National Honour · August 2026
🇮🇪
Ciaran Parkes
🇮🇪 Ireland · leading poet of the nation's field
“Baggus Plasticus”
87out of 100
Baggus Plasticus
I'm the softest
animal you can
imagine, boneless,
more amorphous
than a jellyfish,
taking form from
wherever I am.
Water is my
moving engine.
See my grazing
mouth, the trailing
twisting tentacles
of my handles.
I own the ocean,
a faceless apex
predator, drifting,
shaping islands
from my legion
of disposable
bodies, making
the whole world in
my image. Even
chewed up, bitten
into pieces, I can
survive. I'll swim
some day in every
creature. I'll be
in every mouthful
of food. I'm empty
of life completely.
I'm floating lightly.
Nothing kills me.
From the judges
A sharp, sustained persona poem whose sinister plastic-bag voice turns ecological warning into memorable, well-crafted menace.
Share this honour · tag @Writory
Enter the September contest
Ciaran Parkes retains all rights · published with the poet's byline as a National Honour
WRITORY