Grenfell Tower priest tells of community's anger and grief in poem

Alan Everett writes of residents ‘forced to watch lights at the windows … until floor by floor the darkness snuffed them out’

• Read Father Alan Everett’s poem in full

The vicar of a church that became a focal point for survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire has turned to poetry to express the community’s pain and how the “dead black block” now dominates their lives.

Father Alan Everett of St Clement church, close to the base of the tower, was moved to write after the church became a refuge for people escaping the fire and as a response to the ongoing trauma suffered by the local community.