Charlotte Shevchenko Knight is a poet of both British and Ukrainian heritage. Her debut collection Food for the Dead, published by Jonathan Cape in 2024, was a winner of an Eric Gregory Award (2023) and the Laurel Prize for Best First Collection UK (2024). Shevchenko Knight is an NWCDTP-funded PhD candidate at the Manchester Writing School.

Culverts of the hidden River Medlock in Manchester and the omitted parts became the shape of Charlotte Shevchenko Knight’s poem “SPEECH ACT: a river in eight culverts”. The poem’s form and lineation echoes the specific shapes of eight parts of the Medlock, sometimes in curving lines. 

The river is reimagined as it is reshaped, set in a context of long, historical, change: “how could this shape not be grief?” The threat to the environment is implicit: 

“levees appearing to guide
the medlock somewhere
she does not want to go –
a strange palm
on the small of her back –”

You can find Charlotte’s poems in full in the anthology Rivers of Exchange. There are copies in Manchester Poetry Library and Manchester Central Library or contact us if you’re interested in finding out more about this work.