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THE MELITA HUME SHORTLIST 2014: VICTORIA KENNEFICK (11 OF 11)

Last, but not least, we come to the 11th shortlisted poet, all read and selected from many more fine submissions, by our judge for this year, Emily Berry. We will be announcing the winner on the 7th of May. Dr Victoria Kennefick (pictured) is a native of Shanagarry, Co. Cork.She was a receipient of a Fulbright Scholarship in 2007 and completed her PhD in Literature at University College Cork in 2009. Her poems have been published in The Stinging Fly, Southword, Wordlegs, The Weary Blues and Abridged. She won the Red Line Book Festival Poetry Prize in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize 2013 and the Gregory O'Donoghue Poetry Prize 2014.She was selected to read as part of the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series 2013 and at the Cork Spring Poetry Festival Emerging Writers Reading in February 2014.Now living and working in Kerry, she is a member of the Listowel Writers' Week committee and co-coordinator of its New Writers' Salon, as well coordinating the recen…
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THE MELITA HUME SHORTLIST 2014: TOM WEIR (10 OF 11)

Tom Weir (pictured) was born in 1980 and grew up in a small village outside Cambridge. He has a 1st class degree in Creative Arts from Bath Spa University, and a Master's degree in Creative Writing from the same university.
He won this year's Templar IOTA Shots competition and his work has appeared in various magazines, including Stand, Staple and The Frogmore Papers. He was also one of the poets featured in the 2012 anthology Lung Jazz, Young British Poets for Oxfam. His first pamphlet, The Outsider, is due out this month (May).

The Outsider
As I climb onto the gate my foot slips on the wet steel. I cling on with my arms, my body, and vault over;
the wet ground moves beneath my feet as I land.
It’s not raining but the air’s damp, moisture clings

to it like condensation to glass. There’s a sheep caught on a barbed wire fence at the edge of the field,
but by the time I get to it the knotted steel blades
have snagged its coat like fish-hooks. You’re already beside it,

trying to spo…
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THREE RECENT POETRY COLLECTIONS REVIEWED BY OLDHAM

BRITISH POET ANDREW OLDHAM WEIGHS IN ON PETRUCCI, WONG & SHEPPARD

anima by Mario Petrucci
anima is a sub-sequence of verse derived from a prior modernist experiment, i tulips. Such experimentation in poetry doesn’t tend to cry out to the contemporary vanguard of the poetry scene. It is a brave choice but any experiment in modernism tends to make the reader feel like they are staring in the eyes of dead fish in a rusty bucket dangling for the listing and decaying holds of a fishing smack. Sooner or later something foul and heavy is going to crush you. As an experiment for poetics, it would intrigue other poets but you have to question the reason why Petrucci wishes to add further to the modernist project, i tulips, and whether this is another case of poetry looking back rather than engaging with present and contemporary experimental movements. There is an argument that poetry should engage more with the modern world rather than lay another layer of elitism on the reader. That is a wi…
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THE MELITA HUME SHORTLIST 2014: THERESA MUNOZ (9 OF 11)

Theresa Muñoz (pictured) was born to Filipino parents in Vancouver, Canada and now lives in Edinburgh. She writes about immigration, relationships and the internet. Her work has appeared in several journals including Best Scottish Poems 2013, Poetry Review and Canadian Literature. She has been a prizewinner in the Troubadour International and the McClellan Poetry Awards. Her pamphlet Close was published by HappenStance Press in 2012.
She has published articles on contemporary poetics and Scottish literature. She was an Overseas Research Scholar at the University of Glasgow, where she wrote the first thesis on the work of Tom Leonard. She works as an instructor/researcher and is also the online editor for the Scottish Review of Books.

Google Page Twenty
Poor Google page twenty adrift in the internet desert
nobody comes to click on you witness your existence barely I
in my third hour of searching for ice wines in the valleys
of British Columbia you are the product of selected words
wine / w…
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INDIE CINDY BY PIXIES

There are only a few possible albums from reformed bands that could have been potentially more exciting that the idea of a Pixies reunited giving us Indie Cindy - their first studio album since 1991.  Perhaps a new Smiths, Nirvana or Beatles LP? But really, those aren't forthcoming in this world, or the next, so what we have are 12 tracks, some released last year as EPs, but now forming a coherent album, which deserves to be treated, if not with kid gloves, then at least with some reverence.

For, Pixies are the most important American indie/alternative group of the 1980s, and hugely influential, as well as beloved. Doolittle remains arguably the single most astonishing guitar band record ever released - nothing, not even punk, could have prepared us for the violent, witty, and weird references to Surrealist French film, serial killers, sexual abuse, Satanism, and, well, monkeys going to heaven.  Sung and screeched, of course.

That was then, let us come to the new album.  Frankly, ma…
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THE MELITA HUME SHORTLIST 2014: SOHINI BASAK (8 OF 11)

Sohini Basak (pictured) was born in 1991 in Kolkata. She studied literature for her undergraduate degree at St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, during which she won prizes for her poetry at the RædLeaf India as well as the Reliance-Unisun TimeOut competitions. Her writing has been published (or is forthcoming) in journals such as Ink, Sweat and Tears; The Cadaverine; Ambit; The Four Quarters Magazine; Helter Skelter and Muse India. She moved to the UK in September 2013 to study for an MA in Writing at the University of Warwick where is working on her first collections of poetry and short fiction.

How to Breed Lilacs
First, learn not to stereotype months, then walk
on all fours, sniffing the garden soil, stop at the warmest
patch of earth. Then, dig. Dig deep, dig with love, do not use
a shovel, dig until your ankles are covered, upturn minerals
until the earthworms tickle your toes. Always use your hands,
for everything. Watch out for the microscopic snails who leave
behind trails, s…
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THE MELITA HUME SHORTLIST 2014: SHELLEY ROCHE-JACQUES (7 OF 11)

Dr Shelley Roche-Jacques (pictured) was born in 1978 in Sheerness, on the Isle of Sheppey. She studied at Sheffield Hallam University, where she recently completed a PhD on the Browningesque dramatic monologue. She also works at Sheffield Hallam as an Associate Lecturer.

Her poetry has appeared in magazines such as The Rialto, The Wolf, Magma, Other Poetry, The SHOp, The Interpreter's House and The Boston Review. A selection of her work is included in the anthology Ten Hallam Poets, published by Mews Press and The Sheffield Anthology from Smith/Doorstop. She has collaborated with actors, musicians and other poets. She adapted her sequence about the life of the Pre-Raphaelite model Elizabeth Siddal for performance and received Arts Council funding to write and perform a sequence of dramatic monologues in response to an archive of Victorian flood compensation claims.
Mouse in a Government Building

They've had their fingers burnt before
pulling rabbits out of hats.
We stay hushed in…
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