International Poetry Competition
Fourteenth poetry competition winners
The Fourteenth International Poetry Competition closed on November 1, 2015 (click here to enter the current competition). Deliberation over the final line-up of winners was long and hard, but by January 2016 the following successful entrants were announced:
Winner
Congratulations to A.J. Graham, from Western Cape, South Africa, who wins £200 for submitting the winning poem: "Sunday Mornings".
Sunday Mornings
I awake and it’s Sunday morning
And my eyes open like the yawn of a baby.
And you are almost North like a Saint.
I can’t see your dark and floral,
lonely room.
Your arms are slowly egressing from a heavy duvet.
And you
are shirtless and dawning, newborn-like
With fresh stains of champagne.
The hair on your chest curls and twirls, springs
Unlike the soft and strong,
black delicacy on your head.
It is Sunday again – and we, we ready for this
daily routine.
You’ll rub your idleness over my busy brain.
I can’t touch
you - sweet and bitter, drifting soul.
Yet, you invite me with an arc across
the seas.
Africa is dry and fertile, filled with despair.
But I arrive in
your cold and lyrical, white world.
It is Sunday and I know the first beat of
your heart.
I lie and reach by the only means – but indirectly so.
And I
am a child on his first day of school
As I get ready to wed and pledge,
quivering to you.
The television makes a faint noise;
There is a book of
misery in my hand.
But you won’t permit these words into my mind.
As the
day passes, I have things to do.
But the day is yours, grievingly so.
My
home is cold – it never warms.
Jesus was a saviour and fleets, dragging my
cross
And you’ll rip it from me – hard like before.
I am just the little
obstacle and little hill, comfort
To be embraced like a substitute teacher.
I am your craving of the cold and beautiful, other rivers.
Special commendations
Seven special commendations go out to the following entrants (in no particular order):
- Jo Marsh, United Kingdom, "We Danced the Dance";
- Annest Gwilym, United Kingdom, "Crows";
- Mary Williams, United Kingdom, "This Is Not A Door";
- Tracy Davidson, United Kingdom, "Silence on a June Morning, 1944";
- John Ward, United Kingdom, "The Dry Valley at Malham";
- Kate Rigby, United Kingdom, "Lesson from a Washing Line";
- Shmavon Azatyan, Armenia, "My Island".
You can enter the current competition by clicking here
