Gráinne Daly is a PhD student in UCD.  Her work was highly commended in the Blue Nib Poetry Chapbook Competition 2018 and shortlisted for a number of awards including the Gregory O’Donoghue and Anthony Cronin International Poetry Prizes. Her work has been published in numerous publications such as Southword Magazine, Pocket Change, Ogham Stone, Dodging the Rain and Boyne Berries.  A recipient of South Dublin County Council Artist’s Bursary 2016 and Winner of Greywood Arts Poetry Prize 2017, she recently finished her debut novel and is working on a collection of poetry and short fiction.

Grand National

thick with men
who stare at walls
for a mouse or a ruby
steam spirals from wet windcheaters
a Nike top drips rain
onto a faggot of dwarf pens
boy retreats in shock
seeing greyhounds instead of horses
a mat of dockets on the floor
Persian rug of mistaken chances
Guinness tanins haze the air
coins on the counter
notes slid back and forth
a code transcends the hatch
into the turf
creed of pilgrims laying-on
the steeplechase