The Winner of this year’s Poetry Competition

1st Prize – M A Jeffs with:

Dear …

Do you remember, dear, when we two met;
the first time we made love one summer’s night,
the hesitance of hands on firm fleshed limbs,
the certainty of love, the pure delight?
I smile, recalling how we both believed
that love was for the young and age would bring
a dying off of sexual desire
as autumn’s chill consumed the blush of spring.

So long ago and oh, how wrong we were,
for as time passes love becomes more deep
and comfortable as last year’s well-worn shoes.
I bless your thinning hair, the waist that creeps
a little higher with each passing year.
I marvel how our minds can often share
a single thought, as though we two were one.
I can’t recall my life when you weren’t there.

Love makes the world anew. Age holds no fear
except that one of us should cease to be.
We tease each other, laugh, and toss a coin;
You say it will be you, I pray it’s me. 

Critique by Competition Adjudicator, Alison Chisholm

The final stages of adjudicating a poetry competition have an inevitably voyeuristic quality. You are probing the thoughts, emotions and reactions of another person, possibly one you will never meet, and learning all about them. At the same time you are testing their skills in the techniques of crafting poetry. Intrusive? Yes, but a welcomed intrusion. The entries are the invitation. You accept, and immediately a chain of communication forms itself. When that communication is so complete that a poem feels as if it is a part of your own experience – albeit vicariously – you know that the winner is emerging.

The first prize goes to Dear … , a love poem with a difference, because it crosses a boundary the young never envisage and talks about mature love in all its greying glory. The poem is fluent and joyous, subtly metrical and rhyming. The only hint of a shadow comes in the last stanza, where a final line – written in the simplicity of monosyllables – echoes the feeling with which everyone who has ever loved can indentify.

Thank you to everyone who entered, and invited me into the world of their poetry.