There were some
common themes - since the entrants are all poets, it should come as no surprise
that poetry about poems and the writing process were popular. There were
several entries replying to well-known poets – to Wordsworth on daffodils, to
Keats on ceramics, and two divergent views on how the marriage of Lear’s Owl
and Pussycat turned out. The nature of the Charm Poetry Competition possibly
encouraged the channelling of writers’ inner Ogden Nash, or Spike Milligan - the
animal kingdom featured strongly. Vertebrates dominated, though we were happy
to see the starfish, and the usually vilified or ignored wasp. Animal types
included domestic (cats and dogs), domesticated (sheep and goats), and a range
of mammals of different sizes: the familiar African bestiary of lions, rhinos
and elephants, and smaller mammals such as lemmings - twice. Birds were
represented by members of the corvid family in particular.
Unsurprisingly, Covid-19
and lockdown featured strongly too. Sometimes addressing the damage done, but
in other poems, examining the side-effects – enforced domesticity, greater bonding,
rediscovering nature, or the strange news items that couldn’t have happened
before.
Competition reports usually
contain a description of the assessment process – how a judge takes a field of nearly
250 entries and reduce them to a handful. And the usual approaches were
followed here – read, wait a while, re-read, all the time, asking questions.
Does this jump off the page? Does it jar? Has it been carved, like sculpture,
so that only the essential remains? What impression is left after a second
reading, or a third?
At times, I felt
envious of those judging ‘heaviest vegetable’ competitions, because judging
poetry will always be a subjective matter. With that disclaimer out of the way, here are
my thoughts on the winning entries.
American humourist
James Thurber said ‘Let us not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but
around in awareness’. In ‘Anti-viral’, John Ling gave voice to Thurber’s wish,
to describe the warmth and joy of a human relationship, and its ultimate
triumph over Covid and the associated damage it has caused for so many.
Many poets use
visual language to describe the world. Victoria Sherratt takes a different
approach in ‘Sound Supermarket’, and addresses a world in which we can shop for
sounds. This results in a fresh and more intimate view – or perhaps, hearing –
of an everyday trip to the shops.
An aim of the Charm
Poetry competition is to promote poetry filled with warmth, whimsy, wit and
wordplay. Andrew Wilson successfully rose to the challenge with his poem ‘Once
upon a Llama’ – turning up the tension – and the wordplay – steadily, until the
reader is totally captivated by an unusual telephone conversation.
You can read the
winning poems here.
