Light Echo is a new poem commissioned by Manchester City of Literature for Festival of Libraries 2025.

Light Echo

A girl sat at E2 looks up at the light
bursting through the glass dome,
therefore get wisdom, and with
all thy getting, get understanding.

90 years ago, six-year-old Joan
from Moss Side saw the King here,
not expecting to return, aged sixty,
to write her first essay on local history.

The girl’s skipped breakfast, can’t focus
on ecology, a bee appears near her
ear. A fellow worker, perhaps expelled
from its hive, in search of sanctuary.

Izzy Wallman was ten minutes’ late
for work the morning after the Blitz walking
two miles strewn with broken glass
to find an eager reader already there.

The bee lands on the girl’s tome, stripes
aligned with lines, pleasing until it crawls
over ‘extinction’. If only she paid attention
in class, a crown of glory she shall deliver.

A bust of Erinma Bell formed of
50 firearms seized by police
or surrendered during gun amnesties,
the only weapon here is knowledge.

it’s the week before exams, nowhere to go,
local library closed a month ago, exalt her
and she shall promote thee. The girl googles,
then opens the e-catalogue, types ‘apiology’.

On a trip to Italy, the first chairman
of the Manchester Ship Canal Company
fell in love with a marble girl reading,
her poem still a mystery.

Head teeming, the girl from E2 makes for
the cafe, joins a table of women with
pens & paper. Below the marble girl’s gaze
an ode to things not yet gone begins.

By Nóra Blascsók

 

Nóra performed this poem at the Festival of Libraries International Reception in June 2025. The poem explores the intersections of a library through time, focussing on Manchester Central Library and those who have occupied it over the years and as a physical place of belonging to the people who walk through its doors.