Grey Hen Press Competition 2010

A big thank you once again to everyone who entered our first competition.  The response was most encouraging - the adjudicators (a big thank you to Ann and Penny as well)  had to make their selection from over 600 poems.           

For winners and shortlist, see ‘Results’.  For full account of adjudication process and comments see ‘Judges Report’

We will definitely be organising anther competition for 2011 – watch this space!           

Joy Howard

Ist Prize     Pat Simmons  for Until
2nd Prize   Carole Bromley for Taking Yout Time
3rd Prize    Barbara Klempka for Burling and Mending

Judges’ Report -  Ann Alexander and Penny Shuttle          

Judging the Grey Hen poetry competition with Penelope has been an exhilarating experience.  More than 500 poems by women over the age of 60 came to our doors.

I am a fan of poetry competitions, and have entered lots of them.  I know the thrill of being on the long list, or better still the short list, and even better than that, of winning a prize - a thrill often out of all proportion to the actual prize. I also know the disappointment when the poem I was so proud of didn’t make it to the winners enclosure. So every single poem was read with care, read aloud, and enjoyed.           

Age and loss were recurring themes, of course - but the poems covered the entirety of women’s life experiences.  Many looked outward to the wider world, and some took ordinary experiences and made them special with that something extra that separates a good poem from an excellent poem. Most were written in free verse, but there were some sonnets, some ballads, a sestina.

Third Prize goes to Burling and Mending.
Many of the poems were written from personal experience, but this poem stood out not just for the quality of the writing, but because the writer has stepped out of her own skin and entered the imagined life of someone else, with sympathy and the attention to detail that makes the poem ring true. Phrases such as “sweaty green dimpled finger”, words like “marathon, faults, clanging, snags, errors, knots, slubs, blinding, cold,” make clear the hard, uncomfortable, but skilful nature  of the weaver’s work and her life.           

Our Second Prize goes to the writer of Taking Your Time.  This lovely poem takes the reader through the two weeks before the birth of a baby, which is slow in coming.  The poet (the baby’s grandmother?), is marking off the days on her calendar, which has a poem on each page.  This gives this poem a pleasing, repetitive form as the days pass and still the baby doesn’t come, until the poet can’t even read the poems any more. The poet is talking to the unborn baby - the longing, the anxiety, the love - all come shining through.           

Our First Prize winner is Until.  Many entrants wrote about death and loss, but this poem captures better than any other entry the desolation of those left behind - and this is achieved without self-pity or over-sentimentality.  Everyday tasks are described as if the poet is carrying on as normal, holding the fort “until you come back”, and although we know the dead do not come back, we understand the hope that doesn’t quite go away, and the longing that never goes away.  Her pain is made clear with phrases such as “hedgehog spines, holding my bones with iron breath.”  Repetition of “until you come back” throughout the poem makes us understand the obsessive, unending quality of bereavement.           

I will say no more about this powerful, moving poem, but leave you to enjoy all three winners, and send my best wishes to all who didn’t quite make it - this time.           

Ann Alexander
              Penny Shuttle

Shortlist           

Dorothy Burgess     Imprint      

Jane  Dobson   Between the Lines

Kate Coleridge   The Question

Cora Greenhill   Wild Relatives

Gill Learner   Once Upon a Time

Joan Michelson   Burning Bush

Hermione Sandall   The Flock of Birds

Averil Stedeford   Mrs Clock

Shirley Wright   When She Died