In 2011, the Marple International Writing Competition was for both Short Stories and Poetry.
As in the past two years, the number of entries was gratifyingly large,and the quality excellent.
Over a three week period of reading, re-reading and sifting, it was very difficult to decide on who should go forward from each longlist.
Some very difficult decisions had to be made and here are the results of this process.
POETRY CATEGORY
The winner
‘Planting Water’ by Mary Gilonne of Pourrières, France
This was a poem full of sheer joy and enthusiasm. On first reading, it was far from clear why anyone would be burying bottles full of water in sand dunes, but this mattered not at all. From the first ‘marbled morning’ there is beauty and magic created here. We have ‘strands of bright gulls hanging slack’ and ‘soft eddies and the sensual crushing shells.’ The reader can positively feel the sand between their toes. And if at the end, they are still unsure what has happened, they should be content to have been transported to this seashore in the wind and sun of such a marbled morning.
Second prize
‘Strawberry Wish’ by Gay Horton of Bollington, Macclesfield,
This was positively tasty! This strawberry has a yearning to be appreciated to the full, with suggestions of ‘Chantilly cream swirls …like the cupolas of Crete’, and longs to be dipped ‘in the devilish meltings of your dark chocolate’. There is lovely alliteration with the ‘sarong of syrup …. seep and slide into my softest places’, and ‘Bathe me in buttermilk ‘. This poem zings with the essence of summer.
Shortlisted :
Frances Sackett of Marple, for ‘The Bones Dreaming’ This is an atmospheric poem detailing the archaeological find in Valdaro, N. Italy, of skeletons of an embracing couple. The Neolithic date of 5000-4000 BC is so long ago it is almost unimaginable, yet the fundamental togetherness of love endures. ‘Our gazes on each other / watch time sift our flesh away.’ And ‘the tangle of our bones remain/to manacle our love in death’ is the final phrase left lingering to make us remember our own mortality.
Gill Learner of Reading, for ‘Auntie Bob’s Feet’, a poem detailing the events in the life of one indomitable lady. These feet have been ‘straight-laced pacing between bandaged men’, have pedalled the harmonium, dug for victory, campaigned, followed coffins of family, and improbably tap-danced with painted toenails. In the end, ‘Now, even trapped by / tautened sheets, they’re beating time.’
Dorothy Cooke of Dronfield, for ‘Following the Recipe’ , a bittersweet metaphor of rhubarb for lover. ‘tough-skinned./Protective poisonous leaves. /Sour. The recipe follows, and reminds the poet of ‘that long gone summer day’ but she ruefully reflects ‘maybe I left you/to stew in you own juice/for too long.’
