Poetry from Cecilia Knapp, our poet-in-residence
Bridging London, connecting communities. Poetry to inspire.
O Southwark Bridge
I was drawn to Southwark bridge for my first poem as part of this residency because of its status as a somewhat unsung landmark. Nestled between the likes of Tower Bridge with its crowd-attracting machinery and the newer, shiny Millennium Bridge which spits you out right at the Tate Modern, I wondered how many people thought much about, or even noticed Southwark Bridge.
But there’s something lovely about how quiet it is as you cross it, how it draws fewer tourists and instead seems to be a place for Londoners to cross the river in the quickest way. I find its colours beautiful and calming. I like the quirky little alcoves that invite you to sit and slow down and take in the skyline; an odd thing to do in this city of rushing.
When I decided to write the poem, I went and sat in one of these little stone benches and imagined what I’d say to the bridge if it could hear me. The result is this poem which hopes to appreciate the beauty in the “every-day-ness” of Southwark bridge.
Cecilia Knapp, August 2024
City Bridge Foundation’s poet-in-residency programme is supported by The Poetry Society
O Southwark Bridge
I have heard you called forgotten
I’ve heard you called unsung
but doesn’t your gentle green
sing with the powdery dawn?
Doesn’t a pink sky blush deeper
when it sees you?
Don’t you seem to smudge
into a blue day?
Your gold parapets
interrupting the grey clouds
that roll above this town
like a ploughed field.
And isn’t each iron arch,
with its wide splayed ribs,
a bolted smile that manages
to pull some colour
from the brown rush
of water below you?
And when the day slumps
into night, Southwark Bridge,
don’t you look gorgeous
in your own quiet way?
Don’t your lampposts cast out
three points of light
into the murky city sky?
I get you Southwark bridge.
We all get given what we’ve got.
We’ve all got a little bit of rust.
We’ve all got bigger dogs than us
off to our west with their accolades.
Let them do their thing, Southwark bridge.
Keep on keeping on, babe.
Haven’t you done your job
for more than 100 years,
suspending us between north and south
in hovering liminal space?
I’ve sat in your cool alcoves,
I’ve pressed a palm
to the grain of your stone
and watched the churning of a day.
I’ve peeped through
your round granite windows
and seen the city framed, condensed
in a perfect circle.
It’s quiet here, Southwark bridge.
No mass of bodies, no pulsing crowds,
just Londoners cutting the quickest route.
How many new and nervous couples
have met here at your soft apex?
Have sent a text just before
Meet u on Southwark bridge?
That mid-point between them.
Imagine, Southwark bridge, how many times
you’ve been the background to a beginning,
carried them over what once separated them
as they smiled at each other, tightly,
and covered their teeth
or fidgeted with their sleeve
and tentatively suggested a drink
hoping it would span across hours.
There’s love here, Southwark bridge,
of course there is.
But, tell me, what do you make of how
the world feels crueller by the day?
A belt buckle tightening.
Or how it’s heating like a giant pot.
Look up, Southwark bridge, look up
at the planes streaking vapour
overhead in chalky trails.
And all around, the air thickening with fumes.
There’s hope, right, Southwark bridge?
Tell me there’s another 100 years.
I shouldn’t have favourites,
I know, Southwark Bridge.
But I can’t seem to forget
the nights I walked across your back.
Oh Southy B, can I call you that?
We’re friends, now right?
My limbs were sore with dancing
and not another soul in sight
and I felt battered by the force
of my own dumb luck—
that I somehow made it here
to this city
crossing water in the dark
on the way to my safe home.
And don’t we all just want that,
Southwark bridge?
I think that would be enough for most of us.