2020 Vision

In Michaelmas term 2020, Mansfield was delighted to welcome one of the UK’s bestknown teachers of writing, the poet Kate Clanchy MBE, as the College’s new ‘Writer in Residence’. Throughout 2020/21, Kate ran nonconformist writing workshops for Mansfield students and staff. Among those attending the workshops was Brennig Davies, whose poem ‘2020 Vision’ touchingly reflects upon student life in the pandemic.

Last night I ran into last year’s me as he walked down Mansfield Road, red bag hanging from his shoulder, stressed about essays about centuries-dead men. I thought to stop him, and tell him: that in one turning of the earth round the sun the light in the world would change, and the road would be drained of its cars, and its people, and me. He doesn’t know about masks, which are still just things to be worn at parties, or bubbles, which are still things free to float, or that friends and funerals are abstract concepts, like time, like a time before. But last year’s me still lives there, and who am I to evict him? So we smiled, and passed, on Mansfield Road, and I stopped myself from following.

Brennig Davies (English, 2018)