Special Announcement – Competition Winner and Runners Up

A massive thanks to our panel of judges who, despite child-care, work, business and family commitments, very generously gave up their precious time to read and judge all of the excellent poetry entries. Both short-listing and selecting the top three has proven to be very challenging due to the exceptional entries we were very fortunate to receive.

Thank you to all of the poets who participated and kindly decided to share their talents.

The top three poems are as follows:

Winner – ‘The Way It Used To Be’ by Bernie Bickerton of Epsom

Runner up – ‘My Role Model’ by Julie Shackman of Milngavie

Runner up – ‘Silent Voice’ by Neelam Shah of Thornton Heath

Congratulations to Bernie, Julie and Neelam. We will send the book tokens to you all as soon as possible.

Thank you again to everyone for your interest in the competition and for all the kind donations to Maggie’s Centre. To find out more about their fantastic work and to continue to support them, please visit their website: Maggie’s Centre Nottingham.

Shortlist Update

Poetry Competition Shortlist

A massive thanks to everyone who entered the poetry competition and for your kind donations to Maggie’s Centre too.

Also, a big thanks to the judges who have now shortlisted the poems – we really appreciate your time and efforts as there have been almost 300 to chose from! There were so many excellent entries and it has proven to be a very tough task indeed.

The final stage of judging is taking place and we hope to make an announcement about the winner and runners up very soon.

The shortlist is as follows:

When Sleep Descends – Daniel Brady

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/03/23/when-sleep-descends-daniel-brady/

My Role Model – Julie Shackman

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/09/30/my-role-model-julie-shackman/

Sunflowers – Rebecca Swan

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/07/30/sunflowers-rebecca-swan/

Carnival – Alison Faye

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/08/29/carnival-alyson-faye/

We Are Blind – Caoillin Hughes

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/08/30/we-are-blind-caoilinn-hughes/

Come Home to the Hearth – Judith Bristow

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/08/30/come-home-to-the-hearth-judith-bristow/

The Way it Used to be – Bernie Bickerton

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/05/11/the-way-it-used-to-be-bernie-bickerton/

Darkening Winter Day – Sue Gerrard

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/09/30/darkening-winter-day-sue-gerrard/

When T Meets B – Erin Keeble

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/05/14/when-t-meets-b-erin-keeble/

Keep on Fighting – Claire Gee

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/09/30/keep-on-fighting-claire-gee/

Silent Voice – Neelam Shah

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/08/08/silent-voice-neelam-shah/

I am Me – David A Stansfield

https://voices.poetry.blog/2019/10/01/i-am-me-david-a-stansfield/

We are sure you will enjoy reading these excellent poems and the panel now has the task of selecting the winner (who will receive a £100 prize in book tokens) and two runners up (who will receive £50 prizes in book tokens respectively). 😊 📚 🖊

Echoing – Kirsty A. Niven

each gasp is magnified

Kirsty A. Niven lives in Dundee, Scotland. Her writing has appeared in anthologies such as Strength, The Alien Buddha’s Feminist Agenda and Landfall. She has also featured in several journals and magazines, including The Poet’s Republic, Cicada Magazine, Monstrous Regiment and Silk + Smoke. Kirsty’s work can also be found online on sites such as La Scrittrice, Anti-Heroin Chic and Poetry Breakfast.

Echoing

In the echoing of this house,

each gasp is magnified –

an extorted thrill you relish.

A Rabelais twinkle in your eye,

a mischief you cannot keep in.

Each incorrigible kiss in this chaos

vibrates through every bone;

sliding skin buzzing like bees,

an Eros earthquake in my knees.

The bed barely holds me up,

melting under your liquid touch –

I am honey in your hands, nectar

dripping through your intrepid fingers.

Your teeth graze my shoulder,

a blissful sting, exultation with wings.

In the echoing of this house,

mirroring smiles say what we can’t

in a silence we won’t shatter.

Kirsty A Niven

Did you enjoy this poem? Why not visit Maggie’s website at: Maggie’s Centre Nottingham to find out more about their exceptional work and/or make a donation. Do you have a poem you would like to submit to Voices? Feel free to do so by email at: voicespoetry@outlook.com or via the ‘Contact’ page on this site.

Sun’s Arouse – Iynisha Johnson

Sun looks at the clouds like why so gray

My name is Iynisha Johnson. I’m 21 years old and I’ve been writing poems since I was 10. I love poetry and how you can put life into pages.

Sun’s Arouse

Stop just look at the sky above

Do the sun show the clouds some love

Is there hatred where the sky’s should meet

Or do they look at each other smile or speak

When the sky turns gray do the sun start to hate

Or does he go on with life knowing he’ll be straight

When the sun comes out do the clouds get mad

Or do he wait his turn cause he’s got his chance

Do they interact since there so close

Or do the clouds get angry once the suns arose

Sun looks at the clouds like why so gray

Can I have my time so kids can play

Clouds answer with a shower of storm

I am the side of the sky that’s torn

Iynisha Johnson

Self-Destruction Button – Megan Ponton

Happiness terrifies me

My name is Megan Ponton, I am 24 years old from Glasgow and currently work in retail. I discovered a love of words but especially poetry a short while ago and while I am still learning about it. I feel my writing is honesty and from the heart and we as a society, should never forget the importance words can have on a person and the wider community.

Self – Destruction Button

by Megan Ponton

Happiness is a strange thing

The more you have it

The more you crave it

Like a smoker,

Desperately craving that first cigarette in the morning

Happiness terrifies me

In the past

It has been there in fleeting bursts

Rather than continued spells

Happiness is a great feeling

Yet

You always feel that you are one wrong move

From it all going belly-up

And

As a result

Hitting that self-destruct button

Almost feels like a comfort blanket

In a twisted sort of way

Trying to make sense of it all

Megan Ponton

Voice Note From a Lover – Luke Grey

One of the most beautiful sights of the summer

The author, Luke Grey, is a writer. He lives in London.

Voice note from a lover

“One of the ways in which I love looking at clouds

Is to see them bisected by wires.

One of the most beautiful sights of the summer,

This late in the day, is when clouds take on

Their deeper tones.

Sometimes more intense, even, than the brightly lit sky.

–

When sat, or stood, or (as now) walking on a platform

And looking up at the wires, the suspended wires:

Gliding towards each other,

Crossing, ending, held aloft, hitting a pole,

Marked out by the thinner wires that hold the thicker ones apart

And yet together.

–

That web of energy, stretching far across the city,

Only a few metres above me and the rail tracks,

Never meeting.

That web measures itself out between me and the sky,

And sometimes, sometimes, at the most exciting moments,

When the city is nearly silent,

And you stand on the platform and look up at the wires.

You can hear them fizzing.

–

Fizzing in a sky full of high, lunging, soft and smooth clouds

That sashay upwards and northwards.

Pink on their undersides, lit by the setting sun.

A dark lavender on their edges, and then above them

A pale, duck-egg blue.”

Luke Grey

Some People – Haris Ahmed

he decided enough was enough

some people

some people

are in need

of anything

–

but love

their houses a mess

–

their phones

have history

of dodgy premium rate numbers

–

cheapened briefly

by calls from their mothers

–

the girl on the phone says

she’s 24 and

would walk in his back door

if she didn’t have to chat

to all the other men

drinking desperados through

–

a straw

man

–

never to be seen again

reads the article

–

man

never to be seen again?

–

hung himself using a belt

his ex wife gifted him to wear

–

only for his kid to wear

the stretch marks for him

–

the man outgrew the belt

fattened up like a farmer’s mancalf

ready for slaughter

–

somewhere between mcdonald’s

and pubs that weren’t actually pubs

–

he decided enough was enough

–

some people

says the woman on the train

peering up from her paper

at some poor manchild

clipping his kid’s ears

Haris Ahmed

The Life of a Leaf – Leon Arthur Podolak Perry

Summer sees them fully alive

Leon Arthur Podolak Perry just turned ten on September 22nd. He wrote this poem two years ago and since then he has been a regular poem writer. His mum thought she would share Leon’s work with us – thank you.

The Life of a Leaf

Spring see the scene of leaf growth.

Summer sees them fully alive.

Autumn leaves die in glory, not in pain not in agony but in glory.

Winter carries their dead souls but follows through with new life.

Leon Arthur Podolak Perry

Trees – Henry Wilkink

You can watch them learn and grow

Thank you to Henry Wilkink for his contribution to Voices. We are sure you will enjoy Henry’s work.

Trees

Trees are like children,

You can watch them learn and grow,

You build up love with them,

Just to watch them go,

The age grows and so do you,

You invest so much time with it,

Never moving, still as a statue,

Your time has come,

Your cottage is empty,

Your body goes numb,

You hope that your garden will keep,

You try to hold back the death phantom,

As you your mind goes into an eternal sleep.

–

You watch down on your tree,

You see the fire coming,

It is the most horrific sight you see,

You realise what is going to happen and you cry,

You feel depressed as you watch your tree die.

Henry Wilkink, aged 12

Apport – Marc Stevens

Asbestos hands that unscrewed sparking plugs

Many thanks to Marc Stevens for ‘Apport’ – a poem inspired by his father’s shed. Marc has been penning poetry since 1984 and is clearly very passionate about the art. Marc is ‘ inspired by the fiction of Ian M. Banks and by the Liverpool poets, especially the love poetry of Brian Patten.’ We really appreciate his contribution and support.

Apport

If you asked me where the dead live

I would say nowhere –

unless you count memory.

If pushed, I would tell you that there is no

quantum theory of ghosts, that the soul,

as a self-sustaining energy matrix,

is hokum.

–

In the shed that was my father’s

I’m hoping for rawlplugs

because even armchair physicists

have to put up shelves.

–

I peer into jars of assorted screws,

into packs of tacks and tins of pins

that prick the questing finger

and prod the sheepish conscience to views

of how much I took my father’s help

and how little I returned.

–

Screwdrivers look down their shafts

in dismissal of a man who has no calluses.

Sarcastic spanners and tinsnips

snipe from the sidelines

like old sweats on building sites,

hazing the new boy.

–

Above the bench, the adjustable wrench,

the bradawl, the backsaw, the brace

are polished smooth by years of toil,

as bent by the task as the man

whose hands have stained them.

–

In drawers, old toys of bolt and grommet,

experiments in copper pipe,

are rusting down to a humus

of sawdust, solder, the spirals of swarf

he’d pluck from fingers as thick as truncheons

without complaint,

on mornings too cold for participation

by teenage theoreticians.

–

Asbestos hands that unscrewed sparking plugs

heedless of HT leads, unbothered by the manifold

that burnt a hole in his good overalls,

seemed to perform diagnostics

that would baffle the man himself

and I’d be back on the road again.

–

Odd, amongst such riches,

that loss should touch me now.

Odder still that those damn rawlplugs

have dropped into my palm,

like a gift, just for the wishing of it.

Marc Stevens