RESULTS OF THE SOCIETY'S SEPTEMBER POETRY COMPETITION
JUDGE'S REPORT
Oddly, the open theme produced poems on fewer subjects than the previously set themed ones, this time’s being mostly on death or love – lost or unrequited. A few were on nature and places. Admired grandmothers also featured. All were a pleasure and a privilege to read.
Of the 348 poems entered into this open-themed competition, I judged Crow as the first prize winner and Honey and Lemon as the runner-up. Both are by Jeff Gallagher.
Crow
A hole in the sky, a presence,
a shrivelled silhouette
marooned on a high dry clump
of driftwood hung from clouds,
shrouded in the hunched cloak.A dark core brooding silent
upon the stunted oak,
the parched bough cleft by
his clean jet lines and folds,
rippled by the insolent breeze.A call, dry, dispassionate,
tears a sliver of cold air,
the swift foot, the urgent heart
held in repetitive song,
the fine, wry note.
a shrivelled silhouette
marooned on a high dry clump
of driftwood hung from clouds,
shrouded in the hunched cloak.A dark core brooding silent
upon the stunted oak,
the parched bough cleft by
his clean jet lines and folds,
rippled by the insolent breeze.A call, dry, dispassionate,
tears a sliver of cold air,
the swift foot, the urgent heart
held in repetitive song,
the fine, wry note.
An eye, fixed yet rotating
within the still shadow,
falls, embalmed in a blur
of darkness neatly scooped
and swept into the trees.
Crow begins with a hole, a dark core, a call and an eye to give an impression of the bird being a mysterious object but personification is used to bring the crow to life: brooding and insolent. In contrast to the bare boughs, the crow has clean jet lines. There are no long trailing sentences here, just splashes of description or a noun thrown here and there – a stark description. The poem does not utilise rhyme. It would be an inappropriate distraction. Nor does the poet employ a regular metre for the crow does not subscribe to order. There is nonetheless an overall beauty in the bird. Individual parts of the crow are picked out. The call is mentioned, then the feet and finally the eye alone. This poem is beautifully constructed and paints a perfect picture of a crow.
Honey and Lemon
Nana’s cure-all, sweet soothing the sour,
the sharp checking the sweet’s excess,
has raised another Lazarus - an amber
communion of saints that scourge and bless.There was no milk in her promised land,
only dry acceptance, a need to provide -
the mother’s pain in the man’s embrace,
the slow building of a grudging pride.Photos recall what was sweet, forgetting
the illness, the hunger, the gnawing fear -
no need the sour days’ resurrection
for congregations gathered here.
the sharp checking the sweet’s excess,
has raised another Lazarus - an amber
communion of saints that scourge and bless.There was no milk in her promised land,
only dry acceptance, a need to provide -
the mother’s pain in the man’s embrace,
the slow building of a grudging pride.Photos recall what was sweet, forgetting
the illness, the hunger, the gnawing fear -
no need the sour days’ resurrection
for congregations gathered here.
But in better times, her memory of
empty larders, and her last few pence
spent on surviving, made her grateful
for the bread and wine of affluence.
The sweet and the sour, blessed union
of grief and bliss, of joy and loss:
now the cure for the pain of her living,
her daily stations of the Cross.
This poem is a delight of opposites: sweet and sour, joy and pain, grief and bliss. The art in the poem is in its marrying of the ordinary with concepts in religion. Communion of saints, resurrections and wine fit into the narrative of the healing merits of honey and lemon. The poem finishes fittingly with the routine of her administering cures likened to the regularity of the stations of the Cross. The mix of medicine and miracle works well. The pairs of rhymes echo this.
Dorothy Pope, Judge