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Poetry from Cecilia Knapp, our poet-in-residence

Bridging London, connecting communities. Poetry to inspire.

Illustration of Southwark Bridge showing a couple leaning on the yellow and green balustrade and looking out at a blue sky with clouds.

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.