The winner of 2010’s Poetry Competition

1st Prize – Simon Jackson with:

Defeating Gravity

Have I told you the tale of Icarus?
How he and his father stepped onto thin air and flew,
flew from captivity?
Imagine the feeling, an air cushion beneath your chest,
gliding onto winds warm and buoyant as the Med,
floating on a cloud lilo. The ending?

Don’t worry about the ending.
Imagine the view, even better than from our perch
up here on the fourteenth floor.
Imagine the view as they soared above the turrets and towers,
the farm yards and factories.

I know it’s hot, my love. Keep away from the door.
We’ll press another towel along the crack.

I’ll not think of dark tentacles
of smoke stretching into your lungs,
clinging to, smothering alveoli,
forcing their choking passage
down your protesting throat,
a boa constricting, a black wolf squatting
upon your chest, pinning you to the scorching floor
as orange tongues stretch up
to lick black strips from your bare arms and legs.

What if we were Daedelus and Icarus?
Striding from the broken window
into that ocean-wide blue
to float above the tower blocks and touch down
safely on some golden meadow?

Hold me, darling. Hold your daddy.
Be brave and take my hand.

2nd Prize – Roger Elkin with:

Marking Time

There’s his diving-watch:
somehow chubby, snub-nosed, squat:
his blunt reminder of time:

its face the black of his sub-aqua suit;
its one-eyed lens, sibling of the goggle-mask
that made his face Cyclops, almost alien;

and its satin-finished wrist-band
with that clasp he snapped secure
like his cupping embrace.

So, there’s nothing to distract
about it: masculine, no-nonsense,
deadly practical, necessary

like the oxygen lungs
they strapped to his back
that took him down, then up again.

Could withstand pressure – lots.
Was proof against water, and salt:
but knew the witness of tears.

So remains, marking time:
its silent movement
husbanding these empty hours.

3rd Prize – Russell Jones with:

Crossing Over

Remember how we crossed the bay
in that little wreck we found,
five-past-midnight, after drinking
on the shingle? We rowed
to the lighthouse you said was haunted.

I forget how long it took,
what we said or didn’t say.
The fear of opening a graveyard
had shrunk or evaded me

but I kept the bruises from when you fingered
my arm like a crucifix
when we headed upstairs. Everything
was silhouette
as we watched the hillsides sleep on the horizon.

Remind me: did we try to relight
the dead and search the ocean?
Did we name the shades of darkness
because of our intoxication?

We drew particles of the night into our lungs
and spirits made it through.
You switched on your torch and rotated
so that somewhere,
between worlds, we’d shine our beacons.

4th Prize – G. Learner with:

The Last Adventure

As if he still felt the tilt of a deck, the tug
of wind at his hair, Uncle Henry leaned against
a spar, soft-focusing horizons. ‘Ah,’ he sighed,
‘Donald, your dad and me, before the war...’
Heard often, but she loved it every time.

How they cast off the Rossignol, edged into
a waiting wind, threw the wheel until the needle
quivered south. Egged on by Don, they dared
the Bay of Biscay; defied Atlantic anger rounding
La CoruΖa; toasted their skill with sherry in Cadiz.

They slipped between continents into scenes
from Pathé News pulsing in technicolour life:
Gibraltar’s last few apes; a sirocco breath
of spices, desert dust, unearthly cries;
Etna’s threat slurring the cobalt sky.

At last the wash of myth around the hull:
Odysseus labouring to reach Ithaca, Jason
searching for the Fleece. They dived into deeps
that had cooled Theseus; learned to like retsina;
tasted olives, feta, honey from Olympian bees.

The tale he wouldn’t tell, she partly knew:
begun with a wireless call; the blacked-out train
across the Weald; the issuing of charts;
learning a borrowed boat on a south-east course
in the all-sorts fleet of little ships.

How, in a veil of fog and burning oil,
they hauled aboard five times a dozen men,
ferried them to ships, searching always among
exhausted, grateful faces, for Donald’s. But
once again, and finally, he’d dashed ahead.

Critique by Competition Adjudicator, Alison Chisholm

The poems entered in this competition covered a wide range of themes and styles, and the best entries had the power to grip the reader. Many pieces, however, would have been improved by further revision. Problems with sentence structure, form, rhyme, balance and approach disappointed when the content of the poem deserved a more inspired treatment.

The first prize goes to Defeating Gravity, a poem which begins as a simple story and ends in the depths of tragedy. The poet avoids any hint of the mawkish, and conveys tautly controlled emotion without ever lapsing into sentimentality. A moving and memorable piece.

The poem in second place, Marking Time, has an entirely different mood. Passion of description and technical excellence make this one a winner.

The third prize goes to Crossing Over. This is highly original, beautifully crafted and resonant.

The Last Adventure gains fourth place. This narrates the story of an amazing life ending in sacrifice and heroism. Again, there is no sentimentality, and the account is delivered in clear, powerful imagery.

Many thanks to all the poets who entered and shared their thoughts and dreams.

Alison Chisholm