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| AN AMERICAN POET OF TALENT |
This time the judge was Ms Rosanna Hildyard, our senior editor at Eyewear, and an Oxford graudate, who has written a new translation of Pere Ubu which we will be publishing shortly. The 4th edition of the contest opens today with our judge being Oliver Jones, a poet, editor, and author of a critical survey of Trump's rhetoric.
The shortlist is
Antony Huen –
‘Ekphrasis’
Brianna Neumann –
‘Heart Murmur’
Chris Hardy – ‘Each
Summer’
Danielle Lejeune –
‘Counting Seven Crows’
Ellen Kempler –
‘Elegy At The End Of A Beach Walk’
Greer Gurland – ‘It
Is Easy To Forget’
JDA Winslow –
‘text3’
Jose Varghese –
‘Sex In The Time Of Air Raids’
Justin William
Evans – ‘Night Prayer 3’
Lenore Hart –
‘Looking Into The Eyes Of A Woman’
Myna Wallin –
‘Blood Lines’
Paola Ferrante –
‘Homing’
Richard Ray –
‘Seven Hundred Sights In A Horse’
Roger Sippl –
‘Broken’
And the winner and runner-up are discussed below. Well done to all!
Winner: Ricky/Richard Ray, ‘Seven Hundred Sights In A Horse’
Runner-up: Danielle Lejeune, ‘Counting Seven Crows’
JUDGE'S COMMENTS:
This fortnight’s shortlisted poems in Eyewear’s ongoing flash-prize were chosen for their spirit and sense of daring. These are the poems, out of those submitted, that felt playful – that were attempting something novel in the form of poetry. Whether it is Antony Huen’s fragmentation of the ancient technique of ekphrasis, for a view seen through the lens of a smartphone, or JDA Williams’ loving, lavish ode to a pot roast sandwich in ‘Night Prayer 3’, each of these authors has found an entirely original voice. It’s reassuring to see a lack of cliché. It’s exciting to read poems which are skilful, sarcastic and innovative. They do not pander to literary fashions or accepted values; they are all truly expressive.
My winner, ‘Seven Hundred Sights In A Horse’ by Ricky Ray,
and runner-up, ‘Counting Seven Crows’ by Danielle Lejeune, both invoke the mythic
power of the number seven. Both authors use poetry as an almost supernaturally
powerful form of language – a chant, curse, or charm.
The winning poem,
‘Seven Hundred Sights In A Horse’, could be one of Bob Dylan’s folk songs – to
the tune of ‘Seven Curses’ or ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’. It is a true
American legend, blackly funny, with the laconic narration of a TV Western. The
words are well-worn – ‘mangy’, ‘chemo’, ‘out of town’ – but the poem’s
deceptively simple, steady rhythm (much more deft than is apparent) and crafted
consonance give it a magic of its own.
The Seven
Hundred Sights in a Horse
A wild horse ran
through town.
It was always running.
Gospel was: something had
to be wrong with you to see
it.
Everyone had seen it.
Those who said they didn't
saw it in their dreams,
started to stutter when
they spoke.
Some saw only an eye,
usually when they were
blind
to the bad side of a
relationship.
Some saw its mane, a mangy
sight,
while they took the bus
home from chemo.
Its tongue meant you should
spit the liquor back into the
bottle.
The local bum saw its
skeleton
as he burned from the
hollows
of his eyes. He took up
the guitar again and bone
by song
it disappeared. Its tail
told secrets.
Those who heard the swish
knew what it meant
but could never put it into
words.
They said it was like a
higher
form of balance. A little
girl
put out half an apple every
evening.
The neighbor's dog ate it
and she took it as a sign
that she and the horse were
friends.
Her mother died young
and she's the only one
who ever saw the horse’s
heart.
(Or the only one who
confessed.)
She married the man
she suspected had seen it
too.
He kissed her when she
asked.
She and the guitarist
became
the resident horse
interpreters.
They often disagreed: on
its name,
its sex, what color it was,
why it had come to town,
whether it whinnied
when the church bells rang,
what a person ought
to do with what they saw.
Two things they always
agreed on:
you only rode it out of
town
and by out of town
they meant out of life,
and if you saw its hoof
you better duck.
