Winners

1st: Sue Wootton, Dunedin - 'Ice diver'

2nd: David Mark Williams, UK - 'The Devil's Nursery'

3rd: Aleksandra Lane, Wellington - 'Final Discourse'

(Click on the titles to read the winning poems.)

Highly Commended: Anne Edmunds, Christchurch; Catherine Fitchett, Christchurch; Cherry Hill, Christchurch; Michael Harlow, Alexandra; Sue Fitchett, Waiheke Island.

Commended: Aleksandra Lane, Wellington; Amanda Hunt, Wellington; David Mark Williams, UK; Jo Thorpe, Wellington; Keith Westwater, Lower Hutt; Marion Moxham (2), Palmerston North; Michael Harlow, Alexandra; Stephanie Mayne, Auckland, Sue Fitchett, Waiheke Island.

Judge's Report (Judge: Tim Upperton)

How do you judge a poem? Actually, judging a poem is easy. Judging 679 poems is hard. It's easier, I think, to articulate where poems go awry, so let me talk about that first. As I read these poems, I found myself assigning many of them to certain vague categories that became more clearly defined as I went along. All examples are, of course, my own invention.

1. The undeserved praise poem. These poems praised something, often extravagantly, for just doing its job. "Oh bedside lamp, you shed light on my book, that I may read!"

2. The eighteenth century poem. "O bedside lamp, thou shedd'st light on my book, that I may read by thee!"

3. The extremely difficult form poem. Never has there been such a congregation of pantoums, villanelles, sestinas, even a mirror poem or two. These poems often seemed to breathe a sigh of relief in the last line - thank God, here's the end and I haven't dropped the ball. But is that enough, not to drop the ball?

4. The homily. An anecdote followed by a moral. I don't think I've ever been so instructed in my life. I realise I don't care about morality very much.

5. Rhymes that hurt my ears.

6. The quiveringly sensitive poem. In these poems, the speakers are more sensitive than I will ever be. They feel so much, so much. I realise I'm not very interested in feelings.

7. The smart-arse poem. This is a variation on no.6. The smart-arse poem knows a lot, and hints that it knows a lot more. It bristles with literary allusions. It talks down to me. It pisses me off.

8. The galloping poem. These poems just go for it, in a pounding rhythm, regardless of subject matter. Birth of a son? Te-te-TUM te-te-TUM. Grandmother's funeral? Te-te-TUM te-te-TUM.

9. The Big Issue poem. A tricky one, this. No reason why poems shouldn't address big issues, but they nearly always come unstuck when they do. It's as if the issue carries the poem, and not the other way round.

10. The darkly enigmatic poem. This poem means something, but it's not going to let you in on the secret, oh, no. It's like an architect designed a house and disdained doors and windows.

From 679 poems to just eighteen. These poems all demonstrated an understanding of language and its resources, and particularly of sound. The best of them appear to follow a tune where it leads them; they are exploratory, tentative, questioning, open. They transform what they represent, and take me somewhere I didn't expect to go.

Third Place: ‘Final discourse'. The run-on lines and vowel substitutions artfully conceal the end-rhymes in this poem. The jump-cuts ("Now / all of a sudden I am hopeless in this town") are unpredictable and, in the generally restrained atmosphere, heart-breaking.

Second Place: "The devil's nursery". Foreboding, creepy, funny: "they said they had never seen / such good children, so sweet they could eat us. / As we sat down, our foreheads cracked like Pavlovas"). Diction and tone are wonderfully integrated: "There would be a place for everyone. / We were such promising material."

First Place: "Ice diver" The poem I kept returning to, and which grew richer with each re-reading. I initially relegated it to the Darkly Enigmatic Poem pile (see above), but it won me over even as it refused to reveal itself completely.


Ice diver


O feed more salt to that deepsea heart -

blind, propulsive, without a shell, at

each squeeze pushed hard into the net.

 

Not you, fisherboy, winding in your reel,

sticking to your quota. But you, off-duty,

shoreless, out of your depth, taking your soul

 

for a fresh-water swim under ice, who'll

ascend your bubblebreath trail

in holy isolation. You in a dazzle

 

of danger, drifting with the light-struck

dead. You, hooded, sealed in your drysuit                                                 

habit. Monk, sprinkle the salt.

 

Sue Wootton, Dunedin
First Prize

The Devil's Nursery


Every morning they would usher us in

from the playground where we cowered, trapped

small figures in a shadowy lithograph

bordered with briars and ravens.

 

Cooing at us, eager to begin,

they said they had never seen

such good children, so sweet they would eat us.

As we sat down, our foreheads cracked like Pavlovas.

 

The weather they conjured was always bad,

dishrag clouds teeming with fever,

winds with blue faces screaming around corners

to blow us over and how well we would recall

those days when the slow terror of snow

was summoned for all the mothers to cut

straight lines through the white with their wheels.

 

Always we were urged to draw closer to the fire

kept blazing and unguarded, cracking out sparks.

We feared to move, being wax or wood,

still as puppets until they pulled our strings.

 

Every afternoon they laid us down to sleep,

each of us parcelled up in single beds,

wakeful, our eyes reluctant to close, as the cut flowers

around the room discharged a subtle poison.

 

When the time came, they promised us,

we would all be called

to climb aboard into the wagons, waiting at the station.

There would be a place for everyone.

We were such promising material.

 

David Mark Williams, United Kingdom
Second Prize

Final Discourse 

 
Star grit in his salad as he roughs up lettuce

leaves. Somewhere else he would have broken his teeth

eating dinner with the moon this white and with this many stars. Let us

leave, he replies. It is clear, sombre on the way out. He leaves a wreath

 

of bay leaves around his naked words, discarded little stones. Olive oil in his highs,

vinegar in his lows. We must go, he says. Now

all of a sudden I am hopeless in this town. What is left behind lies

still; his face a falling northern leaf to remember me by. His brow

 

up then down. I take him on the palm of the evening, succulent moon above just

showing off. I have grown so lush, so native in love I must

explain the ferns, gather up all our brittle shoots. Green lust

 

encircles the city, though we are inside, it's not just

us. His hands are full - mine are starved.

He puts down his cutlery before the last course has arrived.

 

Aleksandra Lane, Wellington
Third Prize

 

 


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