Judge’s Report
It was my pleasure to judge the inaugural Ros Spencer Poetry Prize. 127 entries was hardly an onerous task, as I’ve judged prizes with entries in the hundreds. After a thorough read, I must say that it was difficult to select six prize-winners because most entries were of a similar standard.
The poems I finally settled on were alike in the same ways:
1) there was a central metaphor that the work adhered to;
2) very few if any abstract nouns were used;
3) there was a paucity of adjectives and/or adverbs;
4) images, when used, served the central metaphor;
5) the length of the work closely matched the amount of exploration required of the central metaphor; and
6) the close of the work did not overstate the metaphor.
“Egg” Amy Crutchfield (Vic.)
This was a succinct piece revolving around a tragic event and how a mother might perceive this. The use of language invoked in the reader that sense of loss.
“Neighbours” Jemma Payne (NSW)
This elegant and deceptively simple poem invoked two actual spaces as reflections of the author’s inner landscape. From the opening line, one is drawn in and remains until several moments after the finishing line.
“Genealogy” Coral Carter (WA)
Brilliant piece of work!! There were part suggestions of the identity of a stranger to someone whom might very well be someone known to the reader. Using common, unfinished idioms, the author tells the life story of this person.
“Misspeaks” Marjorie Lewis-Jones (NSW)
A highly playful and humorous poem, it never misses a beat, never over-reaches its premise. It was one of the “tightest” pieces in the competition.
“Vegemite” Dave Drayton (NSW)
Overall, playful and stayed with the central metaphor. It did, however, compromise its intended effect with “high diction”. This might be justified if the writer were T. S. Eliot, but this piece was not reaching for such lofty heights through elaboration of the metaphor. (Contrary to belief, “high diction” does NOT increase the impression of intelligence when the central metaphor does not require it.)
“Distant” Roland Leach (WA)
I did indeed find this poem “commendable”. It seemed obvious just how much effort and consideration had been brought to bear. It was, however, compromised by its length, almost imploding with excess facts and sensory impressions. Also, the close of a poem must be the release of energy built up throughout the rest of the work, regardless of its length. If this piece were condensed, this might very well happen.
Zan Ross
Back to top
FIRST PRIZE
Egg
What shall the mother of the dead be called?
As widow is to wife,
what of the woman left behind?
Like a collector’s egg she sits, perfectly
expressionless.
Vessels defined by what they hold.
Heaven without the earth
is air.
Eyes like abandoned corridors.
Ears schooled to sounds none else can hear.
Only the moon can bring dead children home.
Shepherding them across black fields,
driving them out again at dawn.
Amy Crutchfield
Back to top
SECOND PRIZE
Neighbours
The weeds open their hands
on the cliff that faces
my window the kind
whose shoots
pass for tomatoes grown tall
as me in summer
set fruit on flowers
I never saw their ripe wombs fall
through the washing line I find
them hollow and
light as paper
lanterns. All that’s mine
is inside this
window that the tall weeds watch
and a fish lives on
my bookcase
threatening reflections
in his glass
walls.
Jemma Louise Payne
Back to top
THIRD PRIZE
Genealogy
you know him
went to school with
over there at
tall red hair
sometimes grew a beard
lives down on
used to go out with
she dumped him
then married the girl of
had a son who plays for
his mother not quite all
father worked all his
lives down there by
next to the woman who
dyes her hair pink
always wore
rode on her
wanted to go to
played football with
got into a bit of
as a young man
was apprenticed to
his boss said he was
then worked for
later retrenched
moved to town
came back
used to drink down there at
related to those
his cousin married one
one door down from
on the corner
down the road from
next to
the family of
in the purple house
his wife used to be a
related to the
four kids
she worked up at
one hung himself
a daughter married a
bit of a nut
in the TAB
spent his life at
every saturday
they said he was
you know him
you would know him
if you saw him
it was him
he was the one who
cousin of
best mates with
took his grandkids to
they said
ran away with
the bloke next door
you know him.
Coral Carter
Back to top
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Misspeak
I misspeak
a bit
these days
leaning in
to grab
an ‘s’
and
it’s
become
a ‘t’
‘You live in
your head
too much’
a woman
once
told me
she couldn’t
find it—
the locked
attic
misted
with light
striping
the owls
on their
perches
each perch
affixed
to a pole
each wing
trailing a
long-feather
or a
longfellow
if I’m
speaking
or misspeaking
or Miss Peking it
maybe
I’m just
tired
and
missing
my
sleep
a bit
Marjorie Lewis-Jones
Back to top
COMMENDED
Vegemite
twilight primers offer confidence
to digest folly and project wings
Vegemite
might
and you like
from chin-ups a sandwich
dourly
dowry
you look like nobody owns you
teenage calamity under this or any roof
paraffin
Panadeine
belittled kite afraid of heights
destroys a cupboard kept indoors
somersaults
some assaults
plinth and pillory forced colony
renew lifelong coronal with weathered compost
garland
our land
should have no tax for occupation
younger folly wrought by bony thimbles
faucet
facet
force it
face it
older bathwater groans makeup melts somewhere
we’re willing growth so it is hidden
shoppers candour
offers canned
coupons cut (&/or cashed in
what you would do to save a little more
that remains uncharted
by this dictum
of engraving surplus
Dave Drayton
Back to top
COMMENDED
Distant
1
He was a distant man,
knew the mathematical
possibilities of distance,
and measured others
in coordinates,
as if they were solids
in abstract theorising,
maps reduced to two-
dimensional space.
He learnt the art of
triangulation,
locating an object
without getting close.
With people he allowed
distance, working angles
till he calculated
their point on the map,
their place beyond, keeping
their cartography
shelved on parchment.
2
A planet can transit the face
of sun in the matter of hours.
Plymouth to Tahiti took Cook
eight months, using hourglasses, knotted
ropes to measure speed, sextants
and stars to measure longitude.
He came to HParadise, seventeen
degrees South, 149 West.
As far from home on a globe
as he could conceive, as far
from the village where he would have
become his father. But the coastal
town of Whitby set his course:
the continual shifting and sliding,
ebb and flow of tide, the peaks, hollows
of swell that would allow him
to slip free the self moored tiresomely to land.
3
The entrance into the harbour
was little more than a mile wide
where you had to keep to the south shore
close to a small bare island,
where the water’s a good six fathoms.
There was a fine stream on the north shore,
plenty of wood. The trees much the same,
a few shrubs, low and wooded
for as far as we could see,
and great cockatoos, parrots
and lorikeets were heard everywhere.
On the mud banks oysters,
mussels and cockles.
The natives a very dark brown,
not black, without the frizzy
hair of islanders.
The women wore few ornaments.
did little to hide their nudity,
Some paint their faces with pigment.
Roast shellfish, leave stingray.
Having seen everything
this place afforded
we at daylight put to sea.
Roland Leach
Back to top