Competition results: "Rebirth Notice"
Competition results: "Rebirth Notice"
It's verse versus verse – but did Keith Richards or Persephone take the crown?
Hi everyone! Before we get down to business, there’s a question I need your help to solve – how many subscribers of this blog/newsletter are not writers?
By which I mean, you don’t write creatively at all, not even as an occasional hobby; in fact, you have no intention of ever penning a poem or short story, let alone a novel. If this sounds like you, please let me know via the poll below. (I’ve added a couple of categories for everyone else to put themselves in too, if you’d like to participate.)
One more digression: I read two great articles this week, real “inside publishing” stuff, which I think will be of interest to my readers too (however they voted above). First, ‘How I Handle Being a Publicist’ by
is concerned with the difficulties of promoting books for a living in 2024. Open, honest descriptions of publicity work are extremely rare, so this really is a valuable read – “I doubt my therapist will ever publish a book at this point” being just one of many great lines.Then, on a lighter note, ‘Why are Paperbacks’ by
offers a brisk overview of the history and purpose of the hardback’s floppier sibling, correcting me on a lot of things I’d taken for granted – for example, did you know Allen Lane “borrowed” the entire idea for Penguin, including the cover layout and bird-related logo, from a 1930s German publisher called Albatross? I didn’t!Now that I’ve sent everyone off this site onto other blogs … whoops … it’s time to find out who has triumphed in the first ever By the Book poetry competition, which I launched at the start of the year with the theme of “Rebirth Notice”, defined as:
… a reference to the quaint “birth notices” which can still be found in some newspapers, starting something like “Mr and Mrs Smith of Smithton Village are delighted to announce the arrival of their daughter, Smithina”, then going on to provide the baby’s date of birth, weight, and sometimes names of grandparents and siblings. I’m thinking you could combine this concept with topical, early-January thoughts of renewal and rebirth, to create a really intriguing short poem.
I allowed some room for interpretation in the submissions, but deducted points from anyone who completely ignored this paragraph, and from anyone who had obviously just jammed the word “rebirth” into an existing poem and hoped to get away with it (though of course, I would like to sincerely thank everyone who took the time to enter!)
The four winners, then, in reverse order:
Highly Commended – Julia Martin
This January
pianos have sprung up
in railway stations
their come-and-go fingers
slowing suitcases
their little jazz riffs
coaxing wonder
from winter’s grip
This slight piece put an outsized smile on my face after reading, which was enough to earn it a place on the blog. That second stanza is a superb example of what poetry can do; in seven words we get a complex mental image of pianos at work and their effect on train station passengers. There’s an almost haiku-esque lightness of touch here, which takes real skill to achieve.
I’ve decided to give constructive feedback to the winners too, as a sort of extra prize (or punishment?) In this case, I think it’s a shame to start with a botanical metaphor but not follow up (I would wink to it at least once more), and the line “their little jazz riffs” is, for me, slightly out of tune. (Now that’s how you follow up a metaphor!) The other lines are so exquisitely perfect that the one non-sparkling example sticks out like a sore thumb.
Still, a fantastic effort that I’m proud to share with my blog readers. Julia wins a surprise Valley Press poetry collection, and (as with all the poems below) publication in an eventual anthology, when we’ve run a dozen or so similar contests.
Third Prize – Germaine Hypher
Status: Rebirth Disabled
How could you know, if you'd only
ever met the beech's bare boughs
burdened with broken daylight, how
once it glowed, backlit by the sun,
with peridot-green growth that shone
into one's porous heart?
If only it could show its dreams of
erumpent buds and unfurling
rebirth pressing against the sky
until eyes can't turn askance from
the mosaic of stained glass leaves
leaded with once-dismissed branches
The dreams are strong through a winter
too long; storm-toppled, bed-tethered,
identifying with bare boughs,
I make do with leaves tattooed and
strung round my throat and wish you knew
my green self, wish you noticed as you pass.
This poem has some real teeth, and superb individual lines – “the beech's bare boughs burdened with broken daylight” could pass for Gerald Manley Hopkins, and “wish you knew my green self” is a stunning line I can’t imagine ever forgetting. The poet communicates their message in a truly original and, despite the topic, almost thrilling manner.
My main criticism of this poem is, oddly, that there’s too much poetry in it; it’s like a wonderful cake that’s slightly too rich to be perfect. By the fourth line of the first stanza I’ve had all the poetry my mind can take in at once, and I’m desperate for a pause in which to absorb it; though the final two lines of the stanza are also great, I haven’t the extra capacity at that point to start trying to recall what peridot means. (I appreciate experiences may vary!) I also think it’s a shame the title is so cold, almost like a computer error message; it seems at odds with everything else about the poem.
Still, an undeniably superb work that has earned the author two surprise VP poetry collections. The next winner is very different...
Second Prize – John Farquhar
Good Morning, Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Was found
In bed
This morning
Not dead
Persistent molecules of air
Continue to circulate
As I write
In Keith’s astonished old lungs
How?
How can life’s uncertain key be slid
Into that rusted ignition
And still start Keith up?
Only the wanton Sun knows
Who shared his bed this morning
And she’s not telling.
This poem is just a couple of tiny edits away from being a perfect example of its genre; the sort of poem you might hear from the funniest person in a particular bar, who is also secretly the wisest but doesn’t like to let on (a genre perfected, for me, by VP’s own Mark Waddell). I have an endless appetite for this stuff.
You’ll note it does start roughly from my prompt, though the poet has substituted my “birth notice” with the traditional format of a “death notice”, immediately subverted for the first laugh. You then have a marvellous second stanza, a pause for drama, the best three lines, and a conclusion that brings in just a hint of beauty.
Admittedly, the basic joke itself is not new – I was reminded of the (probably apocryphal) quote from Willie Nelson: “You youngsters need to start thinking about the kind of world you are going to leave for me and Keith Richards” – but the approach is original enough to claim the second-place honours here. John wins any Valley Press book of his choice, and a surprise VP publication from any genre to go with it.
Winner – Hilary Elder
Rebirth Notice: Demeter
The Goddess Demeter is thrilled to give notice
of the new birth of her precious daughter, Persephone.
She thanks the snowdrops for their kind attention
in honouring her child, pushing through earth,
by straining upward and away from darkness,
bending only in homage to the maid
as pure and white as they are; as they prove.
Demeter asks you all to know – to know –
no tic burrows into her daughter’s fair skin –
no bruise of memory scars her thigh –
she has no past, no knowing –
this is what birth is, she reminds her readers.
Demeter’s daughter does not wink
her seed-black eyes at you, does not
sign a promise in her swaying hips,
will ripen and never rot,
will never go back under,
will never die.
This is purity, goodness, life.
Hilary commented she was “not sure this poem is fully born yet”, and despite giving it the gold medal, I would agree that it could be improved – but I also think it has a very high ceiling. This was the poem that most closely reflected my prompt, but it’s that part (the first two lines) that is currently the weakest; when the writer shrugs off my suggested form of “polite village notice”, it becomes more and more stirring, leading up to the strident second and stunning final stanzas. (I do wonder if the last line, reminiscent of the brief pencil notes I would add as a student after reading a poem, is absolutely necessary … but I could be persuaded.)
Like many of you, I have a weakness for the “new take on classic myth” genre of poem; but it takes real skill to do justice to the vast iceberg of pre-existing knowledge and emotions that these millennia-old stories drag with them, and manage to say something new, which I think this poem manages multiple times. It’s a hugely inspired piece, and if the poet does go back and improve it further – look out! “We’re making it out of the underworld with this one,” as the kids might say.
Hilary wins any Valley Press book of her choice, and two surprise VP books from any genre she pleases. (You too can enjoy a “surprise” book, by the way, for just £3 each; just head over to the relevant section of the VP bookshop. This competition was never especially high stakes, it’s the taking part that counts!)
I hope you enjoyed those poems, and thank you again to everyone who entered. I will open the next competition soon, so watch this space – I’ve got a long list now of ideas, so it’s just a matter of deciding which will be the most suitable for March, the traditional season of… er, rebirth, I guess. Hmm…