The indefatigable Colin Dardis is a force of nature in the poetry scene of Northern Ireland. He has published his own work widely, does readings and workshops frequently and comes up with truly novel ideas for encouraging poets to get their work out before readers. In October 2022 he issued his third “24-hour challenge”, inviting poets to respond to the prompt “clothes” with a poem not longer than 14 lines in length. I have taken up the 24-hour challenge once before and, again this time, my entry has found its way into the resulting anthology along with poetry by many talented poets, mostly from Northern Ireland. 

Clothes was published in October by Rancid Idols Productions, Belfast, and can be accessed via via this link. My poem (which appears with its accompanying photo on pages 25-26 of the anthology) is entitled “The Red Dress” and it confronts the very troubled and troubling issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in Canada.