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SLQ POETRY COMPETITION (APRIL 2010)
Judge's Report
by Claire Askew
First prize: The Real Red Riding Hood
This poem spooked me a little, it was so
timely. I'm currently in the middle of a PhD in Creative
Writing and Contemporary Scottish Poetics and my thesis
concentrates partly on poems that attempt to re-write myth
and fairytale. I've been reading (and, as a result,
writing) a lot of these kinds of poems recently and come to
realise that fairytale re-writes are so common that they're
pretty much a genre in their own right.
To find a poem that subverts that genre –
and so effectively – was just a joy. The Real Red Riding
Hood was beautifully done. The language is very simple
but the voice is really well realised. This is the ultimate
unreliable narrator – you get the feeling that they really
doth protest too much. I liked the idea that Red Riding
Hood has become a viral internet sensation, and that she's
been up to something slightly untoward – hence the
interrogation. And the pacing is bang-on, leading up to the
fantastic pay-off at the end. I was really happy to find
such a subtle and well-written funny poem. That's a hard
balance to hit. But it's dark and clever as well as funny.
Brilliant stuff.
Second prize: Acting Blackbird
When I found out that I was going to be
judging the contest, I blogged about my preferences as a
reader and gave a few hints as to what I'd look for in a
winning poem. One thing I mentioned was the ability to
produce an original slant on a potentially tired topic;
another thing I asked for was “excellent wordsmithery”. I
could have asked for a better example than Acting
Blackbird.
Bird poems are absolutely everywhere.
There were a lot of birds flapping around in this stack of
poems, in fact – marauding seagulls, pesky pigeons and the
ever-popular magpie. None of them really offered anything
very new or interesting. But Acting Blackbird caught
my eye with it's glittery wording: “diagonal” used as a
verb, fantastic descriptions like “nervy-bird, up-tight”,
and a strong awareness and use of sound – ratcheting,
chattering, patter. I liked the extended metaphor of
theatre and performance and the way it was handled.
Sometimes references were obvious – mentions of “soliloquy”
and “Jacobean tragedy” – but others were more subtle, like
the blackbird's “dagger of beak unsheathed” (a great line).
It's a jittery, energetic little poem with tons of sparkle.
Third prize: Aquarium
The first line of this poem is like one
of those “a man walks into a bar” jokes, only a little more
sinister. That sets the tone for the entire piece: a poem
that tells you a joke just a little too dark to laugh at.
On the one hand, the premise is nuts – a man's torso has
become a fish tank, complete with a trio of fish and (a
sweet touch) a little castle. But on the other hand,
there's a lot of darkness here too. When one of the fish
disappears, the man loses a part of himself.
I read Aquarium as a strange and
unique look at illness and mortality. The shock of
discovering you have a serious long-term illness must feel
just as strange and jarring as finding that you've turned
into a human fish tank. And when you've lived with illness
for a long time, when it begins to lift, are you the same
person you used to be?
In spite of its mad premise, I thought
this was a very poignant poem. The man's decision to name
the fish, the apathy of the doctors he visits, the
bittersweet metaphor of fixing ones hurts with a roll of
masking tape... there's a lot more in here than you might
think at first read. The language is simple – almost
perfunctory – but effective, too. Any poet who can inject
feeling into a sentence as straightforward as “he feels sad”
is definitely onto something. This was my kind of poem:
mad, sad, genuinely original.
Highly Commended: Od 2 a mob fone;
Beebox Buggy; Luna
Od 2 a mob fone and Beebox
Buggy were two of only about five concrete or visual
poems I received – something which surprised me. I am a
huge fan of visual poetry and had hoped to find more in the
entries, so when these two surfaced I was really pleased.
The former takes a really risky premise – a poem written in
text speak – and manages to turn out a sweet,
well-structured piece that doesn't stray into cliché or
gimmick (the only thing that put me off was the glossary of
terms – I don't think they're needed). And Beebox Buggy
was short, sweet, and alliterative with a great title and a
definite shape – though the poet wasn't slavish to the
visual side of things. I liked the its simplicity and
subtlety.
The other Highly Commended poem is
Luna, which from first read reminded me a great deal of
the Carol Ann Duffy poem Stealing. Like Aquarium,
this is a mad premise for a poem, but it manages to be
poignant, too. It also presents a new take on the age-old
lovers' promise “I'd give you the moon.” I love it when
poets take ideas like that and run with them.
Judge's choice
The poems I chose for inclusion in the
magazine are, I think, a representative selection of all the
strong poems I read. At Home on The Lea contains
some lovely language, and I was struck by the strange image
of pouring dead fish into the river, and the other fish
coming up to eat them. Amongst the entries there were a lot
of street-scapes, a lot of poets looking out of their
windows and describing the scene before them. Access
Land was one of the most interesting – I loved
“butterflied” and “bristling / on the bonnetsnow”. Several
of these poems hooked me with their cracking endings – the
rather bonkers Channel made me smile with its final
line, as did Moses, and Belief and True Opinion
won me round with a brilliant last stanza. Catching
Purls emanated warmth and rich imagery; Clearing Your
Dad's House With Laurel and Hardy was one of the longest
poems I read but it kept me interested to the end. Finally,
My Bit – a funny little poem with definite “that's so
true” factor – and Upwardly Mobile In The Bottomless Pit,
the only poem to leave me laughing out loud. Look at those
last lines – after a threat like that, how could I not
select this poem?!
Final statement
I have absolutely loved reading through
all the contest submissions and hearing so many new,
original and insistent voices. I was so pleased by the
number of entries received and very surprised by the high
standard of many of them. Compiling a Top 15 from a stack
of over five hundred poems was a huge challenge, but an
enjoyable one. The poets who made it should be really
pleased with themselves – all the poems here had a spark
that was impossible to ignore. SLQ
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