Imogen Mchugh, United Kingdom's National Honour
August 2026
The season you learned to drive.
The season you learned to drive.
Sweat trailing down your back, serpentine as your smile
When you offered me a ride down the coast road.
The sun had bleached your hair nearly white
Like bone, that summer, and we burned
Without the need for gasoline or angry words.
I don’t like the way the road runs so close to the edge,
And you don’t like my hesitation, so
I go back to the feeling of damp linen, the smell of your heat
Like a brother in the way I haunt you, like a summer
In the way I let you go.
Score: 78 out of 100.
A strong, idiosyncratic free-verse lyric whose surprising closing similes and ambivalent heat lift it well above the competent field, despite a slightly loose middle.
Read the August 2026 National Honours