JUDGE’S REPORT - RON PRETTY
Judging a poetry competition such as this one is both a pleasure and an endurance test. A pleasure because of the large number of fine poems discovered among the submissions. A considerable number of poems responded to the Art Gallery exhibition, and some good ekphrastic poems responded to individual art works. Working through those and all the other poems is an endurance test as you go through the 160 poems again and again, trying to choose the better poems from the good ones, obsessed all the while by the fear that you might have missed a gem as you whittle down the poems from 160 to 30 and at last to 15.
None of this is easy, as you find yourself struggling to find the strongest 15 poems for the long list. I am indebted to Sarah Nicholson for her assistance with this and the even harder task of getting to the short list of eight, and then the three prize-winners.
It’s easier to outline the qualities we are looking for than to select those that best embody them, but what we are looking for are (in no particular order):
- fresh and vibrant imagery and language
- a coherent structure
- attractive sound patterning. This may involve rhyme, near-rhyme assonance etc, but need not, as long as a poetic, rather than a prose rhythm is sustained
- the sense of the poet exploring issues, discovering new ways of looking at familiar things rather than lecturing on what the poet already knows or believes
- the avoidance of cliché, stock phrases, too-familiar rhymes trite and shallow statements
- the engagement of the audience in the journey that is the poem.
It is, of course, much easier to describe these qualities than to embed them in a poem, but all good poems will display them to some extent.
If we look at the poems that have not made the long list, many will embody some of these qualities, but they may also tend to exhibit to a greater or lesser extent, some of the following flaws:
- the poem reads more like prose than poetry because not enough attention has been given to rhythm, sound patterning, line-breaks etc
- the poem doesn’t fully cohere; that is, parts of the poem are too different from, or seem to contradict, other parts of the poem
- the poem feels more like a lecture than a poetic journey of discovery. The great Irish poet, W B Yeats wrote that “Of arguments with others we make rhetoric; of arguments with ourselves we make poetry.”
- the poem tries too hard to be clever. As Somerset Maugham said, “Unless you are a genius, it’s best to be clear.”
- the poem is too abstract or too theoretical, with not enough concrete details for the reader to relate to
- the poem is too reliant on cliche, or on commonplace phrases or ideas; it relies too much on simplistic statements.
It was those two sets of principals we tried to adhere to as we worked through the poems from long list to short list to winning poems. Not an easy task, and we thank all poets who entered the competition. The poems to be included in the publication will be these:
These are the poems selected for the long list:
Composition of Soot
A Moment
Concreting Poem
If I could
Let Me Sing You The Sea
Membranes
Minnamurra Sestets
Omnipresent Song
Performance Art
Self Flagellation at the Falls
Tall Yellow Poem
The Cyclist
Three Secrets
Kokora
These are the poems selected for the short list:
If I Could
An effective structure to this poem and lovely use of language, The hints at illness are clearly there, but delicately -- not over-stressed. A poem of reconciliation, of finding comfort in things overlooked
membranes
A lovely ekphrastic poem, memranes is a prose poem with all the best features of the form. It has an effective poetic rhythm. sustained throughout, very evocative imagery, and a muted but very moving sense of loss.
Menopause
An interesting angle on a common experience, at least for half the population. A poem of plain statement with some neat touches of humour. Imaginative personification of the condition.
Minnamurra Sestets
This is one of a number of very fine poems by this writer, and we had some difficulty in agreeing on this as the best of them. It has the vivid imagery of the best of them, and the sense of a journey through a vibrant countryside, as well as the sense of a father on a jourhey of discovery of his son.
Omniserpent Song
An exploration of Indigenous culture in its contemporary setting, and finding an affirmative answer. A serious poem, but playful, with some nice touchs of humour.
The Cyclist
An all too common experience is handled here with great tact, conveying clearly the tragedy of the accident and avoiding the maudlin or the melodramatic. We are left with the hope, but not the certainty, that the cyclist will recover: is ‘his ruin’ irrepairable we wonder.
Three Secrets
A powerful, unusual poem looking at childbirth in a very different way, asking repeatedly what it means to be a mother. It takes the reader on a very different journey. My only reservation about it is whether the second page adds very much to the poem.
Let Me Sing You the Sea
A poem of celebration, finding and singing delight in the everyday, An effective prose poem, using rhythm and repetition to very good effect.
And these are the winning poems:
Wollongong Art Gallery Award
membranes - Kathleen Bleakley
Second Prize
If I Could - Denise O’Hagan
Winning poem
Minnamurra Sestets - Peter Ramm
Congratulations to all these poets, and indeed to all poets who entered the Competition. There were many very fine poems sent in, poems that are worthy of publication. Certainly there were a lot more than could be included on these lists.
Ron Pretty