This week's Sunday Morning Poet is a particular Outsideleft favourite, Neil Campbell. Campbell is the author of fiction about working. His most recent collection of short stories, Licensed Premises, is published by Salt. This poem, The Wythenshawe Plasterers is from a new collection, Lolling Back Knackered on the Plastic Seats. Neil is one of the most important writers alive today.
The Wythenshawe Plasterers
Man on! they shout
the Wythenshawe plasterers
& beer-bellied lads next door.
I can just imagine the game
though there’s a wall &
a fence between them & me.
They are all chasing
the heavy, muddied ball
labourers & artists both
like all men, sometimes sliding in
for a brutal commingling of limbs
other times floating a pass above
the mud, or timing a volley
that flicks into the netting
& leaves a split-second of silence
before applause for sport itself.
© Neil Campbell
Essential Information
Neil Campbell at Outsideleft⇒
Neil Campbell outside Outsideleft⇒
Main image by Jill Burrow
