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ADJUDICATOR’S REPORT
This was SO difficult. The theme was Spring Fever and poems about Spring are myriad, so first off I was looking for poems that had something different to say, poems that didn’t use clichés or repeat what everyone else has already said - not easy!
The top three poems jumped out at me almost straight away, but putting them in the right order! In the end it was the tiniest of things that had to make the difference.
After much deliberation I awarded ‘Cumulus’ first prize.
This is a wonderful poem and I so wish I had written it. It is well constructed and has great imagery that takes you straight in there and shows you pictures. In the end what gave it the edge was the marvelous first line, ‘Even before we met, Thomas collected clouds…’ This is masterly. It’s so intriguing it just grabs you straightaway and makes you want to read on. I also liked ‘munching syllables like marshmallows’. Oh, I love this poem.
The poem that came second, ‘Remembering Uncle Norman’, is a lovely warm, feel good poem that contrasts nature coming back to life after winter with the boat coming back to life after Uncle Norman’s death. It doesn’t grab you quite so immediately but is well worth getting into.
The third prize poem, ‘Tree Surgeon’ is another great poem, with another totally original theme, and only one little fault relegated it to third place - the third line in the second stanza, ‘Our almond tree blossomed into giant bridal bouquet,’ instead of ‘into a giant bridal bouquet’. I don’t know if this was intentional or a typo, but that missing ‘a’ made all the difference.
The two Highly Commended poems were ‘Sunlight Swam In’ - another poem about someone dying on a barge, obviously a case of great minds think alike, and ‘Time Warped’ an intriguing poem whose construction I’ve never come across before. At first I thought it was a tetractys, but this poem uses sets of 12 syllables not 10. I’d be interested to know if the construction has a name or if the poet made it up. It works admirably, especially as correct grammar and punctuation were observed throughout the fairly complicated form.
The five Commended poems had their merits too. ‘March’ wonderfully typifies the wildness and unpredictability of that month. I loved the thought of quilts smelling of eggnog and cake crumbs! The ‘Innocence Of Blossom’ had some lovely imagery, but I would have had Ariel painting the ladybirds’ spots as Puck is from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ not ‘The Tempest’ like Prospero and Caliban. ‘Jack Of The Green’ was charming (I liked ‘life is a cuckoo’s new-laid egg’) and so was ‘Following Darkness Like A Dream’. ‘Nature’s Modest Gifts’ was that rare thing, a poem that began every line with a capital letter in the old fashioned way, but still had perfect punctuation. This poem would have been higher in the list except that the poet failed to say what flower they were talking about. I had the picture to refer to but others will not have.
Of the poems that didn’t make it, most fell down on grammar and punctuation. Punctuation is so important in such a short tight form as a poem. Some poems with capitals at the beginning of every line had hardly any other punctuation and it was difficult to know where sentences began and ended. Others seemed to scatter commas willynilly all over the place, needed or not. I’ve heard people say that punctuation in poetry doesn’t matter - it does if you want to be published or win competitions. But all the poems had something to say and with a little bit of work could be improved a lot. Always read your poem out loud, it shows up any flaws much more obviously.
One I must mention is ‘Free To Fly’. Unfortunately it wasn’t good enough to be placed but I loved it all the same. I guess I’m just a sucker for chickens!
It was a privilege to read your poems. Thank you all.
SHORTLISTERS REPORT
The first part of the shortlisting process always involves looking for obvious errors, e.g. excessive lineage, inappropriate theme, spelling and grammatical errors. There were a few of the later that we had to let through otherwise good poems would have been penalised too harshly, but except for a couple of exceptions, most entries cleared this hurdle!
We then focussed on originality. This is where most poems found the going tough. Too many poets took the same slant so only the best of these went forward to final judging.
It has been said many times before, but going with your first idea is not a good option. It’s not only great minds that think alike, but most poets and fiction writers! If you want your work to rank highly in a competition it is vital that you look for a unique angle on the subject.
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