Meet Eleanor Cantor our 2025 Bill Pringle Poetry Award Winner

Support Groups.

Here we gather

Birds of a feather

Calling for more of our kind

In parish halls

In backrooms

We erect

Our church of the poisoned and beautiful

mind.

We don’t worship or pray

There is no judgment day

Just “take it a day at a time”

We give ourselves

Grace

A name, and a place.

Here we congregate

Relate

Then separate.

We reconvene

Monthly, we bleed

In relief, shameless

We say: “I am so ashamed”

We answer: “You don’t need to be”

If someone cries, we give them tea

and biscuits.

The biscuits are transformed to endless

empathy in our ten minute breaks

It’s called The Miracle of Jaffa

Cakes.

Sometimes a new face joins us

“I see some new faces” our leader says

The new face is often young and very

quiet at the start.

We are on our best behaviour

Then. We want them to come back.

They listen and ponder it all in their heart.

Maybe they think: “is this how I end?”

So we say: “it gets better”.

At other times they are old, broken,

words burst from them like it’s the first

time they’ve spoken – they tell us

everything

Just as it is and we say:

“Yes. This is how it is

for us too.

You’ve come to the right place”.

We respect the ground rules of this sacred

space, and when we pass each other on

the street, we speak in code or nod.

We meet, for years

In parish rooms and church halls

God help us.

Till then

We help ourselves.