2010 Poetry Competition results

Thank you for all your entries into our recent poetry competition. As ever, we were very impressed with the wealth of talent out there! We thoroughly enjoyed reading your poems, which covered an incredibly wide variety of subject matter.

We chose a long short-list, then took that down to a short short-list....and then it got really difficult! Reading to ourselves, reading out loud, discussing, casting our votes and finally emerging with the top three winners standing out from the others, but all three were very close.

In first place is Woodbury Fair by Dawn Lawrence of Stalbridge, Dorset.

Second place goes to Writing by Linda Fawke of Winnersh, Berkshire and third place to The Uninvited Guest by Pamela Trudie Hodge of Plymouth, Devon.

The top prize includes having the poem interpreted into a piece of artwork by Ted Elms, an extremely accomplished artist and writer, who is a member of Poole Writers' Circle. Once this has been completed by Ted and presented to Dawn, then we will put a copy on this website so that you can all enjoy it.

We also commend these poems which got through to the final short-list:

Strange Divide, by Martyn Caira of Abergavenny

Water Reflections by Clive McLaren of Hoylake

Hope by Tania Yeatman of Sturminster Marshall

On a Sunday Afternoon by Paula Stevens of Lytchett Matravers

Many congratulations to you all.

We have decided that rather than create a small anthology this time, we are going to wait until after the next couple of competitions and then make up a much larger anthology with winners and short-listed entries from all the competitions. We may also put in some of our own work. Although we do not allow ourselves to enter our 'open' competitions, we do have internal competitions, often on the same topics, so this will give us an opportunity to feature our winning entries too. I hope you like this idea of longer anthologies published less often.

In the meantime, I am sure you are keen to read the current winners' poems so here they are.

Woodbury Fair

I know a place – an ancient hill,

Where once was held a famous fair;

At Woodburytyde – September time -

Great crowds of travellers gathered there,

From cities, towns and villages;

They came to gossip, buy and sell,

They came to entertain and feast:

Traders, gentlefolk as well,

Tinkers, weavers, millers came,

Shepherds, herdsmen by the score;

And jesters, mummers, craftsmen too,

Rich folk came as well as poor.

I wish I could recall the talk

Of those who gathered on that hill

some seven hundred years ago,

Or kept some vision of them still.

Five days they'd feast on oysters; pork;

Sell cattle; horses; pigs and sheep;

And end with 'pack and penny' fun,

Where everything is sold off cheap.

For healing waters, too, they came,

A well ran through the hill, I'm told,

But some believed another tale -

That in its depths lay sunken gold.

Woodburytyde is now forgot,

Any yet its magic lingers still;

Listen ... I can hear it yet,

The jollity of Woodbury Hill:

The cries of animals; the crowds;

Voices where the grasses grow:

The chanting of some ancient words,

Float by on air when soft winds blow.

There's nothing now that's left to see -

Just Dorset's beauty all around;

But go there – and you'll understand -

There's magic still upon that ground!

Dawn Lawrence

~~~

Writing

I like words

There are lots in my head

I like the way they cascade in a stream on to the page

Sometimes a boulder blocks them

And has to be removed by a glass of wine

Or a run in the park

I like the way words

Follow

Each

Other

And inadvertently sometimes

They rhymes

I like the colour of adjectives

The loud purple ones

The whispered cream ones, the silent white ones

And active verbs transitively being and doing

And shouting and sighing

And living and dying

And rhyming

Again

I like solid Proper Nouns

Upright citizens, not messing frivolously with adverbs

Then there's the sentence, coming to a full stop

Actually I prefer the semi-colon, more subtle in its pausing

I touched him; he touched me

Tactile words, smooth, bumpy, velvety

Especially velvety

Sensory onomatopoeia

And joyous words and sad ones

And greeting and partings

And endings

Linda Fawke

~~~

The Uninvited Guest

I followed the mourners to the place she had chosen, sheltered

by an ancient yew, the soil gaping, waiting for the empty husk

of Grandmama. Tears clogged my throat as one after another

the unknown relatives dropped clods to thump on the coffin lid

like requests on the door of eternity. Where did they come from,

these people? Creeping like harvest mice from their safe nests,

lured by the promise of banquets at weddings and funerals.

Beyond them, as they crowded the turf, I caught a glimpse

of the girl. No-one I knew but surely from the distaff side.

She had inherited our windswept hair, dark as mystery

and the same pale complexion; her eyes the colour I called

Grandmama's jewels until age stole the violets and replaced

them with milky white stones. She smiled at me, warmly, sadly,

then was lost among a jumble of bolster-bosomed aunts.

I loved the low, white-washed cottage, the garden where clotted

flowers poured their perfume on my grief, awakening memory.

She had shared everything with me except her faith. My choice.

I know there was no life after death, no loving God. He, too,

was killed when the car flew like an errant bird over the cliff

and Grandmama, her violet eyes drowning, had taken me to her.

Mourners invaded the homely silence, stretched clawed hands

to snatch sandwiches. Aunts presided regally over teapots,

handed thick pieces of ham, generously sliced from the bone.

Bowls of salad glistened, picked that day from her garden.

Hysteria bubbled at the thought – but where were the pies,

the golden crusted apple pies? Grandmama's favourite.

There were always apple pies and soft mounds of cream.

I thought of us together, working in the shaded orchard,

the fruits gem-bright, clustered cherries like gypsy earrings,

the rich bloom of plums, ripe apples, carefully picked to lie,

blushing, in cider-perfumed rows in the oak-beamed loft.

The violet-eyed girl was watching and through a mist of tears

I followed where she beckoned, past the sly uncles liberally

pouring single malt, through the open door to the orchard

blue-hazed with the coming evening. Lightly she touched

each tree, paused before the last, a venerable plum crutched

with props, and put her arms around its gnarled trunk, resting

her beautiful, pale face lovingly upon the thick-crusted bark,

then she was gone, leaving me alone among the ancient boughs,

the moist caress of mist, the seductive smell of apple pie.

Pamela Trudie Hodge