs and cutting angles. White
and milky with coolants and lubricants, mess of order. Never
forgetting to ply a broom after. The missing half-finger, not
really missed any longer, just a banjo-hand gone west. My
Uncles still making a go of mower blades, on the road
at their age; offering cigars at Christmas. Uncanny if
encountered in visors, overalls, confounding nephews
in dignity of their calling, their epoch-stewed tea. Stand
a spoon in all their chamfered years, cut short or long. Uncles
immortal in the welding shed, under neon, lounge
as the vast doors slide to a cool blue desk. My Uncles.