LitRev (Results + November Comp details)
 

Howdy pardners - yee-haaa! Chris O'Carroll is on a roll, with recent wins in The Spectator, The Oldie and now a Literary Review prize - many congratulations to Chris and also to Iain Colley (aka Bazza). Sadly they both miss out on the big money that yours truly received, though.

Here's the official blurb:

NIGHT & DAY GRAND POETRY PRIZE
No poem entered on the subject of ‘cowboy’ was considered good enough to win first prize, so two poets have won second prize, and £150 each, kindly sponsored by the Mail on Sunday. Next month’s subject is ‘stalking’; the deadline is 23rd November.

Second Prize: Legend by Chris O’Carroll
My name is Slim or Curly
And I ride the open plains.
I’m plumb in love with horses
From their hooves up to their manes.

Spurs jingle at my boot heels,
A holster hugs my thigh.
My favorite year is yester
And my favorite noon is high.

A ‘cowpoke’ some folks call me.
Shut up, I’ve heard the jokes.
I live on beans, black coffee,
Red-eye whiskey, hand-rolled smokes.

West Texas up to Abilene,
I smell like all outdoors.
Fragrance don’t concern a man
Whose only dates are whores.

My hard hands give Chicago
And New York their tender steak.
The work is long and low-paid
And I squander what I make.

Beneath the starry Western sky
I lay my restless head.
You can catch me in the movies
Decades after I am dead.

Second Prize: Man of the West by Iain Colley
We view him in iconic incarnations:
perhaps with cows, more likely with a Colt
or swallowing bar whiskey by the jolt;
both free and shouldering his obligations,
the sober code that westerners espouse,
to be a man. And not by herding cows.

His strength must combat villainy and danger.
Can any man be violent yet just
whose gun ensures that black hats bite the dust
like bowling pins? (Smile when you say that, stranger.)
This weatherbeaten god, booted and spurred,
a natural stoic, never wastes a word.

The movies show the double bind he faces,
the Nemesis he plays to his own role.
His ruthless righteousness upholds the goal
of settled order, but once that replaces
the frontier stance and quickness on the draw
he’ll be redundant to the rule of law.

Cow Boy by J R Gillie
His gait was formed by earth, his arm by toil.
To reassuring clicks, comforting coos,
he shaped his tongue, in answer to the moos
of the calm beasts who trod his father’s soil.

He rarely rode his horse. Astride a calf,
aged five or six, he’d sway around the yard.
His parents let him know their life was hard,
that they were living it on his behalf,

So he might have a new house, square and trim,
a model farm, fresh pastures and a life
leavened with comforts suited to the wife
which such possessions would attract for him.

He left it all behind, and made his mark
in cities where you never see the stars,
threading his way each night through herds of cars,
to hayless lofts, high in the semi-dark.

He did write once, saying he’d come home soon.
The land was sold, and now in one vast shed
the Fresians are mechanically fed.
He dreams of them, when there’s a horn-shaped moon.

The Cowboys by Alison Prince
Here they come, the cowboys in their white van,
swinging their lariats of words, roping
the mug, dumping him hog-tied on the sand
of the quick-sale sierra. He’s hoping
the boiler these guys sold him is OK,
not knowing that it came from two streets down
and will be bust by Christmas. Whistling, they
ride on, nonchalant, through the lucky town
they chose to favour. Cactus blooms. The sun’s
at high noon in each junk yard and each house
where owners fret about wet that’s begun
to seep through cellars or an ominous
clanking in the pipes. Their signature tune
is clip-clopping hooves and the ring of cash –
‘No cheques, please, Missus, we’ll be moving on,
our bank’s not here.’ With sweet talk and whiplash
they corral punters to their proper use
as rumpsteak, count the wads of folded notes
after the round-up, buy six-packs, drink. Dust
and their laughter drift through parking lots.
The old Injun watches from his small fire.
Coyotes howl, or it’s a police car.
The white van has gone in a squeal of tyres,
leaving the Injun and just one lone star.