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Don Paterson, as this year's Poet in Residence, has judged the competition and the results are listed below. This is always judged anonymously, so it was a delightful surprise to discover that Christopher James, who came first in the adult section, was a previous winner. As ever there was a large entry, and our congratulations go not only to the winners, but also to all those who sent us their poems.
Competition Winners
Category 1 (Adult section)
First prize
John Lennon on the Great Wall of China – Christopher James (Suffolk)
John Lennon on the Great Wall of China
John Lennon, on the Great Wall of China,
eats an orange among the yellow mountains.
He is dressed in a Rolling Stones T-shirt
and is in one of his lean periods.
He cannot be seen from outer space.
Because he is feeling lonely, he writes
a postcard to Ringo then waits an hour
for a passer-by to post it for him.
A soldier from the late Ming Dynasty
has fallen asleep in the pile of straw
and dung he has built for a signal fire.
John carefully steps over him, watching
his shadow fall across his face then borrows
a guitar from a busker, putting it down
when someone asks him to play Penny Lane.
He may have been on the wall for days.
Ahead, a man in black motorcycle
leathers is walking with his mother.
In the heat of the day, they look like a crow
and a dove walking silently side by side.
John follows, in his white trouser-suit
until the wall becomes shrouded in fog
with water from the yellow river. He does
not know how he will get down from the wall.
Second prize
You don't have characters no more –Ed Reiss (West Yorkshire)
You don't have characters no more
Then there was the Elephant
which everybody called the Monkey.
The taproom door, a sliding door
had a counterweight and the counterweight
was a brass monkey. Honduras mahogany
furnishings. Pewter spittoon. Leaded lights.
Cut-glass brilliants. Atmosphere.
They should never have pulled it down.
Then there was the Horse and Trumpet,
which people called the Smiling Mule.
Embossed plate glass. Mosaic floor.
Four-pull beer-engine. Eight-tap spirit-fountain.
Sign on bar: NO singing. NO strap.
Not that we’d’ve gone in, but we did
for a quick one. And Eric said
it was the best neck-oil in town.
Drayman’s had a right bad name:
back-street, bare-boards, spit-and-sawdust.
Not that we’d’ve gone in, but we did.
Bread and dripping in fat-pot. Rat pit.
Hardened faces. Rough. Poor.
And I mean poor. There — for the long pull:
There — to get a break from wife and kids.
Tipsy women sipped their gin-and-it.
Then the Black Swan, the Mucky Duck.
And, further up, the Fox and Pheasant,
formerly the Hare and Hounds.
Not that we’d’ve gone in, but we did.
Man comes up. — How do! — How do.
— Wanna bargain? — What you got?
He opens his coat and shows us
pockets stuffed with snuff-boxes.
Third prize
Selfish – Claudia Daventry (Amsterdam)
Selfish
Stiff linen under a glass dome in Paris:
Bofinger, in the 4th near Place des Vosges
- hushed place where they bring in the white Limoges,
wine vinegar with shallots, and embarrass
lovers’ hands with lobster picks and crackers;
precision tools for winkling out the meat,
stashed white and succulent, just out of reach
of the trickiest fingertips. To snap
in bits the creamy smooth tectonic plates
between the jagged edges of amber,
and wreck those exquisite articulations
is the work of the devil. No wonder,
when it’s dropped plumb into boiling water,
still blindly groping, the lobster screams.
Young persons section
First prize
Blood on the Tracks – Susannah Quested (Hampshire)
Blood on the Tracks
Oh Lord who art
At the railroad junction
Way out town past
The Seventh Heaven Motel,
Down where we used to
Do Double Dares amongst
The broken signal boxes
And watch sun-bleached
Freight trains race each other
Along the criss-cross of
Metal pathways
There’s
Blood on the tracks
Now, and I guess
It must be yours
Coz rumour has it you
Were betrayed here by a
Dark haired Judas with
A stolen kiss. But you don’t
Kiss boys do you?
The stains are sooty
Now, and caked to
The iron like an extra
Layer of rust but
I reckon with some
DNA testing and a
Little bit of help from
Those Wise Men
In starched white coats
We can figure out
The truth behind
Your Sacrifice.
See, I’m thinking
Maybe tax fraud?
Coz there must be a pretty
Hefty endowment placed
On the soul of God’s
Chosen Son.
.
Second prize
Oil on Orchard – Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade (London)
Oil on Orchard
To penetrate this gloss
a heavy burden
for people to stand vertically
and flicker...
when you were racing
along a thin path
in rotten shoes,
did all the houses in the distance
have hot walls?
Do we go there, sometimes,
below the weight of the sky,
the shade that drips darkly, we do.
Caught
on the warm wooden beams
of a gate.
Smelling thickly a saturated scent,
nauscous fumes,with
one somnambulist eating fruit
between indiviual blades of grass.
Release our treasured swing, let it sink
with gravity
that we cannot fight
I wonder, Mr Wassily
How would you colour me?
Third prize
Leaving the Monastery – Claire Bunyan (Buckinghamshire)
Leaving the Monastery
Sister, your words
have tipped the balance,
upset the scales
within the Lord’s
head.
Leave this white,
this arch of moral fibre.
A pilgrimage
by train – be
led.
And so she blinked,
gave her face to the
wounding sun, and
said:
I should have loved the Oak,
instead.
Children's section
First prize
The Letter – Aimee Elysia Divall (Hengoed)
The Letter
Once I wrote a letter
To really nobody,
I put it in the post one day
And sent it back to me!
Surprise! I had a letter,
I wondered what it said,
I opened up the envelope
And this is what I read.
This letter is important
So put it in the bin,
Be careful not to rip it
It’s very, very thin.
Second prize
Teacher's Prayer – Robin Hobbs (Dorset)
Teacher's Prayer
Let the children in our care
Clean their blooming underwear!
Let them know the ABC
Let them use the lavatory!
I hate it when they’re late for classes
I wish that I could cane their asses!
Breaking every golden rule
Bringing shame upon our school.
I wish that children would do work,
And not give you that nasty smirk.
Let them praise our every word,
For to them that seems absurd!
Oh, Lord let them be polite,
Let them not give us a fright,
Let them not be too grotesque,
Let them not be giant pests!
Let them not graffiti doors,
Let them not start foodfight wars,
(that’s the dinner ladies’ prayer
just to let you know it’s there!)
I just want a peaceful year,
NOT behind my desk in fear!
Boys not being gentlemen,
Defend me Lord from all of them!
On my knees with pleas again,
Oh loving Lord I say Amen!
.Third prize
Birth in Space – Isobel Nettleton (London)
Birth in Space
Enceladus
Drifting like an icy angel
Let go in the floaty air.
Moving to the sad music,
Lost in the dreamy stellar wind.
Angels brushing past
Feeling smooth and soft.
The solar wind was nowhere to be seen.
Then it breaks
Into colourful bits
Like broken pieces of fruit
Flying everywhere in the bleak, misty lunar wind.
.
2006 WINNERS
2005 WINNERS
2004 WINNERS
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