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Mary MacRae’s second collection
published Aug 10 by Second Light Publications. See order form (pdf file) for discount offers
Listen to Jennie Osborne reading There’s Something About a Woman Swallowing Flames
Congratulations to our winner this month, Gill McEvoy, for her poem Bridge, and to our commended poets: Jo Bell, Carlotta Miller Johnson, Maggie Norton and Sibyl Ruth, whose poems will be submitted again to next month’s judge, along with 11 other poems. Our judge this month is Myra Schneider and her comment on the winning poem is given below.
Its shape an arc between two worlds,
a sudden brief flight into space
and down again, an eyebrow raised.
Two stout roots that fuse in No-Man’s land,
it’s frozen in the leap that it began.
Consider its masonic handshake
world to world, the messages that pass.
Admire its daring jump between two points.
Place your hands on its naked bones;
touch its loneliness.
Poem published: Poetry Nottingham, 2007.
Judge’s comment:
From the many poems which appealed to me I finally chose one of ten lines – Bridge by Gill McEvoy. I was particularly struck by the original and telling images which create the sense of space and movement in space, also the personification of the bridge at the end, for which Gill makes subtle preparation. The syntax, which moves from statement to the imperative, is very effective. The shifts from an opening three line stanza, to two line stanzas and then single lines – the last one short, also support this poem. It carries considerable emotional force.
Last, by Jo Bell
A Week on the Missouri, by Carlotta Miller Johnson
Mrs Tennyson is Interviewed in the Morning Room at Farringford, by Maggie Norton
Curious, by Sibyl Ruth
