September Prize Poem

I've spent more time reading the poems this month because one poem in particular kept calling me back, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking anything in the other poems. Re-reading them all has been rewarding and here are a few observations:

1.
From 'Kitten' by Martin Cordrey:
Their love for me has taken flight

The wonderful iambic rhythm of this line adds just the right amount of lyricism and longing.

2.
From Charlotte Segaller's 'Chair':
the strike of our sudden cold grief
The single syllable words (strike/cold/grief) drive home the emotion.

3. Linda W's masterful rhymes in 'Goodbye Paris Flat'. Effortless for the reader and serving, not dominating, the poem as a good rhyme scheme should.

The poem that I kept returning too however is Martin Cordrey's 'Going Home'. It's only 14 words and rather enigmatic. What's the ball of fire? Something vibrant and exciting that the narrator regrets leaving? Something destroyed and abandoned? But there's the break after ball/ on the second line, and we use 'ball' in the sense of 'having a ball', or a whale of a time. And the phrase 'Going Home' contains such resonance for most people, returning to the place of our birth, or to the place we are loved, to our roots, a source. So, is it the city or home that calls the narrator - where does the longing lie? Is he torn between two loves?

I don't need the answers to all these questions. It's enough that the poem provoked them and became a part of my life. Surely that's what we all want to happen to our own poems, that they enter someone else's world and add to it in some way?

Congratulations, Martin. If you email me (lynne@lynnerees.co.uk) with your postal address I'll put your 'prize' in the post.


Going Home

I left the city I love
for home – a ball
of fire behind me.

Martin Cordrey