Judging is complete and all winning and commended poets have been informed.
Winning Poems
1st prize: Bumping into John Lennon – Carole Bromley
2nd prize: Saltburn – Carole Bromley
3rd prize: Around the Edges – Eileen Carney Hulme
Commended Poems
Editing – Ama Bolton
Rebellion – Sue Wallace -Shaddad
After the flood – Liz Byrne
Navy blue sling-backs – Liz Byrne
Loose Thread – Maurice Franseschi
Moving On! – Angie Butler
Something about the way you named trees – Eileen Carney Hulme
Tumour – Anthony Watts
Disputation – Christopher Grogan
On your mind – Angie Butler
The Natural – Keith Hutson
Not As Planned – Dorothy Baird
I give up, I tell – Andrew Soye
Becoming a Sliver Moon – Carolyn O’Connell
Codes of Being – Greta Ross
Almost – Moira Andrew
Conversation – William Dixon
Judge’s Report
Judging the Poetry Space Competition, 2017, was indeed a pleasure – and a challenge. After reading all the poems at least twice, initially, I divided them into three piles. After further readings, certain poems from the middle pile fought to join the first pile and sadly, some poems from that pile had to give way – a sort of literary cross-fertilization starting to take place! However, it must be said, that the winning three poems and, indeed, most of the listed commended poems held their position throughout the judging process. That said, it was very difficult, at times, to leave certain poems off the commended list that had singular virtues of their own.
I was also pleased to notice that the winning three poems, especially, displayed the qualities I was hoping to see and which I outlined in my pre-competition address. However, all the poems entered were worthy attempts. Many of them powerfully articulating universal themes of love and loss, tragedy and comedy. There were also poems that raged against the status quo and berated the establishment wonderfully. Perhaps the difference between the twenty poems selected and the ones that didn’t make the cut, so to speak, was that with the former poems more had been done to articulate, succinctly and economically, their chosen subject, comprising detail powerfully through individual form and conceit to deliver the poem successfully.
I offer my warmest congratulations to the three winners, the seventeen commended poets and, indeed, all who entered this year’s competition.
Mike Di Placido.
Here are the top three winning poems
Bumping into John Lennon
The signature specs had gone,
he had that myopic, sore-eyed peer
all contact-lens wearers have.
He’d also ditched the white robes
and had a crew cut. I bought him a drink
and I think it was a relief to talk.
He told me Yoko had become a bit much,
that he couldn’t keep up all that showering.
She got the money. He started again,
took a City and Guilds in woodwork,
started a business doing sash windows.
He showed me the scar. A flesh wound.
He had an allotment, loved cycling,
would set off every Sunday at 5 a.m.
in fluorescent lycra.
Once or twice he crept into the back
of Macca’s concerts but, to be honest,
couldn’t take the hair dye, the terrible lyrics.
The last time I saw him
he was up a ladder fixing a pane,
whistling Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.
Carole Bromley
1st prize
Saltburn
August Bank Holiday and Elijah
wants to fly his kite, a red and yellow bird.
Plenty of wind and he soon gets the hang.
Run, says his dad, keep running
and he does. Running, running, afraid to stop,
towards Redcar and the steel works,
towards the town where his great great grandad
built the whole High Street,
and lived at no 129 from where
you could cut through to the beach
carrying a bucket for sea-coal.
But Elijah knows nothing of this.
To him, intent on keeping his kite aloft,
there’s only this running, running
away from the pier and the cliff lift
and the flapping windbreak,
away from the candy floss and ice cream,
away from the day trippers
towards the still winding gear
on his skinny, sparrow’s legs,
the great bird casting its shadow
over the long, ribbed sands.
Carole Bromley
2nd prize
Around the Edges
We name the pain as clouds, reference
good and bad days. I arrive with a DVD
and chocolate eclairs, tell you there
are swans in the sky, your response
nimbostratus, nothing fluffy about that.
We take the eclairs and you shuffle to
the coffee machine, longing for air, a soft
sea breeze, a curling cirrus. We settle
to watch Truly, Madly Deeply, laugh at
cloud-faces and dancing wooden spoons.
Before the ghosts depart you are asleep.
The doctor appears and I step out of
the room with the fragility of rain.
Eileen Carney Hulme
3rd prize
Eileen Carney Hulme’s third collection of poetry, The Stone Messenger, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2015. She has been a winner in several competitions and her poems have appeared in many magazines, anthologies and internet poetry websites. She had a poem set to music by Mark Keane award winning director of Music at Tuam Cathedral, Co Galway and this was performed at The Cork International Choral Festival. She has two poems transcribed on to wall space in The Nicholson Art Gallery in Forres, Scotland and she was also their first Poet in Residence running various poetry events.
I was thrilled when Sue phoned to say I’d been placed and commended in this year’s competition. I’m grateful for all her hard work organising it and a big thank you to Mike Di Placido for choosing two of my poems, it’s truly heartening.
