Vanessa Napolitano

Leaving the bradford ALHAMBRA

out of the side stairwell they open
after the standing ovation to funnel us
down the shiny red steps to the street,

it’s dark and raining and the vibration
of an audience on its feet is still tossing us gently
in its wake. I love everyone

right now, even the professional drunk
singing happy birthday to nobody and everybody
whilst us part-timers are warm

with our interval drinks in plastic cups.
This pink-green city in its Saturday best
and a musical, yes please.

I believe in the final-act miracle
the bow on the gift,
in the transmutation. God let our revelations
take flight in crescendo as a chorus.

Vanessa is a Yorkshire-based poet and a Word Up North New Northern Writer '25. Her pamphlet Various Magics was published with Black Cat Press in 2024, and she has a pamphlet forthcoming with Stanchion next year. Her work can be found in Humana Obscura, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Porridge and Stanchion. Her writing is informed by nature and place.

Vanessa said the following about her poem:

I wrote 'Leaving the Bradford Alhambra' to try and capture the feeling you get after being completely carried along by a piece of theatre - there's something about the communal experience that leaves me floating along afterwards and everything else is heightened and infused by it. A poem felt like the right place to channel the intensity of feeling. I wanted to capture the specifics of my home city and home theatre in the poem too, and how both are familiar but transformed by that final act moment.