COMMENTS OF GEOFFREY WINCH (JUDGE)
It was a pleasant task to judge this year’s competition. It was also a testing one because, of the 56 poems entered, more than half easily could have found a place in my ‘top ten’, and this was the case after reading each one carefully twice, and some three times. Nevertheless, among those which, for various reasons I decided not to include, there was often much to admire, and I was able to join many diverse journeys – e.g. a bus to Brighton; the Pioneer space probe; journeys into, through and about peoples’ lives, and I followed the last eagle on its never ending quest. Some of the journeys were fun, others provided sobering food for thought, and the vast majority were, I thought, inspired and imaginative. Overall I was grateful and encouraged to have such a wide range of journeys and styles of writing to consider. However, on those which I eventually selected as my final ten I would like to offer the following comments:–
COMMENDED (in competition numbering order)
Thistles – This poem seemed a most original interpretation of mythological journeying employing very distinctive imagery : ‘These weedy thistles / squabbling among the nettles / whose thick stems sneer past them / in upward thrusting spears . . .’
Saying Goodbye to Dad – The poem engages with sad/bittersweet feelings and remembrances whilst taking Dad’s ashes to scatter, then as they are scattered. Impressive lines such as : ‘but a ghost of grey dust hung in the air. / It glittered in the sunlight / like a golden halo until snatched away / on a gust of wind’ ensured this commendation.
The Story of a Ticket – A short poem, but packed with lines which convincingly captured human reactions and sentiments in a sticky situation e.g. ‘When he said he didn’t have a ticket / there was a collective hush’ and ‘He reminded me of myself / at that age, except for the / metal studs in his nose.’
Journeys – This poem is a short criticism of Tony Blair drawing on the circumstances of his autobiography ‘A Journey’ – ‘now languishing unsold in bookshops / inanimate testimony of the gone / outsold by a fairytale meerkat’. Political point-scoring maybe but it does so by way of a meaningful blend of criticism and human sensitivity in a profound and convincing manner.
The Journey Dreamed – ‘This is the place I used to live – / I’ll move one day – / uproot and take this cache of dreams / unpack them miles away’ is how this poem commences, and concludes : ‘ – the last farewell / soft on the tongue / and lingering – an aftertaste / like vintage wine / to warm my disappearing as / I cross the line.’ The desire to leave and regrets about leaving are excellently played out in between.
HIGHLY COMMENDED (in competition numbering order)
Evening Walk in Autumn – Captivating observation, exquisite imagery, then a charming meditation rounds off this poem : ‘We walk the field, air / is still, glowing, a star /hangs over the dipping sunset.’ ‘Cows amble, their glamorous // eyes stare like eastern women / without a veil.’ ‘. . . as if its [a blackbird’s] song has looped and lifted / the four corners of the field / round us and we are all one, mole cow rabbit bird worm,’
Shatabdi Express – A cinematic journey through a little piece of India. It began ‘Before the morning opened out’ when ‘a thick mist swung in, / eerie, silent, blotting out the moon’ and reached the point where ‘small boys led bullocks through the fields / and weak sun glinted on a stagnant pool // still India slides past.’ A wonderfully understated poem – and yes, I would have liked to have stayed longer on the train.
Visiting a Psychiatric Ward – The poem firstly emphasises the immeasurable differences between ‘the languid peace’ of a road approaching a psychiatric hospital, and the ‘deserts scarred by howling shells’ of a war being reported on the car radio. It then defines both scenarios as possibly being akin to the peace and/or suffering a psychiatric patient might experience ‘where insurgents have crossed into reason’s land / and blown up bridges designed to uphold / the orderly traffic of thought’. After sitting in the garden to talk and smoke where ‘blue coils unwind like unspooled tape / or thoughts which cannot hold their shape’ a parallel is drawn between the long journey back to normality for patients and soldiers alike – involved journey themes succinctly and imaginatively handled.
Dragonfly – An insight into the short life journey of a dragonfly through its various stages including being ‘. . . caught in the hearse / of a butterfly net.’ One of the poem’s appealing aspects is the way it twice uses retrospection to describe different stages – when ‘Back in time it was a flash of startling colour’ and ‘Further back in a triumph / of egg life it turned into a nymph.’ A captivating poem.
THE WINNING POEM
Dunes – This poem incorporates two journey themes. Both are capable of standing alone, or be considered metaphorically. First the journeying of sand, building dunes and reshaping them as it goes – ‘the yellow sandhills drift, / each atom caught in endless ebb and flow,’ and ‘ their contours shift and trickling sand runs fine,’. Second, a human journey, ‘its strange attraction, fascinates, invites – / the wanderer, unwary, who intends / to try to cross her rollercoaster heights’ where ‘a mirage plays // and leads him on to perish in the sand – ’. Seven quatrains – stanzas set in iambic pentameter, end-rhymed abab cdcd etc. Not a single rhyming word can be considered as ambiguous, as the case often is, but all occur naturally to add weight to the fascinating imagery, or the events as they unfold – a wonderfully well-worked poem.