Rhyme Thyme Holds No Regrets for Wordmate!
Our rather unusual rhyming herb poetry competition certainly brought out the best in our members which saw over 30 submissions of a very high standard submitted. Hitting the top spot with Regrets was Wordmate who saw off some stiff opposition with just four lines of very telling verse! Before you rush off to read it, take a look at what our judge has to say about the rest of the entries.

Adjudicator's Report by Jenny Moore
The task of writing a rhyming ‘herb’ poem in just 12 lines was not an easy one by any stretch of the imagination. It was clear from the range of entries received, however, that imaginations had been well and truly stretched. Alongside cookery poems and explorations of traditional herbal remedies (to cure everything from a poor memory to a partner’s smelly feet) there were scorned lovers, overgrown gardens, love affairs between the herbs themselves, a dash of witchcraft and even a spot of murder. The unusual subject matter was one which was tackled with impressive inventiveness.

Length was clearly no problem either, with some fantastically big tales and themes squeezed into just 12 lines. However the rhyming side of things proved a little trickier – occasionally I wanted to see more of an obvious rhyme scheme (given the remit of the competition) and at other times felt that sense and syntax had been compromised for the sake of the rhyme. A rhyme is nothing without a sound metre to support it and there were also occasions when a faltering rhythm let an otherwise promising line down.

There were many poems here with much to commend them - some memorably evocative images and some wonderful humour too. Those poems that made it onto my shortlist, however, were those that best ticked all the boxes from start to finish: I enjoyed the lilting lyrical feel of ‘To my parsley…’ by Ozhm (which contrasts beautifully with the humorous ending), while the confident use of rhyme and metre in Shaw’s ‘Love Fever’ made it a joy to read out loud.

Second place went to Ingrid Collins’ almost drum-like ‘Inca Maca’ for its original use of the vernacular mixed with a powerful chant-like rhythm. The overall effect was very striking and again made it a great piece to read aloud.
Scooping first place, however, was Wordmate’s ‘Regrets’. At just four lines long this was the shortest of all the entries but those four lines accomplish a great deal - an entire love affair blossoming and dying before our eyes, to be replaced by bitterness and, as the title says, regrets. For me this had the concise, deceptively simple quality of a Wendy Cope poem and the effortless rhyming of ‘you’ and ‘rue’ works perfectly, delivering the final blow in the final word with an understated brilliance.

Our next contest is RiverShivers! We’re looking for flash fiction of 250 words or less. Details here:
http://writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_rivershivers

NEVER LET GO WINS TERRIBLE TWINS
The March Arena competition called for a piece of flash fiction featuring a set of twins. The entries covered a whole range of imaginative entries, but in spite of this, the clear winner was gregmcqueen with Never Let Go. This snapshot featuring a pair of twins separated at birth was an exemplary lesson in tight writing, vital considering the tight word count.

Adjudicator’s Report: Dai Blatchford
The competition yielded yet another batch of well written and thoughtful short pieces ensuring that the judging process remains as difficult as ever. This time writers were asked to occupy an area where emotions frequently run high. The range of treatments was impressively wide, and there were some nicely judged twists with Birth and Rebirth from Wordmate and tesslin’s Our Boys Are Coming Home Today.

One is More Than Enough by mpira was well written and made a chillingly sobering point with controlled efficiency. I really enjoyed Fandango’s, The Foundlings right down to the lovely detail of Rome’s founders trotting down one of the seven hills. And hide and seek from jer364 had a real ring of truthful desperation to it. And all the time there was there was the powerful presence of Never Let Go.

Never Let Go from gregmcqueen was a small masterpiece and for me never relinquished its position as the winning entry. The piece managed to wring every ounce of emotion from a special relationship that had been torn asunder. The parenting role that should have subsequently been taken up by the state was shamefully neglected ruining several lives, as in reality it has done many times. And with consummate control the reader was led, a step at a time, through to a heart wrenching denouement. Not a word was wasted, and the overall effect was electric. Never Let Go is a worthy winner of this most difficult of competitions.

I should like to add my congratulations to all the entrants for their sterling efforts.
Read all entries here:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_twins

NEXT ARENA COMPETITION
Our next Arena contest is Rhyme Thyme, calling for poems featuring a herb. All details here:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_rhymethyme

READING BERLIN – Takes Lit Trips Prize
It was a question of quality, not quantity that featured in our Lit Trip Arena contest and heading up a very good entry was eb3777, Reading Berlin. No doubt this thought provoking piece will be written up as a longer article and sold on so if you’re an aspiring travel writer, take a good look and see how it is done!

Adjudicator’s Report – Paola Fornari

The ‘Lit Trips’ competition called for a piece featuring a literary aspect and a real location. I took ‘literary’ to mean ‘relating to literature or the writing of books’, as defined by Chambers.

With only a couple of dozen entries, it was not one of Writelink’s most popular competitions, but the literary trips were fascinating, taking us to all corners of the British Isles, and further afield, to Germany, East Africa, India, and the United States. Children’s writers, such as Arthur Ransome and Roald Dahl featured, and classical authors ranging from Robert Louis Stevenson to Jane Austen and George Eliot. We met, among other heroes, Poirot, Tarka and Tristam Shandy.

Two entries were disqualified for being over the stipulated 300 words, and two more for not complying with the brief. Several, unfortunately, were eliminated on the grounds of poor spelling, punctuation and grammar.

From those remaining, I made my shortlist. I was looking for more than a simple description, travelogue or history lesson. Originality scored well, but most of all, I wanted to be transported on the journey, to be drawn into it, to hear the sounds, to feel, see, smell and taste the place.

Four pieces stood out for various reasons. On my shortlist were Fandango’s ‘A Peep at Pepys’, for its unique viewpoint, superb language, and humour, and Mpira’s ‘From Out of Africa’, for its well-drawn atmosphere which took me beyond what was written: it had me feeling the chill of Nairobi nights, and smelling jacaranda.

The runner-up was a last minute entry: SomeMixedSuccess’ ‘The Call of Howard’. The well-constructed, immensely atmospheric piece with a near-perfect evocation of place had me diving to Google to learn more about H.P. Lovecroft.

But for me, there could be only one winner, and that was Eb3777’s ‘Reading Berlin’. In very few words, this had a definite sense of place and a literary theme. It drew me straight into two very different time-frames in Berlin: two worlds linked by a horrific history. It touched on the serious theme of man’s inhumanity to man, asked questions, and left the reader to think about the answers. Superb.

Don’t forget our latest Arena contest! Terrible Twins is for 250 words of flash fiction. All details here:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_twins

HAUNTED SUCCESS FOR MPIRA IN PITS & CRYPTS
As is becoming usual, we had another huge entry for our monthly Arena competition with over 60 entries posted to the site. Plenty of hair curling entries, but the eventual winner was the subtle spinetingler, Haunted by mpira. Runner up was SomeMixedSuccess with a A Slander Posthumous who wins a copy of David Robinson’s suitably scary book, The Haunting of Memberly Manor. http://www.amazon.com/Haunting-Memberly-Manor-David-Robinson/dp/0980150663

Adjudicator's Report - Magdalena Ball

Certainly these are haunting poems. Set in their chilling, death ridden, crypts and underworld, they cast a cold fear through the reader in a way that is appropriate for a “Pits & Crypts” contest.

Many of the poems here do take their cue from Poe’s work, and that’s fine: Poe is a wonderful source of inspiration. But Poe was also a strong critic of the cliché and the obvious, famously stating that that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface.

Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art. So too, do works where rhyme, even clever rhyme, becomes an end in itself, overwhelming the meaning of the work. The rhyme and rhythm needs to support and drive the overall purpose of the poem and not the other way around.

Many of the poems were too overt, with the horror explicit, or where both meaning and originality were sacrificed in order to get the rhyme. Instead of focusing on the singsong line ending, the poetry would have done better to focus on strong imagery, original metaphor, and the intensity of the emotion and the meaningful twist of the denouement.

Where subtlety, horror, and skill combined however, the poems became universal, tapping into the deepest fears of the human psyche and creating a breath-holding moment. Unfortunately that was rare, which isn’t surprising, as creating good horror in verse is no easy task.

One poem that succeeded wonderfully in doing this was mpira’s “Haunted”, which featured an internal haunting: the pain of a guilty conscience. Imagery here was strong, as the reader follows footsteps along the beach past dead birds and fish skeletons. The shock of an unrhymed and inexplicit ending works well, and allows the reader the freedom of imagining a conclusion far scarier than any spelled out one could be.

Of course there’s always room for humour and pastiche in horror, and SomeMixedSuccess’ “A Slander Posthumous”, though tongue-in-cheek for the most part, was very clever in the way in which it followed the contours and linguistic heaviness of Poe’s “The Raven,” while simultaneously incorporating the real life horror of Poe’s posthumous slanders. Now that's a crypt one can really believe in.

Special mention goes to Sarah James’ “Shiver” and m sylvester’s "The Sacrifice," both of which made the shortlist for the way they moved beyond the simplicity of the rhyme towards crisp images of death and devil worship respectively.

What could be more frightening than simply disappearing? Who isn't afraid of the anonymity of death? Although the setting of "The Sacrifice" is a little farfetched, the imagery here was particularly strong, and both poems managed that delicate and difficult balance between rhyme and power. Both were shortlisted and came close to being winners.

Winner: mpira’s “Haunted”
Runner up: SomeMixedSuccess’ “A Slander Posthumous”

You can read the winners, along with all the other entries here:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_pitscrypts

Our next Arena competition is Lit Trips which calls for a literary journey. All details here:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_littrips

SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT – PIPPIN WINS YULE SING ME ONE SONG

Our annual festive song writing contest produced a fine crop of entries which caused our judge, musician and song writer, Julie Holland a lot of head scratching as the quality was so high.

As well as having to express the sentiments of the season, lyrics needed to lend themselves to being set to music so after much deliberation, Pippin’s Silent Night took the honours. This will be recorded by Julie and turned into our 2009 Christmas screensaver.

The runner up prize of tickets for http://www.nunkie.co.uk/ production Oh Whistle went to Hmassey and Hurrah for the Holly.

Our latest competition is Shape Shifters. A flash fiction contest for 200 words. Entries close 10th January so you’ll need to be quick!
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_shapeshifters