Results and Judge’s Report, Swale Life Poetry Competition (January 2012)

 

A varied and interesting selection as always, with many poems on the themes of relationships, the natural world, journeys and quests of all kinds.

 

I had no problem selecting the winning three poems or the Highly Commended (although both the latter were nudging hard to be included as main prize winners.) My problems were with several of the Commended poems, which could have been Highly Commended, and with a cluster of a dozen poems that, had space permitted, could easily have been chosen for the anthology. Among them are ‘Thistles’  ‘The Horse’  ‘Skull as Object’ and ‘Away in August’.

 

This was a most enjoyable task and I’m glad to have had the pleasure of reading so many fine poems.

                                   

 

1^st        MEN, THIS MORRIS DANCE – GRAHAM BURCHELL

This poem – so original – stood (or danced) out for me at the first reading. I was caught by the vigour of its opening line which continues from the title: ‘Men, this Morris Dance/ is dedicated to our butterflies – sorry.’  Who could resist that ‘sorry’?  I couldn’t. A clever, perfectly crafted, attractive poem that is deservedly the winner.

 

2^nd        NIGHT BATTLES – THRYN H.

A sure hand was at work on this poem. I enjoyed  the surrealism of its images, the technical skill but most of all the musicality of its language in lines such as these: ‘if I turned the whole lot over would the feathers/sprout from shoulders/where endless hours used to fit?/ Could I sweep the dusk from eyelids/when I stretch them, glorious, free ...’A hypnotic, compelling poem.

 

3^rd        MOUSETRAP – WF LANTRY

Ostensibly a poem about catching a mouse but there is so much more. It’s a poem about suffering, I think, suffering and existence and a reaching after peace in a precarious world. A subtle poem, moving from darkness to dawn, from noon to midnight, written with lyricism and a perfection of language. Take these lines for example: ‘I will need/benevolent new traps. At noon I drive /to look for something it will, caught, survive,/without new suffering laid on my head.’

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

 

WASPS – TED WALTER

A striking poem that considers the implications of destroying a wasps’ nest. I was immediately pulled in by the repeated phrase ‘And if I had?’ A poignant, thoughtful poem beautifully written.

 

CUERNCA, SPAIN – VALENTINE WILLIAMS

A simple, lyrical ‘relationship’ poem that builds on the repeated line ‘There was that night’ and uses the image of an owl in moonlight to evoke shadows, a void, loss. Lovely writing here.

                       

COMMENDED:          

 

MURCHISON – VALENTINE WILLIAMS

A lyrical journey/relationship poem that attracted me with its repetition of the place name ‘Murchison’ and the many small details that build up the picture such as ‘Cohen on the player, mournful,/and sandflies biting both our sandalled feet/along the river down to Murchison.’

 

CLAY-LADY – MARGARET WILMOT

An intriguing, visual poem that uses a device I particularly enjoy – the echoing and interweaving of words and images throughout the different sections.

 

LANDRANGER 205 – WILL DAUNT

Here the poet uses the ‘serrated trails’ and ‘contour –scars’ of a map to convey the image of a ‘last stamp-sized scrap of land’ where ‘half the country’s lost.’ Brilliantly crafted.

 

ALMOST HIBERNATING – VALERIE BRIDGE

I chose this poem for the beauty of its language – hypnotic, echoing lines such as ‘The bear must sleep. Must sleep./Back. Sleep. Softly blueberrying.’ An enchanting poem.

 

SOMEWHERE THERE USED TO BE LOVE – CLAIRE PANKHURST

An apparently straightforward narrative of an uninvited guest who realises she/he has made a mistake by turning up, counterpointed by the ‘broken’ phrase ‘and your hand curls round glass breaking.’  A clever, well handled technique that perfectly conveys the emotion behind the events and the sadness of ‘breaking.’

 

 

Mandy Pannett. 

February 2012  

Awesome God - New Song

By Chris Parry

SENTINEL LITERARY QUARTERLY POETRY AND SHORT STORY COMPETITIONS (APRIL 2012) NOW OPEN FOR ENTRIES.

 

The Short Story Competition for this quarter is judged by Dr Kate Horsley, an award-winning author and Creative Writing lecturer at Lancaster University. Total prize fund of £305.00 plus publishing opportunity. Click here to enter competition now.

 

The Poetry Competition for this quarter is judged by Miles Cain, an award-winning author The Border and a visiting Creative Writing lecturer at Leeds Trinity University College. Total prize fund of £305.00 plus publishing opportunity.

Click here to enter competition now.

 

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition (January 2012) – Judge’s Report

Being the judge in a poetry competition can be very disheartening, presented with two hundred and fifty interesting and exciting poems to read through, I had to pick fifteen. This means as a judge you spend all of your time looking for reasons to discard the others. This task gets harder and harder towards the end of the process, when you are left with twenty or thirty poems that you really like and have to be extremely critical of them to try to pick the top six and put them in some sort of order. 

 

All the short listed pieces were technically competent and well crafted, but in the end there is something that just nudges the overall winners above the rest, something that is a bit harder to put your finger on, but each time you look through the poems you find some that just keep grabbing your attention and ending up on top of the pile.

 

Here are the final six, with an idea of what it was that drew me to the winning poems.

 

First Prize:  When a Sound Pretends to Kick a Bucket.

Lots of the poems entered had good images in them, but this poem is relentless in its imagery. The images tumble out one after the other as they carry us and the driver down the road to an inevitable car crash where he is left upside down ‘a floating foetus suspended in a seatbelt’, and from this point of stasis midway in the poem, we are propelled on another wave of images of a life flashing by, ‘The mind disrobing’.  This poem stood out on first reading and stood up to being read again and again and again.

 

Second prize:  Captain Nemo's Dinner

I loved the way this poem turned a domestic scene on its head. I revelled in gloomy main character of this poem, in a ‘whole deep-sunken world’ of his own making patrolled by ‘ship-sized water-beetles’, as well as the precise voice of the narrator, whose ‘the breathless laughter, / that coloured me deep-blue as a torn open clam’ was wonderful. This poem delighted me with is fantastic surreal imagery

 

Third prize: Sugar

This is a poem that punches above its weight, with its sustained bitter-sweet metaphor for falling in and out of love, it carries a story that is much bigger than its mere seventeen lines.

 

Highly commended:

 

Still Life is a well observed poem in the form of a sonnet. It deals with another road death, this time a child has been run over. It ends with a haunting image of spilt ink.

 

Passing Over takes us to a ‘border that isn’t on the map’; instructing us how to behave as officials from this other place search through personal belongings and make awkward demands on what could be a final journey.

 

Why can’t you, is a very clever little poem shows you just what to do with all those clichés you’ve been avoiding. This makes me smile every time I read it.

Derek Adams, February 2012

www.derek-adams.co.uk

The winning and highly commended stories from this competition will be published in Sentinel Champions magazine #11, August 2012. Subscribe to Sentinel Champions magazine.

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry and Short Story Competitions Results

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Short Story Competition (January 2012)–Judge’s Report

My critical criteria for evaluating the short stories submitted to the Competition consisted of assessing whether there was a grasp of the form and an attempt to say something. I was looking for structure, a clear developmental arc with its attendant desire to test a character and move the reader through literary effects. I was looking for a narrative voice that filtered relevant information and used detail to carry the narrative texture forward and made the reader see and feel beyond. I hoped for an implied story rather than a blob of writing without purpose.

 

Whilst the overall standard of writing was good, many pieces submitted had no story and were seriously under-developed. This is consistent with the current national state of short story writing. There are many people who do not have a clue what they are doing. There was a lot of structureless prose that could have been made more reader-friendly with some basic story telling craft. A lot of the writing was interesting without challenging the reader. The stories that were aware of the form shone through and held my attention. Other stories seemed random and ill-considered by comparison. A number of stories were unrealized in terms of length as well as structure. They sought to tell and had no story, no action, simply disorganized writing.

 

The best stories showed the reader and held attention through their narrative force and the gradual filtering of information leading to some form of resolution that forced the reader back to the beginning. The best stories drew the reader into the world and engaged with the reader. They made their world matter and have significance.

 

I selected Small Town Fever for the First Prize. This first person narrative is completely immersed in the experience of Marcie, who is on the run from her dangerous boyfriend, Jason. The unpredictable narrative moves back and forward and withholds information so that the reader wants to discover more. It is a volatile page-turner. The use of detail is strong throughout and reinforces the edgy, implied and unknown danger. The reader is taken on a journey and the underlying threat is beautifully sustained and understated. It is all implied rather than told and has a great ending.

 

The Second Prize story, The Difference, is a third person narrative concerning a 61 year-old Lecturer who becomes infatuated with a twenty three year old student. She is full of inner turmoil and becomes disorientated. She talks to herself and when hearing Berlioz, recalls the memory of her first affair with her Professor. She is a serial adulterer that has chosen a lifestyle without a family. Her past life and age catch up with her as it is revealed that the student is not interested in her. However, she is able to put the negatives to good use and writes a poem about being ‘over the hill’ and her unknown desire. A potential crisis is averted and the inner turmoil is put to good use. The story has a classic narrative structure and forces the reader back to the beginning.

 

The Third Prize went to The Lift, a third person narrative, about a young woman’s attraction for an older man. Angela has difficulty in judging men and the story explores her gut instincts. She is given a lift to Sunday Mass by Eion, who has a hint of danger and an implied past with women. They arrive at the Church, chat and drive back to his farmhouse. Her physical attraction to Eion is implied through the use of detail. The reader is drawn into their physical world of fingers, hands, legs and between the legs. The thrill for Angela of finding an independent and sexually attractive man is sustained through a rapid series of epiphanies that propel the action forward. It is all implied and evoked rather than stated and has a strong ending that allows the reader to see why Angela went in the direction that she did.

 

The Highly Commended stories included The first time, another adulteress woman story that has a strong developmental arc. Here the woman doubts her behaviour and recalls the loss of her virginity to a married man. She is caught in the repetition of her behavior and desires. The story reveals the physical side of wanting two men and the moral courage, despite worries of betrayal, to make a difficult choice. The story ends with her having both men on the same day. Again all the detail is physical and the reader has a strong sense that this is not a frivolous betrayal but a considered and clear choice. Living in Bleaney’s Room, a first person narrative, reads splendidly when read aloud and would work well on the radio. The narrator’s mutability is thoroughly caught in the voice and its cadences. The story resonates through its rich texture, use of detail and draws the reader into its distinct Welshness. It requires rereading as the texture is rich and sometimes covers the under-developed arc of the story, despite being well under the word limit. Pews For Thought impressed with its narrator’s characterization and the exposition of his contradictions.

 

Other notable stories are Luck Has Got Nothing To Do With It, a third person narrative, attempts to explore the notion of a luck in a socially dived school world, and Present Clarity, works well with its mostly implied desire of a young woman to become upwardly mobile through transgression. I also admired the innovative approach of Paul in Pictures. Anniversary, A Kind Of Heaven, A Small Cool Evening, The Lighthouse, My Loss and Perfect were all commendable efforts. Congratulations to all the writers.

 

David Caddy

Tears in the Fence | David Caddy’s Blog

The winning and highly commended stories from this competition will be published in Sentinel Champions magazine #11, August 2012. Subscribe to Sentinel Champions magazine.

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry and Short Story Competitions Results

Results of the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry & Short Story Competitions (January 2012)

We are pleased to announce the results of the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry and Short Story Competitions for January 2012 judged by Derek Adams (poetry) and David Caddy (short stories)

 

POETRY

 

The 3 highly commended poems in no particular order are:

 

'Still Life' - Simon Jackson

'Passing Over' - Oz Hardwick

'Why Can't You?' - Annette Volfing

 

Third Prize

 

'Sugar' - Andy Humphrey

 

Second Prize

 

'Captain Nemo's Dinner' - Terry Jones

 

First Prize

 

'When a Sound Pretends to Kick a Bucket' - Bob Beagrie

 

Sentinel Champions Subscription Giveaway

The poet that receives 1 year's free subscription to Sentinel Champions magazine is Tony Sainsbury

 

 

SHORT STORIES

 

The 3 highly commended short stories in no particular order are:

 

'The First Time' - Sarah Evans

'Living in Bleaney's Room' - Debbie Jay

'Pews for Thought' - Janet Eugenia Lynch

 

Third Prize

 

'The Lift' - Shauna Gilligan

 

Second Prize

 

'The Difference' - Caroline Clark

 

First Prize

 

'Small Town Fever' - Vedrana Mamula

 

Sentinel Champions Subscription Giveaway

The short story writer that receives 1 year's free subscription to Sentinel Champions magazine is David Frankel

 

 

Congratulations to all the winners.