NATIONAL POETRY DAY WINNERS ANNOUNCED

INCLUDES MY COMMENTS ON THE RESULT OF THE CHOSEN POEMS FOR THE
NATIONAL POETRY DAY

I am on my theme of fairness, without prejudice and still respecting the privilege and our personal right to think what we choose. How we represent that in any art form is an individual choice. Cartoons can hit home like a cloud burst drenching the washing on the garden line. The artists use very unflattering caricatures that must hurt to convey a message. I love them and retain the feeling of respect and sympathy for the victim.

The written word I choose to use. The way it is presented has moved over the centuries and recent decades into various forms. Some have been short lived ideas and writers have experimented, rebelled against form and wrote how they wanted to present their ideas. It hasn't always been poetic although ee cummings style does have some merit for me.

We are blessed with ‘loads’ of writers and styles that can suit us or not. For me words need to fit together in a rhythm that moves along the line and into the next one. Poetry is a moving item and should be poetic. Prose poems can do this, but not all.

I have read the winning poem of the National Poetry Day by Susannah Hart called ‘Rereading the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy’. Well, that’s some title. The judges, all three acclaimed poets, who said, amongst other things “mimics the language of the bureaucratic document while cunningly manipulating the impersonal and timeless phrasing”. Sounds good, that, doesn't it?
They also commented that when reading it that it was one sentence. It needed commas which were liberally scattered around through the numerous lines arranged as though it actually was a poem.

If I wanted to know about safeguarding children I would actually read the policy and not this attempt. I have read some of the others and not been impressed so maybe in that pile of 16,000 entries I might find something poetic.

I despair. Even to the point of writing about it and writing poems. I feel like giving up.

National Poetry Day Winners - Go on google it.

Then I remembered a group of poets in Ledbury who wrote ‘In Plain Sight’, a collection of poems inspired by the historic Alleys and Yards of Ledbury. Real people writing about places they loved. It showed through those emotions. Now refreshed. Fit to fight on for another day.