Two Spherians in this month's line-up - Iain Colley (aka Bazza) and an Hon Mensh to Martin Parker. Well done, chaps.
Here's the report from the Deputy Editor, Tom Fleming:
THIS MONTH’S POEMS, on the subject of ‘on the beach’, were altogether rather good. Alison Prince wins first prize and £300; second prize, and £75 each, is shared by J R Gillie and Stephen Horsfall; and Iain Colley gets £10. Honourable mentions go to Martin Parker, Michael Spilberg and Nick Syrett.
Next month’s topic is ‘cowardice’. Poems must be twenty-four lines or fewer; they must rhyme, scan, and reach this office by 29 March.
(That's 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW editorial@literaryreview.co.uk)
Winter Beach
by Alison Prince
Snow enfolds the beach in pristine white
packaging. The deep clefts where pools lay
for summer shrimping nets are sealed away
with no sign of where a rash boot-step might
slide to a muffled, fatal fall. The tide
barely moves, edging the high-banked snow
with idly-laid ice filigree, and no
gulls comb the sky. Their yellow-eyed
scrounge has gone to mainland rubbish heaps,
leaving the island to its frozen dream
of August – bare feet, drippy-licked ice cream,
chips tossed to a gull-loud sky. It sleeps
intensely now, curled down to winter cold
in buried fantasy of some dark place,
still liquid, where anemones embrace
fronded water armfuls. Limpets hold
tight to wet rock walls and whelks group – or
freeze into a complex block of death.
Pray for them. And up here, take a breath
in gladness. It is enough to be sure
that there is air, and that the open eyes
can see this untouched wonder, free of harm.
Gloved fingers tingle and feel almost warm
in the sudden pulse of pure surprise.
On Dover Beach
by J R Gillie
I’ve never been what you would call a rover:
No, dear old England is the place for me.
Just breathe that air! Your first time here in Dover?
My boarding house has glimpses of the sea.
Forgive me, Sir, if I do not engage you
In badinage or chit-chat as you seek.
I am a poet. Pray, will it enrage you
If I compose, and so forebear to speak?
What’s that? A writer chappy? Well I never.
May I?... Oh I say: you’ve not got far.
‘You hear the grating roar of pebbles’. Clever.
But that light’s not in France, Sir, it’s a star
Or else a boat. And is it quite consistent
To talk of ‘roaring’, and of ‘tranquil air’?
It’s BAY not AIR. Forgive me, I’m persistent –
You’ve put it’s ‘calm’ here, but the waves ‘fling’ there.
It is a draft. Besides, I’m not appealing
To blazered idlers loafing on the beach.
This is a work of faith, a work of feeling,
A work – but I am here to write, not teach.
Now don’t take on. You are a touchy fellow.
It’s true. Those waves are kicking up a din –
Though by the way, the moon can’t ‘blanch’: it’s yellow.
Here comes the brass band! Why not put that in?
On William Dyce’s ‘Pegwell Bay’ (1859)
by Stephen Horsfall
Autumn and evening make a double ending.
The parchment sky’s reflected in the sea.
Two women, both collecting shells, are bending
To look at one. A third waits patiently.
A child who holds a spade is looking at
Some distant scene or object off the land.
Remoter figures walk across the flat
And rock-strewn beach, or, like the donkeys, stand.
Donati’s comet’s faintly seen above
The fossil-laden cliffs, whose strata seem
To show, more clearly than a book could prove,
The scale of evolutionary time.
New knowledge strains old certainties. The child
Is looking, maybe, at a coming world.
The Ideal Beach
by Iain Colley
Whisperings of the absolute
on this sand crescent where I lie...
nobody wears a bathing suit,
and lovely women wander by
more depilated than hirsute
under a perfect sapphire sky.
The sea’s near eighty Fahrenheit,
the beach as clean as sanctity,
while bleached hues colonise the light
that licks the surface of the sea.
What treats might tempt my appetite –
encrusted oysters? Chilled Chablis?
The shore shack serves a seafood dish,
the fruit of this platonic bay.
I savour molluscs and fresh fish
till, as the mirage pales away,
I drift from the fulfilling wish
to face the same-old same-old day.
Literary Review (LitRev) Comp results March 2011
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