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08-05-2010, 05:07 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2010
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Literary Review (LitRev) Comp results August
Sorry for the few days' wait (it's been nearly 14 years since I last saw my name here; hope it's not 2024 before I see it again!).
Full marks to Literary Review for paying immediately; I received the magazine and the cheque today.
THIS MONTH'S POEMS were on the subject of 'intelligence'.
Jayne Osborn wins first prize and £300, kindly sponsored by the Mail on Sunday; J R Gillie takes second prize, and £150; all others printed receive £10, and Josh Ekroy gets an honourable mention. Next month's subject, for poems that rhyme and scan, is 'party animal'; the deadline is 25 August.
First Prize
Mother Care by Jayne Osborn
'I'd like a pair of those rubber gloves,'
says my Mother (aged eighty-four),
and during the next ten minutes or so
says the same thing four times more.
The 'rubber gloves' are just napkins, which
are folded and stacked in a pile;
the waitress brings us a pot of tea,
with a false and indulgent smile.
This is the mother who taught me well,
to love literature and art,
who can't remember my children's names
but knows 'Adlestrop' by heart.
'She used to be so intelligent,'
I'm often heard to explain.
'Until a couple of months ago
there was nothing wrong with her brain.'
In her day she'd been a magistrate:
highly respected, and clever.
Retirement had brought new challenges;
she was always busy. However,
we leave the café, our roles reversed;
me, with a child whom I love.
I denounce senility and then...
wipe my eyes on a rubber glove.
Second Prize
Intelligence: a Biography by J R Gillie
Intelligence, you change your shape, I fear –
'Hard to define,' say all the theorists here.
How can I summarize your long career?
You started as a schoolboy with sad eyes
Who hardly ate, but won a sixth-form prize
Aged barely nine, preferring pi to pies.
In adolescence, aiming to confuse,
And paired with Bold, you trashed your elders' views.
To Georgians you were the latest news.
A hundred years went by. No longer male,
A friend of Eliot and Nightingale,
Consigned to plainness, you were right but stale.
You changed your name to 'Human' – a mistake.
A universal concept on the make,
There were no taboos which you could not break.
Equations yielded to you with a clash
Of brain cells. Then a catastrophic hash
Of atoms ended cities in a flash.
Suddenly older; liberal, rather vain,
You won't acknowledge what you can't explain.
Once thought divine, you think Belief insane.
You're rational, and yet you've lost your glow.
Spies hunt you down, but everything you know
Depends on genes. Computers tell us so.
Counter-intelligence by Alanna Blake
Instinct. Conditioned reflex. They're without
such brains as ours; they cannot really think,
just act mechanically; some, no doubt,
quite clever, but with many a missing link.
I turn from this loud dogmatist, appraise
two nest-protecting robins tricking cats,
collective miracles by ants and bees,
a collie working sheep, blind guides, blind bats,
home rivers that tired salmon reach to spawn,
home lofts where long-haul pigeons come to roost.
Abandon us among the alien corn
and maps or satnavs still could get us lost.
So why this stress upon intelligence?
It's just another human construct made
of self-delusion and intransigence:
the way we dare to think life's game is played.
The monk and his dog by Nick Syrett
Each day I form in black and gold
Rich letters to acclaim the Lord,
Or with my chisel I unfold
Some capering misericord.
And at my heels or at my side,
Or on my feet at Christmastide,
Or sighing on the cloister floor,
Or waiting by the chapter door –
My deep-eyed dog is always there,
My life a pattern for his own.
I am his joy and his despair,
His pay, poor scraps of bread and bone.
And all my joys of sound and sight,
The plainsong marching through the night,
The clerestory's needless height
And daily gifts of morning light,
Are groans and tricks and follies if
My dog's a brute and nothing more,
Who grins and capers, bounds and sniffs
Beneath some mindless muscle-law:
I would, Lord, that he is to me
What I aspire to be to thee,
And knows himself, and plays his part,
With conscious soul and rendered heart.
Last edited by Jayne Osborn; 08-05-2010 at 05:33 PM.
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08-05-2010, 05:19 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Sweden
Posts: 14,175
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Fine work, Jayne. Still kowtowing.
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08-06-2010, 10:41 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Yorkshire , England
Posts: 319
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A well-deserved first, Jayne. Sincere congratulations.
When I first discovered the LitRev, some 20 years ago, the first prize was £400 (a fortune then!) and there were always at least 2, and often 3, whole poetry pages. And some Sphereans may not know that, every year, the sponsors of the Poetry Prize - currently the Mail on Sunday - choose the one poem they deem to be the best from the year's winners, invite the winner to town, wine and dine them, and present them with a really big cheque - 5 thousand quid.
Of course, to win the first (£350) or second (£150) prizes, and to be in with a chance for the big one, a subscription to the mag is stipulated. But it's worth it, it's such a good mag.
We have at least one big winner in the 'sphere, and at least 2 frequent first-prize-baggers (I don't think I need to tell you who). I'd like to see Sphereans doing a Speccie in the LitRev and sweeping the board.
Again, bravo Jayne, and keep it up!
Joan
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08-06-2010, 10:55 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Dayton, Ohio
Posts: 1,035
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Jayne. Very moving. Congratulations!
Well done indeed.
Don
Last edited by Don Jones; 10-18-2010 at 07:41 PM.
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08-06-2010, 10:57 AM
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Distinguished Guest
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Belmont, Massachusetts USA
Posts: 2,976
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Lovely poem, Jayne. Well deserving of the prize.
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08-06-2010, 01:34 PM
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Administrator
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Middle England
Posts: 6,950
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...and you're all lovely, too. I've just come home and read your posts, which have cheered me up and for which I thank you; I had a bad headache and felt really tired today, but it's now Friday night and the wine has been opened, fillet steaks are grilling - the weekend starts here!
Joan,
Many thanks for posting that interesting LitRev info (I knew the stuff already but most of our friends here won't be aware of it). I'm not sure whether they still do it, but LitRev also used to produce an anthology every so often, with the winning poems in it. My one and only other big win was back in December 1996, so when their Poetry 2000 anthology came out, containing the winners' poems from Sept 96 - July 00, I thought excitedly, "I'll be in it!" I bought a copy - but imagine my despair to discover that it was edited and my prize poem had been omitted, in favour of three of the £10 runner-up poems from that month. (I'm not sure if I've forgiven the guest editor yet!)
But I agree with you - let's get Spherians' names in this magazine regularly!
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08-06-2010, 01:43 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12,945
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Well, I do my best. But it's rarely good enough. mutter-mutter
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08-09-2010, 10:13 AM
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Inside the Beltway
Posts: 4,057
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Hurrah, Jayne! This is great news!
As poets go, you're rich! You've already made more than Villon ever did!
Don't spend it all in one place...
Seriously, congrats!
Thanks,
Bill
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08-09-2010, 11:57 AM
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Administrator
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Middle England
Posts: 6,950
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Thanks, Bill. (My husband keeps trying to tell me I've already spent it!)
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08-09-2010, 06:36 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Connecticut, USA
Posts: 7,563
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Jayne,
Way to go! Your poem is quite moving and I enjoyed reading it.
Best,
Martin
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