I
The numbers are always frightening. Over 1500 poems submitted. Perhaps only 200 of those demand further reading after a brutal first sifting. Of the 200, something like 150 will be lost as the quality threshold rises; perhaps about 50 poems are left to be lived with, read repeatedly, pitted against each other. Of these a final dozen or so rise to the surface and it is here especially that the judge’s personal preferences kick in.
As a late substitute for Elaine Feinstein, it has to be the case that some who might have succeeded in this year’s competition perhaps did not; equally there are others whose chance came quite unexpectedly. Even so, I’m sure the particular poems that reach the final 50 are most likely to have been the same ones, regardless of the judge’s personal preference. This is because much of the early sifting out is concerned with negatives.
II
Poems do not get the green light because basic elements are not competently done. Competitions are full of pieces where a particular verse form or rhyme pattern tyrannises the sentiment. The writer’s submission to this tyranny becomes clear quickly through the contortions imposed on the language to achieve a rhyme.
I love lanes that twist and turn
Through rolling countryside.
I never know just what I’ll find
As onwardly I stride.
The writer’s choice of language can be devastating to the life of the poem. It just isn’t right to opt for forms of language or abbreviations that died out early in the nineteenth century. Here is an orchid:
Nestled at the foot of a bank,
Fed by a tiny stream,
Amidst the stones and ferns
Sits a beauty all unseen . . .
A beautiful sight to behold
For all who come hither . .
Whether the subject matter is nature or love (and it usually is) this Golden Treasury diction is something poets have been fighting to ditch for well over 100 years. Writers drawn to it in 2006 of course betray their lack of reading in contemporary poetry but it’s worse than that. What is at fault here is not the individual but an education system that still loads teachers with requirements for pre-1770 or pre-1914 material but usually has no such requirement for material written after the First World War. Literary education for generations remains weirdly foreshortened.
Choice of diction can derail an entry if it is doggedly abstract. Sure, there remains much debate about whether it is the narrow English tradition that insists on things rather than ideas – but poems about fear, ignorance, poverty, eternity and love which refuse to dip a toe into anything resembling a real life situation are going to find progress hard.
Death comes to all in the end
And all that is left is the soul.
The soul is the light of the universe . . .
And in a matter of seconds
It’s floating through space
Making its journey out of the solar system . .
I think the fourth error is that of using language without being fully aware of its likely resonance with a reader. So a poem called ‘Mother’s Pride’ which turns out not to be aware of the loaf of bread is going to have apparently unanticipated clutter to climb over in the reader’s mind. Louis MacNeice wanted the poet not to be an ivory tower type, but rather “able-bodied, fond of talking, a reader of the newspapers, capable of pity and laughter, informed in economics . . . actively interested in politics”. And if that means the poet stays up to date with the way words live then he’s right.
III
So now we are into the final stages when the judge can focus more clearly on the sense, the story, the thought of a poem. One of the pitfalls here can be the tediously slow. I thought about this a good deal as I have been reading Steven Johnson’s interesting book, Everything Bad is Good for You. It controversially argues that popular culture, rather than dumbing us all down, in fact enables us to process and problem-solve at faster rates. One piece of evidence he proposes is the increase in both speed and complexity of very popular and populist TV material such as ER, The Sopranos and 24 in comparison to Emergency Ward 10 and Z Cars.
I don’t think I saw much evidence
in the entries of this, but I think it helped me become more aware that it did
form one of my own judging criteria. A successful modern poem must engage and
move at a brisk rate. The Italian
Romantic poet, Leopardi says a poem should “keep the mind in constant and
lively movement and action, transporting it suddenly, and often abruptly, from
one thought, image, idea, or object to another . . . so that the mind . . .
feels invigorated, as one does in walking quickly or in being carried along by
swift horses”.
This has been quoted in Poetry
London by its editor, Maurice Riordan. He also praises “an athleticism in a poem, a tightness of
line and a syntactical speed” and though there other qualities a poem must have
if it is to draw one back, if it is to excite many minds, if it is to prove
memorable, he argues that it is “the sudden feeling of acceleration in one’s
attention that first announces the presence of a true poem”.
IV
Another issue in my mind was the one about amateurism. We all know
poetry is a strange business in that so many try to write it, but so few seem
willing to buy and read it. Judy Gahagan in a recent Acumen brought to
light this discussion: whether the widespread and often poor quality of poetry
writing compromises its status as a great art form. Judging a competition
reveals one relevant truth: that much of the amateurism is of a therapeutic
nature. So many poems entered seem to be written by people as one-offs, sparked
by specific events and experiences and their utterly valid purpose is to deal
with the experience in much the same way as a letter or diary entry might. The
audience for these pieces is really the writers themselves. No doubt this is
what most writers do on some level, but for those ‘professionals’ that motive
is matched and surely out-grown by the growing battle with the materials
themselves - language, form, rhythm. The audience here is wider – the culture,
the people of our own time for whom we articulate new and familiar things but
in new ways where we can.
Of course, it can be hard to tell the really new from the merely
fashionable or the perversely strange. How does a competition function in such
an environment? By its very nature – with poems measured against other poems –
competitions will veer towards the conservative in their choices (even more so
when a committee of judges presides). Occasionally really new work may come to
light – but the fact remains that on every prize-giving evening there
will be genuine encouragement for the winners who – by winning at all – have
proved successful in staging a raid on and in putting to flight (however
briefly it may be) the inarticulate. They deserve our congratulations.
V
Comments on the winning poems:
4th – ‘Nissyros’ - I enjoyed this for its elegant form and
its scene painting in vivid Mediterranean colours, but particularly because
these elements were in the service of an interesting exploration of what the
poem calls “the world’s tremendous random” and its closing line’s ambiguous
(for me) tone - is this a reason to despair, or is this an opportunity?
4th – ‘Keys’ – is a really lively piece of imaginative
writing - though again well controlled and formed on the page – the keys
drifting in and out of personification and hence being attributed power and
personality in ways which the poet manages to work so that it is really about
ourselves, places, borderlines, memories and love.
4th – ‘Oar’ – is such a quiet poem it packs a surprising
punch in the end - delicate and reined-in – as the relationship it discusses –
it rather reverses the usual trajectory of moving from concrete to abstract and
moves from the tense relationship outwards to the scene through the camera
shutter, then further (I think) to the photograph viewed sometime later.
4th – ‘At the Skip’ – also tells its story and unloads
considerable emotional weight through the steady deployment of real details. I
admire the way it moves seamlessly from the skip to the hospital to the
magpie-like woman and finally to the clinching image at the end which carries
the full weight of the loss.
3rd – ‘Tattoo’ – I love this poem’s use of naïve-sounding
rhyme which rather belies the complexity of a poem which is about love, the
body, the heart and in the end, death. This was one of those late-comers to the
final few poems – rising steadily the more I read it. Perhaps the most powerful
image is the fresh rose at the end contrasted with the skin - and which of
these is being referred to in the final line?
2nd – ‘Cut’ – in contrast to Tattoo, this poem caught my eye
early on and maintained its place against almost all comers. Wonderfully
concrete description is what made it stand out - the cheese, the peas, the pork
chops – but the latter half of the poem – the more mysterious half is what
gives it its power – images of what becomes visible when our normal selves are
put away and the dark (is it?) animalistic ending still intrigues me, with the
ambiguity of the word “closer” – dangerously close, or intimately so?
Winner – ‘Vinegar on the Sundeck’ – Assured in form, wonderfully
confident in voice (or rather voices), this poem implies so much more than it
says. And yet what it says is delightful and enjoyable too – the unforgettable
image of the mother and daughter vinegaring their feet will not leave me! Yet
embedded in it we see three generations of women – indeed we hear them each
speak. It’s a melancholy poem to be sure – mortality and loss, but the
closeness implied in these relationships means the poem does not leave us in a gloomy
state – it is affirmative.
MC
March 2006