20/21 ‘Winter’ Poetry Competition
Thank you to all those that submitted to the GPS 20/21 Winter Competition. Out of the many poems received we produced a long short list. This was then whittled down by our Judge, Josephine Lay (GPS Director of Operations and Editor for Black Eyes Publishing UK) to a final short list of 15 poems. From these 15, Josephine has picked the following Winner, 2nd and 3rd place, with the addition of two honourable mentions that were in the final mix.
Winner:
Port Meadow in Winter
Alice Stainer
(£75 & to be featured in the ‘Steel Jackdaw’ magazine)
From the first few words, I was placed ‘at the margins’ with the poet, but in this is expertly written poem, there is no flooding of phrase, no superfluity of words. Here is contemplation of Nature and a questioning of conventional perception of beauty within us; ‘Why… such beauty in a press of white birds?’ Then the close observation of darker birds, ‘twilight hoards the rooks in trees…dark pearls in the lustrous half-light’. And the settling of contrast with the presence of the peewits, ‘flashing black then white as the light decrees.’ A superbly balanced poem, I was caught and carried through to the last lovely line.
2nd Place
Frozen Puddles
Marilyn Timms
(£25 & to be featured in the ‘Steel Jackdaw’ magazine)
This poem is formed from four, expertly crafted, Haikus; each Haiku stands alone and yet they work together as a sequence describing Winter. Lovely use of alliteration in the first stanza, gives a fluidity to this sometimes quite clipped form. I particularly like the third stanza; ‘the dreamless sleep of birds…no awakening’ and in the fourth, the savaging of the ‘Arctic thrust’ upon the ‘ancient oaks’ – a strong description of these two silent forces of Nature, one attacking - one resisting.
3rd Place
Foxfire
Iris Lewis
(To be featured in the ‘Steel Jackdaw’ magazine)
This lovely poem of a Sami legend shimmers with ice crystals and glows like the Northern Lights. The fox feels like a real animal and I am transported into that Arctic night.
Josephine also gave ‘Honourable Mentions’ to the following poems that were in the final mix.
Honorable Mentions:
Citrus
Frank McMahon
Handover
Emma Lord
These unplaced poems (in alphabetical order) were also in the final Short List of 15:
Bitcoin or gold
Rose Lennard
DAD DIED IN JANUARY
Peter Wallis
Frieze
Simon Tindale
MUD
Celia Hinton
On a cold February day
Liz Bell
on the wane
Ivor Daniel
This Winter
Jenny Robb
WINTER GOES TO WAR
Marilyn Timms
Winter Present
Derek Sellen
Winter's End
Rose Lennard
Shortlisted poems judged by Josephine Lay
Josephine Lay has a BA(Hons) and an MA in Creative English. She is a writer and a published poet; her most recent collection is ‘Unravelling’ 2019. Josephine is creative writing advisor and editor for Black Eyes Publishing UK. She is also director of operations for the Gloucestershire Poetry Society and she helped shortlist the ‘GPS 2020 Open Poetry Competition. She also picked many of the poems in ‘The Trawler 2020’ anthology. Josephine hosts ‘Squawkers’ (a monthly poetry event - pre pandemic) in Cheltenham and currently hosts ‘Crafty Crows’ the GPS monthly Zoom poetry event. Josephine has, until recently, run her own Creative Writing classes over a number of years.
Copyright
Worldwide copyright of each entry remains with the author but the GPS has unrestricted rights to publish the winning and runner-up poems in Steel Jackdaw Magzine, Website and Social Media pages and any relevant promotional material.