RESULTS OF OUR MARCH 2024 POETRY COMPETITION

 

JUDGE’S REPORT

 

POETRY COMPETITION THEMED ‘RED’

 

There was a pleasingly high standard of entry this time with the theme of RED interpreted in fourteen ways including apples, lips, flags, ink, blood and blankets.

The winner is RED by Frank McDonald.  The runner-up is THE RAPTOR by Marion Bolton.  Frank McDonald’s was an exploration of the subject of RED through memories.  Marion Bolton’s sonnet was devoted to one bird, a raptor, a bird of prey, not species-specific for us but perhaps for her.  Red kite?

Of course with any known form, here the sonnet, passion has to be contained within the rules of the form and although the rhythm of the runner-up faltered in the last couplet, both poets have mastery of their craft as well as having something to say worth saying and said with heart.  Well done to Frank and Marion.

 

Dorothy Pope, Resident Poet

 

THE WINNING POEM, AND WINNER OF THE £100 PRIZE

Red by Frank McDonald

 

I close my eyes and see the colour red:

apples and cherries, wine, Burns’ red, red rose

and childhood cheeks of friends who are long dead,

red lips I cannot kiss in their repose.

Fires raged red that made our young hearts thud

as gorse and grass grew flames for our delight;

and fear there was when we saw red in blood

till soothing fingers put our world to right.

Since years have passed red is no longer willing

to mark my cheeks the way it used to do.

As I grow greyer, weary senses ailing,

red is no more the colour I once knew.

But who can tell? Perhaps in heaven’s bed

I’ll rest beneath a blanket coloured red.

 

THE RUNNER UP

The Raptor by Marion Bolton

 

Ours is a love born in the depths of quietness,

And needs not words to manifest its might;

Our hearts as one beat loudly their unitedness,

And drive them up to ever greater heights;

The raptor, bird with blood-stained soul enchants me,

Fast bind me to your breast with awesome sway;

Embrace me in the fulness of your entity,

My darkest night turned into brightest day.

This love that cannot be retracted,

I know I share with you and you alone;

Throughout the universe it is enacted,

But here with you it finds a welcome home.

Oh, Bird of Prey! Oh nature red in tooth and claw,

Be with me now, and for ever more.