Single-poem Competition 2020 - i - Paper Swans Press

Single-poem Competition 2020

             i

PAPER SWANS PRESS

First published in Great Britain in 2020
by Paper Swans Press

Poems copyright © individual copyright holders 2020
Selection copyright © Paper Swans Press
Introduction copyright © Wendy Pratt

All rights reserved

http://paperswans.co.uk

CONTENTS

Winners

1st       Scan                             5
          Joanna Ingham

2nd       Things Undone                    6
          Lisa Falshaw

3rd       Sheepish                         8
          John Foggin

Longlist (alphabetical by title)

      Always                               10
      Joanna Ingham
      Bull in a Show Ring                  11
      Mike Farren
      Emptying His Pockets in Autumn       12
      Samantha Hunt
      Homework                             13
      Oz Hardwick
      In the Half Light                    14
      Hannah Hodgson
      My Death Will Grieve Foxes           15
      Kathryn Anna Marshall
      On the Ceri Ridgeway                 17
      Chris Kinsey
      Rifle                                18
      Connie Ramsay Bott
      They Say an Elephant Never Forgets   19
      Jeanette Burton
      Waiting with Demeter for Handover    21
      Julia Usman

                               3

W E N DY P R AT T

                        JUDGE’S REPORT
      If you want to know what is happening in the world and how people
are reacting to it, judge a poetry competition. Creative writing and poetry in
particular, with its language of emotion and imagery, is a translation device,
a babel fish for the world. There’s no point in trying to avoid the fact that we
are living through a pandemic, but the way that the creative-writing-
translation-device works is often by not making the pandemic the focus.
Instead, life; the pandemic, is drawn through filter of ordinary situations.
The poems in this year’s Paper Swans single poem competition certainly felt
like they had an edge of panic and fear thumping through them. Similarly,
many of the poems were about seeing loved ones from different angles,
recognising the small gesture between couples and kin that were acts of
love. There were many poems about illness, indeed the winning poem, with
its devastating geography of a scan is about illness, and there were a lot of
poems that were about longing for escape in one form or another. These
showed up in free verse and form, structured and unstructured poems but
the thing that linked all the poems, 267 in all, was the quality. I have never
come across such quality when judging a poetry competition, so rest
assured that if you didn’t make the final thirteen, your poem was still highly
thought of. It obviously made my job that bit harder, but it also made me
home in on the craft of the poems I was reading, making sure that every
poem on the list could justify its place there. Often a poem would start
strong, but that strength would peter out towards the end, or a good idea
was lost in obscure or ambiguous imagery. Sometimes metaphors would be
mixed, and it just jarred a little. My advice to any poet specifically writing
about a large scale event is to look for the detail, find the small angle that
allows us to look closely and see the human aspect. My other piece of
advice, to those who haven’t made the last thirteen is this: keep going, keep
tweaking, keep submitting.

                                      4

J OA N N A I N G H A M

                         SCAN

They've taken my body in slices,
marbled like cuts of tongue.

I'm a map laid open, my tumour
pale grey, a pool that floods the fields,

that laps the walls of my organs,
the edges of my sleep.

It might be borderline, they say
and I think of boundaries

between countries, the division
between distinct or opposite

things. I've never been any good
at holding two outcomes

inside me at once. They tell me
to try not to worry but I can't read

the aerial photo. I stand by the pond
and the water like milk

or mercury rises towards me
and closes over my head.

                            5

L I S A FA L S H AW

                 THINGS UNDONE

Not undone in the way of
the dragging shoelace of a capering child,
trailing like the tail of a kite.

Not undone like the ribbon
escaping its moorings and coming adrift from the parcel.

Not undone as the finicky stitching
on the hem of a pale, summer dress,
delicate thread dangling down a slender leg.

Not like that.

But undone
like leaving the hush of the bedside without the press
of the capable hand that carefully tied the shoelace.

Undone like
forgetting to turn for a final time to notice
the still, blue-veined hands which expertly mended the hem
                                                    of the dress.

Undone like
failing to hear, one last time,
the patient voice that told how to tie the bow, just so.

                            6

Undone like
missing the transient moment
that skimmed past like the touch of a transparent wing,
when the crossing was made on the final
outward breath.

These things.

                          7

JOHN FOGGIN

                     SHEEPISH

real sheep aren’t abashed, shamefaced, or awkward;

imagined sheep are sheepish, the fluffy ones,
the baa-baa black sheep we grew up with
(not the black sheep of the family; Malcolm was ours).

We say The People follow like sheep;
like sheep, they learn obedience,
go where the dogs direct them.

Like sheep, we grow silent when most afraid.
We say that God is our Good Shepherd,
that his Son, and other mothers’ sons,
go like lambs to the slaughter,
and a slow witted man is mutton-headed.

We’d do well to take more notice of sheep,
their alien yellow gaze, their neat cleft feet,
the beautiful sculpture of their heads.

We’d do well to learn that sheep can cross
a steep rock face, know the safest water crossing,
the driest line through marshy land,
that sheep can live for days in drifted snow,
eat their own fleece for sustenance.

                             8

When the last man has wandered
into the sea, muttering to himself,
or fallen off a gritstone edge,
sheep will be there, safely grazing.

                           9

J OA N N A I N G H A M

                     ALWAYS

It was the jetsam I dreaded on walks along the beach,
litter picks with Guides, barbecues at the hut,
those tattered white pads at the tideline
snagged in the weed and nylon. We kept ours tucked
in special pockets, in the corner of the drawer,
and here they were in full view like open crotches.

It's hard to keep things secret when dogs sniff
at your shorts, when you have to say you can't
come swimming, when sanitary towels wave along
the sand like flags. At least the sea had washed them
cleanish, bleached pale and stiff by the sun. I learnt
to catch them in my grabber without retching.

I tried not to think of the woman leaking on a ship
somewhere, the perils of my crisp school dress,
the way it would take the whole ocean to wash me clean.

                          10

M I K E FA R R E N

           BULL IN A SHOW RING

Artist unknown, c.1740

You’re used to being the focus of attention,
front and centre, out of all proportion
to show-ring, higgledy-piggledy high street,
to the incidental gentlemen and yokels

straining for a better look at the brawn
of your glossy black back, and at your new
owner’s prosperous future dangling between
your hind legs: he’s there, looking prouder than

the rest, features defined: about to take
possession of your potency, so thrilled,
he’ll throw some of his future wealth toward

a jobbing market-town artisan painter,
unwitting offspring of the sympathetic
magician of the ancestral cave wall.

                          11

SAMANTHA HUNT

   EMPTYING HIS POCKETS IN AUTUMN

His stick-sharp
tissue-tangled pockets
plumply stuffed with rusty feathers
maybe pheasant - did he find them in the wood
as the twigs broke underfoot? Now he sleeps, leafy crisp
and tightly tucked, blanket-weighted, bobbing out of dreams
on a wren song, on a jackdaw, with the buzzards turning circles
but in these pockets, see his conker-shelled treasure.

And a sweet wrapper, rolled shut – was it eaten in the wood
with the pheasants, undercover, an on-task reward
soil-scuffed and savoured? My bronze topped boy
   - no one told me you’d been good.
Helicopters, ash or maple? Tightly woven
teasel-headed, how I scrump his silent moments
unpick ruby haws and rosehips
pocked-sized prizes, precious
remnants of a day.

                            12

O Z H A R DW I C K

                        HOMEWORK

Everything needs to just be right, from the spotless windows
behind closed curtains, to the teabags laid corner to corner in the
antique caddy, to every word I am allowed to say. I permit
myself agreements about the weather and anger at daily
briefings which line up nothings in identical suits, challenging
the world to spot the difference. I allow myself a single phone
call, but I never take it, though I think of its potential when I
can’t sleep, and I remember the days when I’d walk miles to
find a phone box and hang my words like prayer beads or trophy
scalps from its tangled cord. Everything needs to be urgent,
from washing cracked hands, to making tea, to every action I am
required to make. I insist on walking twice around the park and
chivvy myself into watching the daily briefings, where suited
figures at safely-spaced lecterns are a knock-off Kraftwerk,
repeating robotic phrases. It is imperative that I make a single
phone call, though the phone is too far away and too heavy to
lift, and I remember the old days, the time before this, when I
used to sleep, and I’d dream about speaking to someone on the
far side of the city, and I’d hear the humanity in their voice, and
everything would be just right.

                                13

HANNAH HODGSON

             IN THE HALF LIGHT

        after Carole Bromley

The sign is reassuring
like a piece of hardened skin rubbed subconsciously.
         You are in Salford Royal Hospital,
         the Ladywell unit, ward H8

The ward has low rumblings of pain.
A withdrawing alcoholic
the staff have hidden the hand gel from.
A missing curtain thanks to a blood splatter.
The air is thick with restlessness, forced proximity,
a polite unbearability.

When the nurse goes to the bathroom,
a patient stands on the medicine cabinet
to open a window. Her silhouette
an expectant mother, her body
pre-empting liver failure.

                           14

K AT H RY N A N N A M A R S H A L L

         MY DEATH WILL GRIEVE FOXES

                                  on being a hare in England

I am the fastest               land mammal in England

my heart              is 1.8 percent

of my body.           Love does not drive

these         turbinate bones

chased by          thirst for blood, your greed.

My name          can turn boats,

my feet        speed a charm

a gift        from gander

to gander.         Chandras calls me Sasaka

carries me             through the eighth to the full.

You parade a jug            for my blood.

Head of Ostara            childhood friend

                             15

Michabo               a lecher, a thief

Shot              year through year

for your feast.                 Home

is erased               I am only safe

in fen ridden flats           of the east

I am hare’s likeness               pursue me with slander,

gorge on this blood           for your glory.

                              16

CHRIS KINSEY

         ON THE CERI RIDGEWAY

I fancy going a few rounds with the storm
ducking gales to stand my ground at 1000 feet.
Sun slashes wind-thrown trees - the dog and I
splash west along the Ridgeway.
Snowdonia’s mountains dissolve - the middle distance
comes into focus: Roundton, Corndon, Bromlow Callow,
framed by Long Mountain and the Stiperstones.
Getting closer to the clouds clears my head.
Above brashings, a raven turns a snapped pine
into a totem. Headstrong, muted by gale,
it flies west to Cwm y gigfran* leaving
a mantle of iridescence hanging in the air.
Wings sweep petrol hues as I start the car
to hairpin home.

* Welsh for valley of the raven.

                          17

C O N N I E R A M S AY B OT T

                      RIFLE

My dad gave my mom a rifle
to help her sleep at night.
He always worked the night shift,
and this was Detroit, you understand.

I came across it one snooping afternoon
when I was nine or ten.
It sat deep in the bowels of her closet
behind our heavy winter coats.
Its wooden stock leaned against the wall,
its dull black muzzle
rested on the floor.
I didn’t dare touch it
for fear I’d rouse
the sleeping monster.

On nights when I couldn’t sleep
I’d think about it dozing near my mom,
how it was meant to keep us safe,
but was just one more thing
to worry about.

                          18

J E A N E T T E B U R TO N

THEY SAY AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS

 ‘...wild elephants have a taste for booze...’*

 And, oh, how wonderful for those elephants
 drunk on corn wine, sleeping like giant babies

 in a tea garden. For they can carry such joy,
 such naughtiness around with them,

 like a locket or a photograph in a wallet.
 Except that they can flip it open at any time:

 a stampede, a newborn in the wet season,
 migrations to find food, minerals, a lover.

 And, oh, for a memory like an elephant
 when I’m, say, eighty or more – my skin,

 greyish and sagging, still holding my bones.
 Look at me, slightly swaying over a pond.

 Yes, I hope I’m looking at the fish or feeding
 the ducks when the memory arrives,

                            19

as clear as a dream on first waking,
the two of us drunk on apricot brandy,

our bodies symmetrical, curled arms,
cosied legs, so much peace in that moment.

*livescience.com

                         20

JULIA USMAN

WAITING WITH DEMETER FOR HAND OVER

 I see Demeter first
 in Tibshelf services
 sipping tepid froth
 marooned
 by tables and travellers.
 She meets
 my half-smile.
 Small talk
 is an anchorless boat.

 ‘Collecting my daughter’
 ‘Halfway point’

 Her eyes on the swell
 of every question
 sail to the sliding door
 return, remote
 as though rough seas
 have blown her
 onto fallow land
 to mourn
 temptation.

                             21