My two shortlisted poems for May were by Eileen Carney Hulme and Alyss Dye, both with the title of 'Life Waits Inside Us'.
One of the things I love about reading poetry is being surprised by the language or startled by an image. The damp stars in Eileen’s poem did that for me; I don’t think I’ve ever read about stars in this way.
Alice’s poem has more straightforward imagery yet it's equally as suggestive, and her use of contrast in the following lines is subtle and moving: Life is work and a day off work./ It‘s the funeral tea.
After reading both of these poems several times, I’ve decided to choose Alyss’s poem for the quiet way it reassures me that life does wait inside us, even at times when we can’t make ourselves believe it.
Congratulations, Alyss. Can you email me with your address, please?
The first of June’s prompts will follow in a couple of days.
Lynne
Life waits inside us
Life waits inside us for a ribbon to be cut.
In May, we walk round the corner
and it’s there –
ice-cream chimes,
warm pavement,
a man resting on a garden wall
with his face turned to the sun.
Life is the lottery ticket.
It is tea and toast in the recovery room.
A mistake corrected.
Life is work and a day off work.
It‘s the funeral tea.
After weeks of sleepless nights
it surprises us,
like a baby’s first smile.
Alyss Dye
Showing posts with label prize poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prize poem. Show all posts
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Friday, May 08, 2009
April's Prize Poem
Taking a look back at the prompts I posted in April, they seem to reflect my own emotional state during the month more than I realised.
There's a lot in there about hope and love, explicitly and implicitly, and these have been the two things upmost in my mind since Tony, my husband, cut his hand badly at the end of March, which meant a lot of time spent in French hospitals for micro-surgery and skin-grafts and the subsequent care.
Nearly six weeks later, the worse is over and while there'll be some permanent nerve damage, he'll be able to use the hand fully in time. Given he's an artist and musician, he's relieved to know that. As I am.
So reading your poems this month has been a delight for me, not only to have a break from the reality of life here, but to read the joy and deeply felt emotion in them.
My aplogies for digressing but my contributions felt a little underweight last month and I wanted to explain why.
And now onto April's Prize Poem. The prompt in response to the Merwin poem was a difficult one, I think. Being restrained by someone else's words can feel frustrating, but both Keith Wallis and Fran Hill managed to make another poem from Merwin's words.
It was a close call, but I've chosen Fran's poem because of the astounding way she manipulated the syntax and wove her own words between Merwin's lines and created some wonderfully effective linebreaks at the same time, e.g. the strainings of/ The heart, which, for me, increases the emotional impact with its hesitance after the preposition before reading on to the next line.
There's one suggestion I'd make with regard to the close of the poem though, and that would be to cut the last two words 'to weep'. The image of silk slipping from a hand is a powerful one, and I'd prefer to let that do its work, rather than direct the reader too explicitly.
You might remember that Fran won last month's Prize too, so many congratulations again, Fran. I'll place your prize in the post next week.
Here's Fran's poem for you to enjoy again.
They know so much more now. About
My longings, though, nothing. The strainings of
The heart. We are told: ‘But the world
Is for laughter.’ Yes, but the sullen clouds
Still seem to come, one at a time,
Hanging above my bent head. I think:
One day, one year, one season, and here
Will come floating blossoms for me. After all,
It is spring once more with its birds,
And I see that the tulips stand strong. I, though,
Nesting in the holes in the walls
Of my hiddenness, do not see that
It’s morning. Finding the first time
For joy – ah! – a long, long search for
Its light. Pretending not to move
In case it wants to come silently, as
Always. Beginning, as it goes
Slipping from my touch again, like silk, to weep.
Fran Hill
There's a lot in there about hope and love, explicitly and implicitly, and these have been the two things upmost in my mind since Tony, my husband, cut his hand badly at the end of March, which meant a lot of time spent in French hospitals for micro-surgery and skin-grafts and the subsequent care.
Nearly six weeks later, the worse is over and while there'll be some permanent nerve damage, he'll be able to use the hand fully in time. Given he's an artist and musician, he's relieved to know that. As I am.
So reading your poems this month has been a delight for me, not only to have a break from the reality of life here, but to read the joy and deeply felt emotion in them.
My aplogies for digressing but my contributions felt a little underweight last month and I wanted to explain why.
And now onto April's Prize Poem. The prompt in response to the Merwin poem was a difficult one, I think. Being restrained by someone else's words can feel frustrating, but both Keith Wallis and Fran Hill managed to make another poem from Merwin's words.
It was a close call, but I've chosen Fran's poem because of the astounding way she manipulated the syntax and wove her own words between Merwin's lines and created some wonderfully effective linebreaks at the same time, e.g. the strainings of/ The heart, which, for me, increases the emotional impact with its hesitance after the preposition before reading on to the next line.
There's one suggestion I'd make with regard to the close of the poem though, and that would be to cut the last two words 'to weep'. The image of silk slipping from a hand is a powerful one, and I'd prefer to let that do its work, rather than direct the reader too explicitly.
You might remember that Fran won last month's Prize too, so many congratulations again, Fran. I'll place your prize in the post next week.
Here's Fran's poem for you to enjoy again.
They know so much more now. About
My longings, though, nothing. The strainings of
The heart. We are told: ‘But the world
Is for laughter.’ Yes, but the sullen clouds
Still seem to come, one at a time,
Hanging above my bent head. I think:
One day, one year, one season, and here
Will come floating blossoms for me. After all,
It is spring once more with its birds,
And I see that the tulips stand strong. I, though,
Nesting in the holes in the walls
Of my hiddenness, do not see that
It’s morning. Finding the first time
For joy – ah! – a long, long search for
Its light. Pretending not to move
In case it wants to come silently, as
Always. Beginning, as it goes
Slipping from my touch again, like silk, to weep.
Fran Hill
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
March Prize Poem
Last month’s posted poems were the strongest selection I’ve read since I started this blog. When we write about something that really matters to us, something we feel a strong connection with, then that authenticity travels with our words into the reader’s mind and imagination. Many thanks to everyone for the stories and incidents and reflections – I feel my life is richer for having read them all.
So, there was a lot of competition for the prize-poem slot but in the end I chose Fran Hill’s poem ‘Tree’ for its wonderful recreation of a scene and a time that, I’m sure, so many people will be able to relate to.
I love how the names anchor this poem to a real world, and the way in which the kids, probably young teenagers, interact with each other is completely convincing. There’s still an innocence here – ‘picking at grass’, ‘Opal Fruits’, making ‘faces from the broad leaves’ – yet the adult world and its responsibilities are not that far away: ‘the carpet factory’ and the women working there that they can see through the windows.
The poem ends abruptly, perhaps too abruptly for some, yet, for me, that reinforces the world of these carefree teenagers who all wave and yell at Carol’s mother but then instantly forget about her and return to the far more interesting present of Opal Fruits and snog stories.
If a poem can transport you to another world it has worked his magic. It took me to the summer of 1973, Rimmel eye-gloss, Dial-a Disc in the red phonebox on the corner, and a boy who kissed me in the bedroom of a ruined house, the old wallpaper still on the wall - pale pink roses trailing from baskets.
Congratulations, Fran. If you email me your postal address - lynne@lynnerees.co.uk - I’ll put your prize in the post.
Tree
We could fit four on that branch
if we kind of leaned against each other,
then everyone else sat underneath
picking at the grass
while we learned new words off Tony.
We could see across to the carpet factory
where women in blue overalls
walked past the windows.
Carol Price always had a snog story
and Bernard pulled Opal Fruits out of his pockets.
I’d make faces from the broad leaves
punching out eyes and mouth and spiky hair
with my long fingernails. No-one else could do it.
And holding them to my face like a mask.
We argued about how to tell the age of a tree.
Bernard said ask it
so we did and Ben fell off the branch laughing.
He landed on Simone. We all said ooooooooh,
so he snapped off a long piece of bark
and stabbed at all our hanging legs
like a madman.
We practised all Tony’s new words on him.
Then Carol spotted her mum
in the carpet factory window
and we all waved and yelled hello
but she didn’t see.
Bernard gave out more Opal Fruits.
Fran Hill
So, there was a lot of competition for the prize-poem slot but in the end I chose Fran Hill’s poem ‘Tree’ for its wonderful recreation of a scene and a time that, I’m sure, so many people will be able to relate to.
I love how the names anchor this poem to a real world, and the way in which the kids, probably young teenagers, interact with each other is completely convincing. There’s still an innocence here – ‘picking at grass’, ‘Opal Fruits’, making ‘faces from the broad leaves’ – yet the adult world and its responsibilities are not that far away: ‘the carpet factory’ and the women working there that they can see through the windows.
The poem ends abruptly, perhaps too abruptly for some, yet, for me, that reinforces the world of these carefree teenagers who all wave and yell at Carol’s mother but then instantly forget about her and return to the far more interesting present of Opal Fruits and snog stories.
If a poem can transport you to another world it has worked his magic. It took me to the summer of 1973, Rimmel eye-gloss, Dial-a Disc in the red phonebox on the corner, and a boy who kissed me in the bedroom of a ruined house, the old wallpaper still on the wall - pale pink roses trailing from baskets.
Congratulations, Fran. If you email me your postal address - lynne@lynnerees.co.uk - I’ll put your prize in the post.
Tree
We could fit four on that branch
if we kind of leaned against each other,
then everyone else sat underneath
picking at the grass
while we learned new words off Tony.
We could see across to the carpet factory
where women in blue overalls
walked past the windows.
Carol Price always had a snog story
and Bernard pulled Opal Fruits out of his pockets.
I’d make faces from the broad leaves
punching out eyes and mouth and spiky hair
with my long fingernails. No-one else could do it.
And holding them to my face like a mask.
We argued about how to tell the age of a tree.
Bernard said ask it
so we did and Ben fell off the branch laughing.
He landed on Simone. We all said ooooooooh,
so he snapped off a long piece of bark
and stabbed at all our hanging legs
like a madman.
We practised all Tony’s new words on him.
Then Carol spotted her mum
in the carpet factory window
and we all waved and yelled hello
but she didn’t see.
Bernard gave out more Opal Fruits.
Fran Hill
Saturday, March 07, 2009
February Prize Poem
Thank you, everyone, for posting your poems last month, and also over the last year or so. I don't always have the time to acknowledge every post, and make individual comments, but I want you to know that I do enjoy reading them all. In retrospect it seems obvious, but I hadn't fully appreciated the difference moving to a non-english speaking country would make to me, both on a day to day basis, and as a writer. So, to open AppleHouse Poetry and read poems in english, by people I know, or am getting to know, is a joy. Really.
And now, on to last month's prize poem...
I laughed out loud at John Kenny's 'camel risen from the dead/ to haunt you in your room'! And Martin Cordrey's list of imperative verbs to extinguish the past had an accumulative energy and the interesting effect of actually reinforcing all those past events. But it's Annie Clarkson's prose poem, 'After the Accident', that I've chosen this month.
The title contributes so much to this poem: we read the poem in a very different light, aware of the narrator's need to recover, or settle, or find some kind of peace.
Despite being a list of commands, the force of the imperative is softened by the imagery in the poem, e.g. sit' and the movement of sunflowers in the wind and light, 'listen' and the sound of leaves and birdsong.
But the most surprising (and satisfying) thing about this poem, for me, was how it defied my expectations at the end with the instruction:
Imagine freeing the sunflowers from their tethers so they can experience all their sadness and pain and be truly free to move.
Poets often use Nature as a balm, as a way to comfort ourselves in the face of the harsh realities of life. And this poem begins that way, asking us to notice the natural environment and, by inference, take comfort from it. But the close of the poem turns us back onto ourselves, and asks us to recognise the need to experience 'sadness and pain' in order to be 'truly free'.
It's a beautiful and powerful poem, Annie. Congratulations. I'll put your prize in the post.
The first prompt for March will be up in a couple of days.
Lynne
After the accident
Sit in a garden chair and stare at the sunflowers all day. Notice how they bend in the wind, how they lean away from the wall, straining to escape from the string that fastens them there.
Sit outside all day and watch the way light shifts. Follow the sunflowers’ shadows as they dance on the garden wall. Learn their complex movements so you can improvise your own flamenco: an intricate dance that matches the sunflower’s passion, the emotional turn of its head in the wind.
Listen to a cante libre in the rustle of leaves and birdsong, click imaginary castanets as you stare, stare, stare at gypsy flowers expressing all the emotions you feel inside.
Imagine walking across the grass. Imagine freeing the sunflowers from their tethers so they can experience all their sadness and pain and be truly free to move.
Annie Clarkson
For more about Annie, and to read more of her poems, go to her page at Poetry pf
And now, on to last month's prize poem...
I laughed out loud at John Kenny's 'camel risen from the dead/ to haunt you in your room'! And Martin Cordrey's list of imperative verbs to extinguish the past had an accumulative energy and the interesting effect of actually reinforcing all those past events. But it's Annie Clarkson's prose poem, 'After the Accident', that I've chosen this month.
The title contributes so much to this poem: we read the poem in a very different light, aware of the narrator's need to recover, or settle, or find some kind of peace.
Despite being a list of commands, the force of the imperative is softened by the imagery in the poem, e.g. sit' and the movement of sunflowers in the wind and light, 'listen' and the sound of leaves and birdsong.
But the most surprising (and satisfying) thing about this poem, for me, was how it defied my expectations at the end with the instruction:
Imagine freeing the sunflowers from their tethers so they can experience all their sadness and pain and be truly free to move.
Poets often use Nature as a balm, as a way to comfort ourselves in the face of the harsh realities of life. And this poem begins that way, asking us to notice the natural environment and, by inference, take comfort from it. But the close of the poem turns us back onto ourselves, and asks us to recognise the need to experience 'sadness and pain' in order to be 'truly free'.
It's a beautiful and powerful poem, Annie. Congratulations. I'll put your prize in the post.
The first prompt for March will be up in a couple of days.
Lynne
After the accident
Sit in a garden chair and stare at the sunflowers all day. Notice how they bend in the wind, how they lean away from the wall, straining to escape from the string that fastens them there.
Sit outside all day and watch the way light shifts. Follow the sunflowers’ shadows as they dance on the garden wall. Learn their complex movements so you can improvise your own flamenco: an intricate dance that matches the sunflower’s passion, the emotional turn of its head in the wind.
Listen to a cante libre in the rustle of leaves and birdsong, click imaginary castanets as you stare, stare, stare at gypsy flowers expressing all the emotions you feel inside.
Imagine walking across the grass. Imagine freeing the sunflowers from their tethers so they can experience all their sadness and pain and be truly free to move.
Annie Clarkson
For more about Annie, and to read more of her poems, go to her page at Poetry pf
Friday, February 06, 2009
January Prize Poem
Well, you certainly had fun with the Fibonacci poems! I loved reading them... tricky little things to make interesting though, aren’t they?
One of the difficulties I encountered was giving each line enough ‘weight’ i.e. making it interesting enough... always a problem when a line only has one word.
There’s also the issue of fluidity. Does the line break help or hinder the flow of the poem? Is it just an exercise in counting syllables or have we used the line breaks to contribute more to the poem e.g. hesitation, suspense, dramatic development?
I thought Martin Cordrey’s:
I
feel
as if
someone has
moved the horizon
and I can nibble the moon
made good use of the line breaks (the hesitations feel appropriate to the emotional mood in the first 3 lines - even if the last line is one syllable short) as did Charlotte Segaller’s:
What
flies
skywards
falls back down,
like the hilltown's sighs
in that soft grey column of rain.
The image accumulates in the first 3 lines, taking us higher, before the fall contained in the 4th line with its thump of three one syllable words.
But the poem I’ve chosen this month is Annie Clarkson’s ‘Recovery’:
Recovery
Here is a chicken coop with no hens.
A burnt out caravan, a tin of gasoline,
a rusting tap, three empty barrels,
standing by a corrugated shed.
Where I can hear a radio
an old transistor’s crackle and hiss.
Nobody is listening.
Cold mug of tea. Worn armchair
Pair of slippers with nobody to wear them.
I sit in the shed and stare out
at nothing, no life that I can see.
Brown furrows where there should be
leeks or carrots or beets.
Not even prickled bushes or squat trees.
Dried earth for miles. Grey sky.
Then, at the edge of my vision-
a dash of colour, a wingbeat.
It’s hard for me to see, but for a moment
on the rotting handle of a spade,
almost breathless, it flits from spade
to rusting tap to the edge of the door,
darts towards me and rests
this fleeting sign of life
on the arm of my chair.
Annie Clarkson
One of the things I enjoyed so much about this poem was the reward of returning to the title and it feeling so absolutely, perfectly chosen. Because of the length of the poem, and the accumulation of imagery, I’d actually forgotten about it until I reached the end and glanced back. And then came the ‘Yes!’ that we all want our readers to say and feel in response to our work.
The dash of colour, the wingbeat is nudging the narrator towards recovery, away from the emptiness, the brokenness, and the absence suggested by the powerful imagery in the poem. This is more than hope, this feels like promise.
Many congratulations, Annie. If you email me with your postal address, I’ll put your ‘prize’ in the post.
One of the difficulties I encountered was giving each line enough ‘weight’ i.e. making it interesting enough... always a problem when a line only has one word.
There’s also the issue of fluidity. Does the line break help or hinder the flow of the poem? Is it just an exercise in counting syllables or have we used the line breaks to contribute more to the poem e.g. hesitation, suspense, dramatic development?
I thought Martin Cordrey’s:
I
feel
as if
someone has
moved the horizon
and I can nibble the moon
made good use of the line breaks (the hesitations feel appropriate to the emotional mood in the first 3 lines - even if the last line is one syllable short) as did Charlotte Segaller’s:
What
flies
skywards
falls back down,
like the hilltown's sighs
in that soft grey column of rain.
The image accumulates in the first 3 lines, taking us higher, before the fall contained in the 4th line with its thump of three one syllable words.
But the poem I’ve chosen this month is Annie Clarkson’s ‘Recovery’:
Recovery
Here is a chicken coop with no hens.
A burnt out caravan, a tin of gasoline,
a rusting tap, three empty barrels,
standing by a corrugated shed.
Where I can hear a radio
an old transistor’s crackle and hiss.
Nobody is listening.
Cold mug of tea. Worn armchair
Pair of slippers with nobody to wear them.
I sit in the shed and stare out
at nothing, no life that I can see.
Brown furrows where there should be
leeks or carrots or beets.
Not even prickled bushes or squat trees.
Dried earth for miles. Grey sky.
Then, at the edge of my vision-
a dash of colour, a wingbeat.
It’s hard for me to see, but for a moment
on the rotting handle of a spade,
almost breathless, it flits from spade
to rusting tap to the edge of the door,
darts towards me and rests
this fleeting sign of life
on the arm of my chair.
Annie Clarkson
One of the things I enjoyed so much about this poem was the reward of returning to the title and it feeling so absolutely, perfectly chosen. Because of the length of the poem, and the accumulation of imagery, I’d actually forgotten about it until I reached the end and glanced back. And then came the ‘Yes!’ that we all want our readers to say and feel in response to our work.
The dash of colour, the wingbeat is nudging the narrator towards recovery, away from the emptiness, the brokenness, and the absence suggested by the powerful imagery in the poem. This is more than hope, this feels like promise.
Many congratulations, Annie. If you email me with your postal address, I’ll put your ‘prize’ in the post.
Friday, January 09, 2009
December Prize Poem
Many congratulations to John Kenny for his sonnet, 'Peeking'.
Peeking
You always used to cheat at hide and seek,
peek between your fingers, count in tens.
I'd scuttle up the stairs, avoid the creak
on the third step, under the bed and then
wait, not giggling, stifling a cough,
not breathing even, wait to see your feet.
You'd bounce upon the bed to squash me, laugh,
then drag me by the ankles from beneath.
We haven't played that game in many years.
You hid from me, I never thought to peek.
I'd peek now, but I can't see for the tears.
I'm counting now, in years, I'll find you soon.
This is our final game of hide and seek.
You have but slipped into another room.
John Kenny
The sonnet is an ideal form for containing ‘emotion’. The control of the metre and the rhyme scheme can act as a restraint and add a sense of dignity to what is being said. Having said that, the octave in John’s sonnet is quite a light-hearted account of a childhood game, the playfulness of which is communicated through the sounds of words like peek, and giggling and squash.
But at the sonnet’s turn, as it enters the sextet, the mood changes with a simple declarative sentence that brings us up to the present day. We pause there at the line’s end, and the sentence’s end, before reading the remainder of the poem, which uses the same language from the game, yet now we’re very aware of the adult resonances, what hiding and seeking and counting mean to us as the years pass and we lose people we love.
The final line draws on a sermon given by Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) after the death of Edward VII, and this ‘intertextuality’ serves to remind us that the human emotional experience does not change.
Congratulations, John, on a superbly constructed sonnet that carries its powerful message simply and honestly.
Send me an email with your postal address and I’ll put your ‘prize’ in the post.
Peeking
You always used to cheat at hide and seek,
peek between your fingers, count in tens.
I'd scuttle up the stairs, avoid the creak
on the third step, under the bed and then
wait, not giggling, stifling a cough,
not breathing even, wait to see your feet.
You'd bounce upon the bed to squash me, laugh,
then drag me by the ankles from beneath.
We haven't played that game in many years.
You hid from me, I never thought to peek.
I'd peek now, but I can't see for the tears.
I'm counting now, in years, I'll find you soon.
This is our final game of hide and seek.
You have but slipped into another room.
John Kenny
The sonnet is an ideal form for containing ‘emotion’. The control of the metre and the rhyme scheme can act as a restraint and add a sense of dignity to what is being said. Having said that, the octave in John’s sonnet is quite a light-hearted account of a childhood game, the playfulness of which is communicated through the sounds of words like peek, and giggling and squash.
But at the sonnet’s turn, as it enters the sextet, the mood changes with a simple declarative sentence that brings us up to the present day. We pause there at the line’s end, and the sentence’s end, before reading the remainder of the poem, which uses the same language from the game, yet now we’re very aware of the adult resonances, what hiding and seeking and counting mean to us as the years pass and we lose people we love.
The final line draws on a sermon given by Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) after the death of Edward VII, and this ‘intertextuality’ serves to remind us that the human emotional experience does not change.
Congratulations, John, on a superbly constructed sonnet that carries its powerful message simply and honestly.
Send me an email with your postal address and I’ll put your ‘prize’ in the post.
Monday, December 08, 2008
November Prize Poem
What I'm enjoying so much while reading your poems each month is becoming more and more familiar with your individual voices. It's difficult to say definitely and precisely what a poet's voice is, what ingredients go towards identifying and differentiating one poet from another, but the personal choices we make with regard to all of the following play a part:
language
syntax
rhythm
rhyme
form
subject matter
And it's rhythm and rhyme that, for me, are a major part of one poet's work, rhythm and rhyme that always feel well chosen for the subject matter and form and drive the poem forward without ever dominating it. It's not a formal use of a metre or rhyme scheme, more an organic development that adds a wonderful musicality to the poem and increases the reader's enjoyment. Congratulations, Linda W, for:
November rain
Fireworks soon fizzled and the month set in
to unrelenting gloom. Lights on at four pm
in library and living room. Black-bellied clouds
ached for relief, and then the rain
began, slanted stripes turning to angry spots
on window panes.
People in the street leaned
into umbrellas, coat collars a makeshift screen,
while their feet pulped wet leaves and water seeped
into the crevices of shoes,
set them shivering
soaked them through
from toes to hair. But some
recalled the fetid air and scorching sun
of long dry days, when with upturned faces
they prayed for the bliss
of cooling, healing rain
like a lover’s kiss.
Linda W
There's so much to enjoy about this poem but a few things that struck me as particularly strong were the rhythm and weight of 'unrelenting gloom', the break at the end of this line: People in the street leaned/, and the long syllables and assonance in:
while their feet pulped wet leaves and water seeped
Al Alvarez says, in his book The Writer's Voice, '... feelings - not the grand emotions aspired to, but the altogether subtler sense of being emotionally awakened - are expressed less in imagery than in movement, in the inner rhythm of the language.'
This isn't something I've fully explored in my own writing, but I 'feel' it here in Linda's poem and I'm sure other readers will too.
Congratulations again, Linda. Please email me with your postal address and I'll send you your prize, this lovely Desk Calendar, 'Une Année en Provence', for 2009.
language
syntax
rhythm
rhyme
form
subject matter
And it's rhythm and rhyme that, for me, are a major part of one poet's work, rhythm and rhyme that always feel well chosen for the subject matter and form and drive the poem forward without ever dominating it. It's not a formal use of a metre or rhyme scheme, more an organic development that adds a wonderful musicality to the poem and increases the reader's enjoyment. Congratulations, Linda W, for:
November rain
Fireworks soon fizzled and the month set in
to unrelenting gloom. Lights on at four pm
in library and living room. Black-bellied clouds
ached for relief, and then the rain
began, slanted stripes turning to angry spots
on window panes.
People in the street leaned
into umbrellas, coat collars a makeshift screen,
while their feet pulped wet leaves and water seeped
into the crevices of shoes,
set them shivering
soaked them through
from toes to hair. But some
recalled the fetid air and scorching sun
of long dry days, when with upturned faces
they prayed for the bliss
of cooling, healing rain
like a lover’s kiss.
Linda W
There's so much to enjoy about this poem but a few things that struck me as particularly strong were the rhythm and weight of 'unrelenting gloom', the break at the end of this line: People in the street leaned/, and the long syllables and assonance in:
while their feet pulped wet leaves and water seeped
Al Alvarez says, in his book The Writer's Voice, '... feelings - not the grand emotions aspired to, but the altogether subtler sense of being emotionally awakened - are expressed less in imagery than in movement, in the inner rhythm of the language.'
This isn't something I've fully explored in my own writing, but I 'feel' it here in Linda's poem and I'm sure other readers will too.
Congratulations again, Linda. Please email me with your postal address and I'll send you your prize, this lovely Desk Calendar, 'Une Année en Provence', for 2009.
Monday, November 03, 2008
October Prize Poem
Good poetry is often paradoxical. It can be direct, but also oblique. It can show and at the same time hide. It can state and suggest.
Stephen Fryer’s poem, ‘Fish’, succeeds in all these areas:
• it speaks directly about one thing in order to point to another
• it describes one situation but another is masked
• it states the narrator’s specific feeling towards the aquarium which suggests so much about the narrator’s relationship with ‘darling.
Congratulations, Stephen. If you email me with your postal address I’ll put your ‘prize’ in the post this week.
I’ll post the first prompt for November before the end of the week, and don’t forget to take a look at the daily writing prompts at www.yourmessages.org too.
Fish
I’ve been watching the fish in the aquarium.
It’s an oblong box and it sits in the corner of the living room,
full of brooding water. I hate it.
I think that they would hate it too
if they knew the alternatives, or even
that there were any alternatives.
But they don’t,
do they darling?
Stephen Fryer
Stephen Fryer’s poem, ‘Fish’, succeeds in all these areas:
• it speaks directly about one thing in order to point to another
• it describes one situation but another is masked
• it states the narrator’s specific feeling towards the aquarium which suggests so much about the narrator’s relationship with ‘darling.
Congratulations, Stephen. If you email me with your postal address I’ll put your ‘prize’ in the post this week.
I’ll post the first prompt for November before the end of the week, and don’t forget to take a look at the daily writing prompts at www.yourmessages.org too.
Fish
I’ve been watching the fish in the aquarium.
It’s an oblong box and it sits in the corner of the living room,
full of brooding water. I hate it.
I think that they would hate it too
if they knew the alternatives, or even
that there were any alternatives.
But they don’t,
do they darling?
Stephen Fryer
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
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
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
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Summer Prize Poem
Hello everyone - it feels good to be back, though I’m uneasy about asking if you all had a good ‘summer’ because, as far as I can tell, August has not been the sunniest of months in the UK! I hope some of the Cote d’Azur sunshine finds its way north to you for September.
So many good poems to choose from, among them Charlotte Segaller’s ‘Lost' and Linda W’s ‘Spilling the Salt’. Both of these hold back from revealing the full impulse behind the poem, they suggest and imply and leave room for the reader to enter and make their own ‘story’ from the images and ideas. But the poem I’ve chosen as the Summer Prize Poem is Anne Kenny’s ‘Helen Kongai, Ugandan Farmer, July 2008’.
I like the choice of couplets, the two lines supporting the idea of two lives running parallel. I like the line break at ‘unravelling:/’ which subsequently leads us into Helen Kongai’s story, and again at ‘shudders’ for its ambiguity of meaning –the physical action of milking and the emotional connotations of fear or anxiety. It’s a poem that asks us to reflect on the ease of our western lives but at the same time celebrates this woman’s determination to survive and provide for her family. If I had one suggestion to edit a little, it would be to cut ‘to feed her young’ from the 4th couplet, as we have ‘infants to feed’ in the previous one, and ‘the flesh to reap its milky river’ is such a powerful image that it could well benefit from a line of its own. But the last line of the poem is wonderful – the ordinariness of ‘cowpats and cabbages’ anchors us to the earth that Helen Kongai depends on for her life. I feel I want to applaud her as she ‘spreads her word’.
Congratulations, Anne. If you email me (lynne@lynnerees.co.uk) with your postal address, I’ll put a ‘prize’ in the post this week.
I’ll post the first of September’s prompts in the next few days. It’s a good one!
Helen Kongai
(Ugandan Farmer, July 2008)
I press clutch, push pedal, move gear,
drive to gather food from heaving shelves.
Her voice travels with me, unravelling:
after his death she’s left with stony soil,
infants to feed, & the gift of a treasured
cow. She wraps hands around udders, shudders
the flesh to reap its milky river, to feed her young.
A barren land, enriched with dung, she swaps
surplus for seeds, conjures pigweed,
sweet-corn, spinach, leaves hunger between
cowpats & cabbages - spreads her word.
Anne Kenny
So many good poems to choose from, among them Charlotte Segaller’s ‘Lost' and Linda W’s ‘Spilling the Salt’. Both of these hold back from revealing the full impulse behind the poem, they suggest and imply and leave room for the reader to enter and make their own ‘story’ from the images and ideas. But the poem I’ve chosen as the Summer Prize Poem is Anne Kenny’s ‘Helen Kongai, Ugandan Farmer, July 2008’.
I like the choice of couplets, the two lines supporting the idea of two lives running parallel. I like the line break at ‘unravelling:/’ which subsequently leads us into Helen Kongai’s story, and again at ‘shudders’ for its ambiguity of meaning –the physical action of milking and the emotional connotations of fear or anxiety. It’s a poem that asks us to reflect on the ease of our western lives but at the same time celebrates this woman’s determination to survive and provide for her family. If I had one suggestion to edit a little, it would be to cut ‘to feed her young’ from the 4th couplet, as we have ‘infants to feed’ in the previous one, and ‘the flesh to reap its milky river’ is such a powerful image that it could well benefit from a line of its own. But the last line of the poem is wonderful – the ordinariness of ‘cowpats and cabbages’ anchors us to the earth that Helen Kongai depends on for her life. I feel I want to applaud her as she ‘spreads her word’.
Congratulations, Anne. If you email me (lynne@lynnerees.co.uk) with your postal address, I’ll put a ‘prize’ in the post this week.
I’ll post the first of September’s prompts in the next few days. It’s a good one!
Helen Kongai
(Ugandan Farmer, July 2008)
I press clutch, push pedal, move gear,
drive to gather food from heaving shelves.
Her voice travels with me, unravelling:
after his death she’s left with stony soil,
infants to feed, & the gift of a treasured
cow. She wraps hands around udders, shudders
the flesh to reap its milky river, to feed her young.
A barren land, enriched with dung, she swaps
surplus for seeds, conjures pigweed,
sweet-corn, spinach, leaves hunger between
cowpats & cabbages - spreads her word.
Anne Kenny
Friday, July 04, 2008
June Prize Poem
I made a shortlist of 3 poems this month:
Alyss Dye – What’s Happening in This Picture?
Caroline M Davies – The Night Café
Linda W – Last Drink
Alyss’s poem builds tension and drama with its title question, the refrain of ‘Look again’ and its stanza progression. Although we expect the worst, the last stanza is worse that we wanted to imagine. This is a powerful poem of witness.
There’s a similarity to Caroline’s and Linda’s poems – they both work with images of light and dark (concrete and figurative) and explore the experience of a solitary drinker. I really liked the rhymes that Linda creates at the beginning of the poem – cools/tables, street/feet – and felt a little disappointed when they didn’t continue (sorry, Linda!), so that tipped me in favour of Caroline’s poem, which I’ve chosen for June’s Prize Poem.
While the poem might have been inspired by the Van Gogh painting, it also successfully stands alone on the page. The images are vibrant and specific – I can see and hear the café in my imagination – and the shift from the upbeat mood to the reality of loneliness is subtly handled at the end of the second stanza: but outside/ the night waits down the street.
The use of the imperatives in the last stanza, and the stress they add to the line openings (Call/Chuck/Lean back/Put off), reinforces the sense of need here. It’s unclear if the narrator is also the person who is alone in the dark, but the poem can be read like that so it avoids any sense of judgement, of the narrator being separate from the scene. Or we can read the commands as instructions to us, as readers, and even if we haven’t had the experience of sitting alone in a French café at night, most of us would still be able to identify with the desire to stay in the light, where life and people are, and avoid the lonely dark.
Congratulations, Caroline. If you email me with your postal address (lynne@lynnerees.co.uk) I’ll put your prize in the post next week.
The Night Café
How the lights shine out
bright yellow on the terrace of the café.
See the face of the waitress
smiling. The shadows
cast by sunlight
banished for these night hours.
The table tops gleam with a green sheen.
The constant chink of glasses
and the hubbub of conversation
suggest conviviality.
All is bright but outside
the night waits down the street.
Call for another beer.
Chuck another franc to the guitar player
to make him play on.
Lean back against the wooden
embrace of the chair.
Put off for a few moments longer
the pain of stumbling out
alone into the dark.
Caroline M Davies
Alyss Dye – What’s Happening in This Picture?
Caroline M Davies – The Night Café
Linda W – Last Drink
Alyss’s poem builds tension and drama with its title question, the refrain of ‘Look again’ and its stanza progression. Although we expect the worst, the last stanza is worse that we wanted to imagine. This is a powerful poem of witness.
There’s a similarity to Caroline’s and Linda’s poems – they both work with images of light and dark (concrete and figurative) and explore the experience of a solitary drinker. I really liked the rhymes that Linda creates at the beginning of the poem – cools/tables, street/feet – and felt a little disappointed when they didn’t continue (sorry, Linda!), so that tipped me in favour of Caroline’s poem, which I’ve chosen for June’s Prize Poem.
While the poem might have been inspired by the Van Gogh painting, it also successfully stands alone on the page. The images are vibrant and specific – I can see and hear the café in my imagination – and the shift from the upbeat mood to the reality of loneliness is subtly handled at the end of the second stanza: but outside/ the night waits down the street.
The use of the imperatives in the last stanza, and the stress they add to the line openings (Call/Chuck/Lean back/Put off), reinforces the sense of need here. It’s unclear if the narrator is also the person who is alone in the dark, but the poem can be read like that so it avoids any sense of judgement, of the narrator being separate from the scene. Or we can read the commands as instructions to us, as readers, and even if we haven’t had the experience of sitting alone in a French café at night, most of us would still be able to identify with the desire to stay in the light, where life and people are, and avoid the lonely dark.
Congratulations, Caroline. If you email me with your postal address (lynne@lynnerees.co.uk) I’ll put your prize in the post next week.
The Night Café
How the lights shine out
bright yellow on the terrace of the café.
See the face of the waitress
smiling. The shadows
cast by sunlight
banished for these night hours.
The table tops gleam with a green sheen.
The constant chink of glasses
and the hubbub of conversation
suggest conviviality.
All is bright but outside
the night waits down the street.
Call for another beer.
Chuck another franc to the guitar player
to make him play on.
Lean back against the wooden
embrace of the chair.
Put off for a few moments longer
the pain of stumbling out
alone into the dark.
Caroline M Davies
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
May Prize Poem
Thanks to everyone for posting poems this month. The ‘tanka-like’ prompt was the most popular, and, I think, the most challenging. Finding an image that will inform the subsequent statement without exactly repeating the same idea takes a lot of thought.
There were two poems that stood out for me in this section: John Kenny’s ‘Lilac lifted’ and Charlotte Segaller’s ‘a roofless house’. Both use images that have strong emotional connections with the statement that follows: the sweet scent of spring flowers that causes sadness or grief in the heart of the narrator, and a half built house that prompts the narrator to consider her own safety.
And it’s Charlotte’s poem that I’ve chosen for the May Prize. The first three lines echo the unfinished nature of the house with the way the words knock into each other and across lines: half built, here above, inside and outside and the image of looking down on something unfinished, and having such a complete view of it (inside and outside at once), is so authentically echoed in the self-questioning. I also like the unusual line break after I’ll/ which, for me, adds an element of emotional hesitancy or trepidation to the poem
Many congratulations, Charlotte. If you email me your postal address (lynne@lynnerees.co.uk) I’ll put your small ‘prize’ in the post.
And here's Charlotte's poem again:
a roofless house half-built
viewed from here above
inside and outside at once
I wonder if I’ll
ever feel safe again
Charlotte Segaller
There were two poems that stood out for me in this section: John Kenny’s ‘Lilac lifted’ and Charlotte Segaller’s ‘a roofless house’. Both use images that have strong emotional connections with the statement that follows: the sweet scent of spring flowers that causes sadness or grief in the heart of the narrator, and a half built house that prompts the narrator to consider her own safety.
And it’s Charlotte’s poem that I’ve chosen for the May Prize. The first three lines echo the unfinished nature of the house with the way the words knock into each other and across lines: half built, here above, inside and outside and the image of looking down on something unfinished, and having such a complete view of it (inside and outside at once), is so authentically echoed in the self-questioning. I also like the unusual line break after I’ll/ which, for me, adds an element of emotional hesitancy or trepidation to the poem
Many congratulations, Charlotte. If you email me your postal address (lynne@lynnerees.co.uk) I’ll put your small ‘prize’ in the post.
And here's Charlotte's poem again:
a roofless house half-built
viewed from here above
inside and outside at once
I wonder if I’ll
ever feel safe again
Charlotte Segaller
Sunday, May 11, 2008
April Prize Poem
Working with form is an interesting process. It restricts by virtue of its pre-determined shape, yet it liberates because we can focus more on what we want to say, our ideas and language choices, rather than deliberating at length over the line breaks as we would during the making of a free verse poem.
In the poem prompt based on Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poem I said:
And of course the other important thing is to write about something that will be served by the form and rhyme I’m asking you to use.
And for this reason I’ve chosen ‘Peace of Mind’ by Mary Rose as April’s Prize Poem.
The poem is both a lament for someone lost (‘amid grieving’) and a poem of perseverance in the face of that grief (‘the only way’). It bears witness to the strength of the human spirit, but does not idealise it, as the last line movingly states: ‘the blessing of night’ brings relief from the harsh situation that the light of day all too glaringly reveals.
The long third lines in each stanza are particularly effective in this poem as they both contain ‘lists’ and the accumulation of the items adds to the atmosphere of someone keeping busy.
I also admire the line break after ‘peace to be won/’ – the fall to the next line works very well with the emotion expressed there as well as slowing us down as readers to feel the impact of what is said.
I wasn’t sure, at first, about the title – is it too familiar a phrase, verging on cliché, perhaps? But when I read the poem again I realised how the familiar phrase is being concretised by the poem, and that the activity of gardening IS the peace of mind the poet seeks, although what is also interesting about this poem is that there’s no specific point of view. For me this choice contributes to the universality of the poem: the poem was written in response to one particular person’s grief yet we are all included, we have our own memories of keeping going, or we feel comforted by the fact that we are not, or we will not be, alone.
Many congratulations, Mary Rose. Your prize will be in the post next week.
Peace of mind
It’s a garden for today
where work waits to be done.
There’s a stream to keep clear, weeds to uproot, peace to be won
amid grieving, the only way.
There’s a bonfire to light,
seeds to be sown,
plenty to leave for another day, edges to trim and grass to be mown.
First the blessing of night.
Mary Rose
In the poem prompt based on Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poem I said:
And of course the other important thing is to write about something that will be served by the form and rhyme I’m asking you to use.
And for this reason I’ve chosen ‘Peace of Mind’ by Mary Rose as April’s Prize Poem.
The poem is both a lament for someone lost (‘amid grieving’) and a poem of perseverance in the face of that grief (‘the only way’). It bears witness to the strength of the human spirit, but does not idealise it, as the last line movingly states: ‘the blessing of night’ brings relief from the harsh situation that the light of day all too glaringly reveals.
The long third lines in each stanza are particularly effective in this poem as they both contain ‘lists’ and the accumulation of the items adds to the atmosphere of someone keeping busy.
I also admire the line break after ‘peace to be won/’ – the fall to the next line works very well with the emotion expressed there as well as slowing us down as readers to feel the impact of what is said.
I wasn’t sure, at first, about the title – is it too familiar a phrase, verging on cliché, perhaps? But when I read the poem again I realised how the familiar phrase is being concretised by the poem, and that the activity of gardening IS the peace of mind the poet seeks, although what is also interesting about this poem is that there’s no specific point of view. For me this choice contributes to the universality of the poem: the poem was written in response to one particular person’s grief yet we are all included, we have our own memories of keeping going, or we feel comforted by the fact that we are not, or we will not be, alone.
Many congratulations, Mary Rose. Your prize will be in the post next week.
Peace of mind
It’s a garden for today
where work waits to be done.
There’s a stream to keep clear, weeds to uproot, peace to be won
amid grieving, the only way.
There’s a bonfire to light,
seeds to be sown,
plenty to leave for another day, edges to trim and grass to be mown.
First the blessing of night.
Mary Rose
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
March Prize Poem
I’m torn between three poems this month: Alyss Dye’s ‘Scarves on the Stairs’, Wisty’s ‘Pool’, and Margaret Beston’s ‘Journey’. They’re all very different with regard to subject matter and form, and I like them all for different reasons.
In Alyss’s poem a mother talks about her daughter’s departure from the house. The words earthquake, debris and muddle effectively describe the mess the daughter leaves in her wake, but apply equally as well to the mother’s emotional muddle about a young woman who once needed her guidance so much. In ‘Pool’, Wisty trusts the imagery to show nature’s ability to restore itself after humankind’s destructive interventions. The pool becomes symbolic of peace, reinforced by the image of the ‘flag’ growing at its edge, and the last line – like wings – lifts us as readers, with joy, with hope perhaps. Margaret Beston’s ‘Journey’ is relentless and sinister. The use of the command form, the repetition of familiar phrases, and the objectification of the ‘bodies’ shake me as a reader and I can’t help but think about the London Underground bombings of a few years ago.
In the end, after poems satisfy at the level of craft, then personal preference comes into play, and for this reason, I’ve chosen Wisty’s ‘Pool’. I love the economy of this poem, its rhythm and internal rhymes. The precise description draws me into the scene and atmosphere, but this isn’t just a pretty picture, it makes me think too. And the ideas of redemption and restoration are ones that touch me.
Congratulations, Wisty. I don’t have any contact details for you so if you’d like to send me your postal address (lynne@lynnerees.co.uk) I’ll send you your prize. Allow a week or so for it to arrive as it’ll be coming from France.
Pool
hidden
amongst sallows
and sedge
a pool
where once a bomb
pitted this marsh
now green blades
pierce its rim
and petals
of yellow flag
open
like wings
Wisty
In Alyss’s poem a mother talks about her daughter’s departure from the house. The words earthquake, debris and muddle effectively describe the mess the daughter leaves in her wake, but apply equally as well to the mother’s emotional muddle about a young woman who once needed her guidance so much. In ‘Pool’, Wisty trusts the imagery to show nature’s ability to restore itself after humankind’s destructive interventions. The pool becomes symbolic of peace, reinforced by the image of the ‘flag’ growing at its edge, and the last line – like wings – lifts us as readers, with joy, with hope perhaps. Margaret Beston’s ‘Journey’ is relentless and sinister. The use of the command form, the repetition of familiar phrases, and the objectification of the ‘bodies’ shake me as a reader and I can’t help but think about the London Underground bombings of a few years ago.
In the end, after poems satisfy at the level of craft, then personal preference comes into play, and for this reason, I’ve chosen Wisty’s ‘Pool’. I love the economy of this poem, its rhythm and internal rhymes. The precise description draws me into the scene and atmosphere, but this isn’t just a pretty picture, it makes me think too. And the ideas of redemption and restoration are ones that touch me.
Congratulations, Wisty. I don’t have any contact details for you so if you’d like to send me your postal address (lynne@lynnerees.co.uk) I’ll send you your prize. Allow a week or so for it to arrive as it’ll be coming from France.
Pool
hidden
amongst sallows
and sedge
a pool
where once a bomb
pitted this marsh
now green blades
pierce its rim
and petals
of yellow flag
open
like wings
Wisty
Sunday, March 02, 2008
February Prize Poem
Many congratulations to Leatherdykeuk for the poem, 'Stark Reality'. The conscious use of repetition* is effectively handled in this poem, reinforcing the ideas behind dreams and illusions. The concrete detail illuminates a particular family and creates a strong sense of place to convince the reader of the authenticity of the story being told.
The poem might not be to everyone's taste - there's a hopelessness to it, no real redemption - but I believe that the strongest poems are the ones that engage truthfully with life, and no-one will argue that this poem is not 'true'. When I say true, I mean emotionally true, not necessarily factually true, though the details here will be familiar to a lot of people too.
The narrator of this poem does not feature strongly: he or she observes, but does not judge. Even the last line of the second stanza, which is the closest to any sense of subjective opinion, still retains an element of distance through the formality of the language elsewhere in the poem. It's important to be aware of how 'present' we make ourselves in a poem about other people's lives, and to be careful that we do not use their experiences to aggrandise ourselves in any way. This poem successfully avoids that.
Stark Reality
Albert’s second marriage brought him
a devoted younger wife.
He bought her an ivory dress and a golden ring
and promised her a dream house
of turrets and battlements.
The council flat brought her
the sudden reality of life.
Two stepchildren of indeterminate age
who were legally nine (girl) and twelve (boy)
but cynical beyond their years.
The dream they shared brought them
hope beyond the stained tea cups.
But the sudden fall from grace
when the factory closed down
brought them money for whisky instead.
The postman brought them
letters from Social Services.
Brown paper envelopes and the
termination of supplies and,
ultimately, the last dream they had.
Leatherdykeuk
* Some notes about repetition: The term for the same word or phrase repeated in a poem, usually at the beginning of successive lines, is anaphora. A word, phrase or line, that recurs in a poem, only partially, or only at irregular intervals is called a repetend. The term refrain refers to a line, or group of lines, repeated at regular or irregular intervals in a poem, especially at the end of each stanza, e.g. the repeated lines of a villanelle.
The poem might not be to everyone's taste - there's a hopelessness to it, no real redemption - but I believe that the strongest poems are the ones that engage truthfully with life, and no-one will argue that this poem is not 'true'. When I say true, I mean emotionally true, not necessarily factually true, though the details here will be familiar to a lot of people too.
The narrator of this poem does not feature strongly: he or she observes, but does not judge. Even the last line of the second stanza, which is the closest to any sense of subjective opinion, still retains an element of distance through the formality of the language elsewhere in the poem. It's important to be aware of how 'present' we make ourselves in a poem about other people's lives, and to be careful that we do not use their experiences to aggrandise ourselves in any way. This poem successfully avoids that.
Stark Reality
Albert’s second marriage brought him
a devoted younger wife.
He bought her an ivory dress and a golden ring
and promised her a dream house
of turrets and battlements.
The council flat brought her
the sudden reality of life.
Two stepchildren of indeterminate age
who were legally nine (girl) and twelve (boy)
but cynical beyond their years.
The dream they shared brought them
hope beyond the stained tea cups.
But the sudden fall from grace
when the factory closed down
brought them money for whisky instead.
The postman brought them
letters from Social Services.
Brown paper envelopes and the
termination of supplies and,
ultimately, the last dream they had.
Leatherdykeuk
* Some notes about repetition: The term for the same word or phrase repeated in a poem, usually at the beginning of successive lines, is anaphora. A word, phrase or line, that recurs in a poem, only partially, or only at irregular intervals is called a repetend. The term refrain refers to a line, or group of lines, repeated at regular or irregular intervals in a poem, especially at the end of each stanza, e.g. the repeated lines of a villanelle.
Friday, February 01, 2008
January Prize Poem
I’ve chosen the moving poem ‘Hibaku’ by Margaret Beston as the prize-winning poem for January.
The form works very effectively with the subject matter: each couplet contains an image, and each image builds from the previous to create a specific physical scene. The progression of the poem is measured: this isn’t a poem of anger, it’s more Wordsworth’s ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’; a poem of acceptance and moving on. It’s hard to imagine how anyone can really accept and escape from such an event, but the poem, for me, is a testament to the power of the human spirit, and I feel honoured to be in the presence of this ‘voice’.
It’s a very difficult task to write about other people’s tragedies, particularly ones of such huge proportions, like the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Holocaust. But one way of tackling them is to create a specific persona, or voice, to speak of their particular experience, in this case the collective persona of the Hibaku, in the first person plural. That way we avoid self-aggrandisement, or any sense that we’re making someone else’s story ‘our story’.
The poem’s language is consistently very well chosen but I particularly like the image of the ‘butterfly leaves’ in the 4th couplet. It makes me think of ‘the butterfly effect’ (the phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly‘s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear, or prevent a tornado from appearing) and how even small events can have repercussions, that our actions, and even our thoughts, have an effect on other people and our environment. A good poem makes me feel and think, and ‘Hibaku’ does just that.
Many congratulations, Margaret. Your ‘prize’ is in the post. And here's the poem for everyone to enjoy.
Hibaku *
In the precinct of the Kokutaiji Temple
the camphor tree has been uprooted
the fireball has scorched the bark
of phoenix trees, hollowed out their trunks
charred stumps of temple ginkgos
scar the landscape, their
butterfly leaves incinerated
by the apocalyptic blast
no life, no greenery, our city
is a sterile wasteland
then we see the water of the Ota river
running fresh and clear and
beneath scorched earth
green roots spread and grow
sending out defiant shoots
‘bearers of hope’
like the rainbow appearing
when black rain fell
we will lift the phoenix trees
plant them deep among the ashes
spread their seeds of peace
around the world and
in April fragrant Oleander blooms
will fill the acrid air.
Margaret Beston
* ‘Hibaku’ is the name given to survivors of the Hiroshima A-bomb.
The form works very effectively with the subject matter: each couplet contains an image, and each image builds from the previous to create a specific physical scene. The progression of the poem is measured: this isn’t a poem of anger, it’s more Wordsworth’s ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’; a poem of acceptance and moving on. It’s hard to imagine how anyone can really accept and escape from such an event, but the poem, for me, is a testament to the power of the human spirit, and I feel honoured to be in the presence of this ‘voice’.
It’s a very difficult task to write about other people’s tragedies, particularly ones of such huge proportions, like the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Holocaust. But one way of tackling them is to create a specific persona, or voice, to speak of their particular experience, in this case the collective persona of the Hibaku, in the first person plural. That way we avoid self-aggrandisement, or any sense that we’re making someone else’s story ‘our story’.
The poem’s language is consistently very well chosen but I particularly like the image of the ‘butterfly leaves’ in the 4th couplet. It makes me think of ‘the butterfly effect’ (the phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly‘s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear, or prevent a tornado from appearing) and how even small events can have repercussions, that our actions, and even our thoughts, have an effect on other people and our environment. A good poem makes me feel and think, and ‘Hibaku’ does just that.
Many congratulations, Margaret. Your ‘prize’ is in the post. And here's the poem for everyone to enjoy.
Hibaku *
In the precinct of the Kokutaiji Temple
the camphor tree has been uprooted
the fireball has scorched the bark
of phoenix trees, hollowed out their trunks
charred stumps of temple ginkgos
scar the landscape, their
butterfly leaves incinerated
by the apocalyptic blast
no life, no greenery, our city
is a sterile wasteland
then we see the water of the Ota river
running fresh and clear and
beneath scorched earth
green roots spread and grow
sending out defiant shoots
‘bearers of hope’
like the rainbow appearing
when black rain fell
we will lift the phoenix trees
plant them deep among the ashes
spread their seeds of peace
around the world and
in April fragrant Oleander blooms
will fill the acrid air.
Margaret Beston
* ‘Hibaku’ is the name given to survivors of the Hiroshima A-bomb.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
December Prize Poem
There were good things about all of the poems posted this month, and I was torn between three, finding different reasons to select one over the others during several readings. I eventually decided on the following poem because its opening line struck me the first time I read it; in fact I stopped and read it again to savour the language and the image. It is so freshly expressed.
Here’s the Prize Poem for December 2007 – ‘No rose bed, no gardener’ by Gillian Moyes – followed by a brief commentary:
No rose bed, no gardener
Here’s the Prize Poem for December 2007 – ‘No rose bed, no gardener’ by Gillian Moyes – followed by a brief commentary:
No rose bed, no gardener
Light as a child in her bones,
we’re lifting her in linked arms
from bed to commode.
The blue nightie furled to her spine
exposing the red buds of bed sores,
she tenses at the glimpse of a face
in the patio window. It’s OK Mum
just reflections, says my sister. Well,
she replies, now dignity’s intact,
it’s a bloody good job we never
had a gardener
and gives us the old look – that flicker
of laughter in her eyes, her dry
throat rattling with chuckles.
My shoulders shaking, I dare
to glance at my sister
like that morning in school assembly
and she’s tickled pink with keeping it in
which doesn’t help me or our mother
who might slip like a soapy baby.
Stop it Mum or we’ll drop you,
I say, don’t make us laugh.
It hurts.
Gillian Moyes
The mother has become a child; the daughters the parents who care for her. The poem sensitively explores this reversal of roles that will be familiar to many people. The concrete detail creates a strong sense of place and the use of the present tense and dialogue engages us as readers, draws us in to these specific people and this particular moment.
The opening simile sets the scene so economically: fragility, helplessness, possibly a body that has wasted so that it seems little more than ‘bones’ and ‘light as a child’. At the end of the poem the mother is even smaller, compared to ‘a soapy baby’, and this reinforces the idea of the pending, and inevitable, loss through death.
I particularly like the lines and break – ‘of laughter in her eyes, her dry’/throat rattling with chuckles – which combine so movingly, and tragically, ideas of life and death: a dry sense of humour, death rattle.
And finally the understatement and ambiguity of the last stanza: we know as well as the narrator that it’s not only the laughter that hurts.
Congratulations, Gillian, on a very moving poem. I’ll put your prize in the post.
The mother has become a child; the daughters the parents who care for her. The poem sensitively explores this reversal of roles that will be familiar to many people. The concrete detail creates a strong sense of place and the use of the present tense and dialogue engages us as readers, draws us in to these specific people and this particular moment.
The opening simile sets the scene so economically: fragility, helplessness, possibly a body that has wasted so that it seems little more than ‘bones’ and ‘light as a child’. At the end of the poem the mother is even smaller, compared to ‘a soapy baby’, and this reinforces the idea of the pending, and inevitable, loss through death.
I particularly like the lines and break – ‘of laughter in her eyes, her dry’/throat rattling with chuckles – which combine so movingly, and tragically, ideas of life and death: a dry sense of humour, death rattle.
And finally the understatement and ambiguity of the last stanza: we know as well as the narrator that it’s not only the laughter that hurts.
Congratulations, Gillian, on a very moving poem. I’ll put your prize in the post.
And many thanks to everyone who posted a poem; I enjoyed reading them all and look forward to reading more during January. The first prompt will appear at the end of this week.
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