1st Place winner of The Poetry Lighthouse Prize Spring 2025
Your Dappled, Yellow Hair
by Alan Magee
I first fell for your dappled, yellow hair:
Gold and pine and shoulder-soft,
Fine and fair and speckled silk,
Cream and lemon and mushroom.
Boastful buttercups in fullest sunlight,
Sumptuous ochre, mustard and tan,
Bashful egg yolks on flashing sand,
Buff, ivory and starving flame.
Honey rich and chickpea yellow,
Daffodils bursting in the glorious sun,
Spring and Summer and barley corn,
Meet and dance, and melt and sleep
Through your dappled, yellow hair.
Alan Magee
I am a poet living with my family in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I am a teacher, who has worked with a full range of children for many years. I have had poems published in The Seamus Heaney anthologies, ‘Compass’ and ‘Manifest’, published by the Community Arts Partnership, NI. I have also had poems published by Apricot Press. I regularly read my poems at Purely Poetry NI events, where my work is very well-received. I write on a wide variety of themes around shared human experiences, nature and mental health, with sensitivity and insight. I enjoy travelling abroad, hill walking in the Mournes and exploring beautiful Ireland. I am an enthusiast of jazz, theatre and the wider Arts. I include these interests in many of my poems. You can find my work on Instagram through @alan.magee.poetry
