Our latest Poem Of The Week, selected by Poetry Ireland, is Four Stories Up by Jane Clarke. 

Four Stories Up

on a derelict building

beside the canal,  

a gang of sinewy lads

queues to dive.  

Cheers break out  

with every daredevil leap –

they ignore the relics

of trollies,

prams and bikes,

the broken bottles beneath.

They jump

because it’s summer,

because it’s hot,

because of the girls that watch.

They only need

a clear run at the water.

About The Poet: Jane Clarke's first collection, The River, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2016, she won the inaugural Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year Award, the Hennessy Literary Award for Poetry and The River was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Literary Award.