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Keele Poetry Competition
Congratulations to Gill McEvoy, winner of the new Keele Poetry Competition, open to poets from the three counties of Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire. The competition was judged by Jackie Kay. Gill's winning poem is published with her permission.
Visit From a Long-eared Bat
Fierce winds have flung you in from the night,
hurled you against the lit veranda wall,
a spatter of black mud. You cling.
We greet your strange arrival with delight.
I see the fish-hook on your wing,
the thin vanes on its leathered fan
as you splay it out, then draw it in,
your soft wax melting in and out of shape.
Your ears, black spathes of arum,
shiver to the echo of a moth in flight.
You’ve moved right round; now, upside-down,
could plummet any second
like a fat ripe plum,
splatter on the stones below,
stain them with the seep of
sloe-dark blood.
The night is lashed by wind,
clouds claw across the moon’s white face -
a moth blows in and batters at the lamp;
your sudden shadow shears my head.
Cheshire Waterways Poetry Competition 2007
Cheshire Winner: David Lamb
The competition was judged anonymously by Cheshire Poet Laureate Jo Bell and Jamie McKendrick. The two winning poets were announced on National Poetry Day and will receive a cheque for £150 each. Congratulations to David and Kate, and thanks to all entrants.
Towpath Poem (Trent and Mersey Canal, Spring 2007)
They are changing the colour of the field
Across from Rockpits. Blue-cabbed tractor
Cutting grass: in the hedge
A cock pheasant is drowned out.
The pleading voices of lambs
Are blown this way and that.
Grey heron on the far bank
Gets up, but low enough
To almost feather tip
Its slow green shadow.
Newness is wearing off ducklings
No longer mottled smudges,
Whirling legs with beak first.
And there are still eight.
Swallows faster than thought, blade height,
Stretch perspective, tug vanishing points.
Far off, rooks circle farmyard oaks.
Mallards are flighting overhead.
Canada geese in a bunched clamour
Curve their wings to land,
Group, graze . . . spread out.
Someone is fishing off the stern
Moored close to where two summers ago
The carp rose, tilted, sucked
At the algaed edge, its mailed back
Broad as a fox terrier’s.
The big woods throw shapes
Through sudden white sun splashes
Colouring the cut from the sky.
A black modern narrow boat
With speakers before the slide hatch,
Spills out a Levellers CD.
The man nods to “One Way of Life”,
Feet on the counter, arm on the tiller bar. . .
Moving into a cave of leaf-overhang
Softens paintwork, mutes roses and castles.
Song thrushes and blackbirds seep back,
Trees have their say again, and water.
In the lane sorrel, buttercups,
Red campion, ox-eye daisy drifts. . .
And found, you’re almost sure,
A single fragrant orchid,
Yet couldn’t find again.
But you’re content first to wait, quiet
As the year quickens, then
Impatient for a rush of meadow vetchling,
Convolvus, hedge woundwort, red dead-nettle,
Rosebay and giant willow herb, tufted vetch. . .
Shardlow 84, Preston Brook 8:
Forget what the mile post said,
Standing up like autumn ink cap
In the warm early evening.
While you on the towpath,
360 degrees, mood swings, gazing,
Boots laced up tight, balls of the feet –
Wishing to be everywhere at once. |
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