Thanks to everyone who entered Poetry Space Competition 2013. Thanks also to Martyn Crucefix.
Martyn Crucefix has finished his careful reading of the poems and has chosen twenty poems for the anthology. Read the top three here followed by a full list of poets to be included in the anthology. A report from Martyn will follow.
All poets included will receive complimentary copies of the anthology and the top three will receive cash prizes of £250, £100 and £50 respectively.
Zoom
[i.m. Sgt John Lansdell, shot down in his Hurricane on 17th September 1940]
Somewhere, some distant relative
is nurturing her family tree
with ‘information’ (‘photos would be brilliant!’)
and so we get the box out of the loft
and I am volunteered to scan
the contents of this dusty envelope.
Here’s the Loughborough College Group (John Lansdell
second row, end, right) and here
College Sunday 1936:
a casual group of friends taking the air
in mortar boards and gowns (I wonder
if they’re worn with pride, or does he think
he looks a twerp? The faint smile tells us nothing.)
Bunny, Self & Norman on the promenade…
and here’s another – three men in a boat,
oars stowed, swigging from the bottle: lads…
and these the chaps in ‘D’ Flight: Freddie Poulter,
Johnny White, Self, Sticky Glew…
I’m focussing on ‘Self’ (that’s my name too),
stroking the touchpad, dragging him centre stage
(exit Sticky Glew screen right) and now
the cursor has him in its sights and…Zoom!
Enlargement fails to show me who he was:
it only amplifies the blur of years
that steals away his image – shows instead
the pixelated abstract of a man – then
nothing recognisable as human.
© Anthony Watts
1st Prize
Epic Fail
The pelicans in St James’ Park are preening
on their artificial rock, presenting pieces
of themselves for inspection – for instance, their wings
like clattering plates of armour. They rattle their sabre
bills against their chests, thereby sprinkling
a confetti of white and grey feathers
onto the island’s setting of luminous algae.
This could be the point to introduce
the peculiar legend of how they feed their young
on their own blood – which is another way
of saying that there is a rage in beauty, and,
indeed, a beauty in rage. But all of this
is as nothing when I consider the young men
who cross this park and arrive, it appears, in only
three types – the ones strolling hand-in-hand
with young women, knitting their fingers together
in a fidgety sort of cat’s cradle; then the ones
wearing suits with slightly loosened ties and an air
of fevered purpose; finally the ones in sportswear
who bounce from foot to foot like huffing gazelles;
all of them sheened in fine perspiration,
but only some with more or less convincing
beards. I’d like, you understand, to somehow
bring this back to the pelicans, sitting
on their haunches now in a post-preening
stupor. Occasional tourists trot to the shin-high
railing that circles the lake, holding up their cameras.
I see that the tourists are capturing the moment,
such as they can.
© David Clarke
2nd Prize
So No Longer will the Words it Speaks Inhibit
makes a way with the mouth Sappho
Oh to forget this mouth – find another – leave this mouth dribbling on the kerb on Saturday morning, go where the stall sellers sell anything and everything at the end near Lambeth Junction where the woman in the red sari strings up her elastic and silks, all very good prices for the discerning. She’s never without a mouth, competing with chicken legs, spinach and cheap cauliflowers. Her mouths, as good as any, priceless, all shapes and sizes, words spilling everywhere in the damp air. Forget the anorexic mouth that refuses cake, eats a bus ticket, forget the foul language mouth that breaks loose on the street corner, lurks for a bus near the man handing out brochures for the Brixton Academy, forget the candy floss mouth that sticks to children. Buy strawberry lips that hover round the bright red sari.
© Wendy French
3rd Prize
Highly Commended:
Heatwave Near Wisbech – Robin Muers
Crossing with the Ferryman – David Mark Williams
Toadsong – Rachael Clyne
In Place – Rachael Clyne
I is not always me – Afric McGinchey
Bread and Wine – Ama Bolton
In Black and White – Margaret Eddershaw
Plus ten more to be included in the anthology:
The Breathing Space – Eileen Carney Hulme
The Work of Rain – Wendy French
Waiting for Insulin – Susan Latimer
Invigilation – Gwen Seabourne
Exchange – Margaret Eddershaw
Don’t Let Me Linger – David C. Johnson
A Glint of Childhood – Dorothy Baird
The White Shadow of death – Kaye Lee
The Gardener- Janice Windle
Pearl and Rogue go for a Ride – Pat Borthwick
Look out for Poetry Space Competition 2014 – in what will be our fifth year. Prizes will be the same. We shall open for entries in November and close June 30th 2014. Judge to be announced shortly.
