This book, illustrated by Deborah Pope, contains the winners and runners-up from the second Reading Waterstones poetry competition. When the competition was announced entries flooded in from all over the world, eventually filling five mail sacks. Favourites were picked and this is the result - proof of the continued vitality of the arts in Reading

 
Trainspotting in Slovakia
by Peter Huitson

I cycle past the ice cave and the village
where a couple fight with half full glasses.
My saddle bag is empty. I wonder
if the train that grumbles up the hillside
goes near the camp site. I pedal on and on.

The owner of the bar brings tea and a pot
of honey. A present from his daughter.
At the next table two guys start to argue:
'Was the engine a Bo-BO or a Co-Co?'
Someone blows on about end-of-platform lives.

That night, I am restless in my tent
on the wet grass by the moonlit factory.
Diesels drag box-cars through plum trees to the east.
I dream of Thomas - Henry - Gordon
speeding the open tracks, far from the fat controller.