Poetry Competition

Now is the time to earn some serious dosh for Christmas or Divali or whatever...


Bank Street Writers
International Poetry
Competition 2009

Poems up to 40 lines, any subject and style.

Judge: Pat Winslow

Closing Date: 31st December 2009

Cash Prizes: 1st £75 2nd £50 3rd £25

All winning entries will be published in the internationally circulating "Current Accounts" magazine. Some commended entries may also be published at the editor’s discretion. A free copy of “Current Accounts” will be sent to each entrant whose work is published.

Please send your poems, fees and entry forms to:

Bank Street Writers Poetry Competition 2009,
Jolyon Coombs, 37, Carslake Avenue, Bolton BL1 4BT


CONDITIONS:

• Poems must be in English, must be unpublished and must not have won a prize in any other competition.
• They must be typed or word-processed, with the title at the top of the page, but the entrant's name must not appear on the poem itself.
• A completed entry form must be enclosed with each entry or set of entries.
• Entry fees: £3.00 sterling for the first entry, £2.00 for each subsequent entry by the same person. (Cheques payable to "Bank Street Writers".)
Winners will be notified by 1st February 2010. No person may receive more than one prize. The judge’s decisions will be final and no correspondence will be entered into. Manuscripts will not be returned - please keep a copy.
Please enclose an s.a.e. marked “R” if you wish to receive details of the results.

Many thanks to our sponsor, Sweetens Bookshop, Bolton.


ENTRY FORM


To: Bank Street Writers Poetry Competition 2009,
Jolyon Coombs, 37, Carslake Avenue, Bolton, BL1 4BT



NAME:

ADDRESS:






I wish to enter the Bank Street Writers Poetry Competition 2009 and enclose £............ payable to "Bank Street Writers" (£3.00 for the first entry, £2.00 for each subsequent entry). I accept the Conditions of the Competition.

signed…………………………………………… date………………………


POEM
TITLES: 1)
2)
3)
4)
(continue overleaf if necessary)

This form may be photocopied if required
Please ensure that you have completed all necessary sections!

Smile

Somewhere between saffron and terracotta
but south of tangerine the patchouli of a smile
slips soft into this slowing evening
folds into a harmony of
synaptic electric blue
and dorian aquamarine
lifts the last hours of the day
out of the dove and the slate and the jet
up into amethyst cobalt
delphinium cornflower
the warmer blues of connection.

Reflections of barley lampshades
khaki washed Rodins float on
midnight indigo outside the
panoramic window whilst inside
champagne shadows blur into
the lamplight mute the knifed angles
the harsh ivory cornices
the razor-edged leaves of a plant
that hears everything in emerald
and the smile shimmers
reverberates golden through the night.

Short Story Comp Results

Bank Street Writers
International Short Story Competition 2009 Results
Judged by Gaye Gerrard
Well-known Lancashire writer, broadcaster and publisher


1st Prize: £75.00

‘Making Sense Of It,’ by Joan V. Park

Judge’s Comment
This is a powerful and poignant story of commonplace experiences told with intensity and clarity. It is enriched by the poetic style and a light touch of humour.


2nd Prize: £50.00

‘Talking to Maurice’ by Brindley Hallam Dennis

Judge’s Comment
The simplicity of this story is captivating. Gentle irony and pathos are combined beautifully in its unexpected ending


3rd Prize: £25.00

‘Cohen’s Legacy’ by Charlotte Matthews

Judge’s Comment
The structure is unusual and the reader is drawn quickly into this compelling piece. The ominous refrain contributes to the mounting tension as the story moves inexorably towards it disturbing conclusion

Highly Commended:

‘Still The same Old Catherine’ by Judy Walker

Judge’s Comment
Reversals of roles and emotional challenges within a mother/daughter relationship are explored in this story. It is both light-hearted and profound.



The above will be published in the Autumn edition of Current Accounts magazine.

A prizegiving celebration will be held at 6.30.pm.on Tuesday 11th August at Sweetens Bookshop in Bolton to which all are invited. Our thanks to all who entered.

Poésie de foie gras

The voices of my education
cajoled coerced caned me until Yes
I remembered Adlebloodystrop and could
parrot a wet sheet and a flowing sea as
I walked beside the fag factory where
all our mothers worked
as I listened
with a host of phantom listeners
to gold flake accents on black and white TVs
on black and brown radios
as I repeated the lines of an
elegy in an outside toilet that left the
world to darkness and to me.

Such a pilgrimage were not sweet
it was the worst of times
facing the true north of cliché and predictability
in the old dispensation
with alien teachers clutching their gods
and us leaning cool on the wire fence
standing on our tongues
as the girls wiggled past
drinking anything
in pubs and cafés as we smoked our youth
spoke of novelists
musicians playwrights. But poets?

They were all dead and
would have conveniently remained so
if I had listened to the voices of
my accursed education:
understanding is clever
provided you understand
in one particular way which
in your particular case
will be denied to you.
So I struggled with
the naming of parts
had nightmares about vorpal blades
and wondered how the hell
eye could rhyme with symmetry.


Waiting is hardest when you are
all eager for the treat but not sure
what you are waiting for
but the weather as always
turned around I saw through
the folly of their understanding
missed fewer chances with the lords of life
realising that a cloud is never lonely
wrapping my tears in an ellum leaf
and delaying the deadly onset of
cyrrhosis of the ego.

Blind Atlas in concert

Authentic Burritos sound from local band.

International Short Story Competition

Bank Street Writers International Short Story Competition is now open with prizes of £75 £50 and £25. With a 1500 word limit and a deadline of 1st June 2009, this competition usually attracts a large entry and winning it is indeed a sign of literary eminence. Most British writing groups will be sent entry forms but a copy can also be obtained from fjameshartnellATaolDOTcom (replacing the capitals with the usual signs).

There should also be copies of the entry form on the Bank Street website (http://freewebs.com/bankstreetwriters/ ) and on the Write Out Loud website (www.writeoutloud.net)

Happy Writing!

Recent Italian Poetry from Erri De Luca and Roberta Dapunt

I was fortunate on a recent trip to Italy to pick up the latest collections from these two poets. Finding very new poetry seems to be just as hard in Italy as it is here. Most bookshops carry very little poetry and publishing houses with the exception of Einaudi seem to play safe with the old classics.

Erri De Luca: L’ospite incallito 2008 pub Einaudi Turin ISBN 978-88-06-19261-7 67pp. €8.00

L’ospite incallito (The inveterate guest) is the third book of poetry by Erri De Luca, who is perhaps better known for his many prose works. The book is in four sections: Effetti personali, Natura, Historia, and Persone. Within these sections are recurring themes which preoccupy us all: life and death, war, opposites and dualities, love and relationships as well as the de rigueur (for a Neapolitan linguaphile like De Luca) poems on accent, dialect and language such as Da noi, L’estate del ’43 and especially Proposta di modifica:

‘ C’è il verbo snaturare, ci dev’essere pure innaturare
…
M’innaturo di te quando t’abbraccio.’

Some of these poems derive their impact and weight from a catalogue or litany of examples. In L’ospite incallito it is all the different ways and places where he has been a guest; in Prontuario per il brindisi di capodanno, it is all the different toasts one could propose; in the excellent Da un verso di Marina Z, it is all the different places where celestial attraction exists.
Other poems reflect De Luca’s political life and interests but seem to me to be more observational than expressive. For me, his exceptional poetry is that which deals with his relationships: Maniera, Coincidenza col padre, Il nome: Aldo De Luca amongst others. With its great range of subject matter, this collection will appeal to all sorts of poetry lovers.

Roberta Dapunt: La terra più del paradiso 2008 pub Einaudi Turin ISBN 978-88-06-18583-1 49pp €8.00

This is Roberta Dapunt’s third collection, the others being OscuraMente (1993) and La carrezzata mela (1999). The title ( The Earth More Than Paradise) comes from a line in the first, untitled poem of the collection:

‘Perché solo è il corpo ad amare la terra più del paradiso,
nient’altro che la carne a mangiare il pane e bere il vino.’

Roberta Dapunt’s poems are unusual and special because she uses an almost classical economy of phrasing rather than the more everyday style of some of her contemporaries, without ever sounding contrived or precious, and also because she includes some poems written in her local Ladino with Italian translations beneath.

Her faith is confirmed daily by the regular dependability of rural life, by the inexorable rolling in of the seasons, especially winter.

‘Tutto è qui nella riservatezza rurale che ripeto
mattina e sera’
(from Di ritorno dalla stalla)

The silence and the solitude of life on a mountain farm inform her work where reflections on religion, birth and death, the family, and the writing process itself are all woven into days spent in the cowshed, the vegetable garden, the fields, and within the confines of her room. She is immersed in the land, looking after it as if it was her house (La mia confessione fedele); the hay and the dung and the solitude are her covenant (Di ritorno dalla stalla); she is so at one with the seasons that winter is inside her (Un altro inverno); when she has died she knows she will be the hay that is eaten, the floor of the cowshed, the silence that devours time between morning and evening (Ora che posso obbedire a me stessa).

Other poems deal with the difficulties of writing: her coarse,smelly hands waiting for her to write something (Mie mani); being sorry that she has no regrets at all about her poetry (penitenziale); inviting a pretend friend to sit and listen (le intime riflessioni, i); realising the room where she writes is her refuge (ibid,ii); repeating her words in the dark so that they enter her soul (ibid, iii); while writing, being transported to the dark of the cowshed (ibid, v).

Local characters are described with acute observation in other poems. There are also the heart-searching talks between the poet and God which alone are well worth reading.

The most moving poem in the collection for me is ‘Padre, questo viso sepolto’ with its simple but universal regret:

‘se solo ti avessi incontrato di più e baciato.’

If only, indeed. Roberta Dapunt has an authentic, honest, appealing voice in these poems and I am sure we will be hearing more of her in the future.

Cern

Accelerating around this bolgia
for a fortnight: now it’s time.
These collisions will explode
the pondering of centuries.

The Atlas detector’s 1000 megapixel subatomic
camera surveys a billion points of impact:
the world’s fastest lenses blink, focus smugly,
million-gig computer banks across the planet
hum hungry for data, for deity.

Fifty years’ thinking destroyed in a millionth
of a second, unless Atlas finds the Higgs boson,
God particle, universe glue. Seed of dark
matter, dream until now. Birth and decay.

Hawking, who has lain with God, predicts these new
man-made black holes will self-destruct.
The rest of us wait in ignorant, fearful humility.

This is the second dawn of creation:
new dimensions arc and crackle
around the essence of life distilled
in the genesis machine
and God withdraws his hand.