We are delighted to announce the results of the Hay Writers Circle Poetry Competition 2023.

This popular competition again received a good number of entries from both inside and outside Hay Writers’ Circle and we very much welcome external interest in all our writing competitions.

We must primarily take a moment to thank our wonderful 2023 Poetry Judge, Alex Josephy who single-handedly read all the poems, whittled them down into a long list, then short list, then our ultimate set of winning poems, with one highly commended entry.

Alex said, “Reading and re-reading the Hay competition poems has been a real pleasure, one I’ve been reluctant to move away from in order to select the winners. Poems, I’ve realised, don’t really like being placed in rank order – it’s something they resist at every turn. Judgments are always, of course, subjective and subject to individual preferences. And the poetry scene these days is thrilling because it is so diverse. It grows and proliferates in many, many different directions.

I admired all the poems in one way or another. Each one gave something of interest to think about, and took me into its imaginary universe. It’s one of the hardest things in the world, writing a good poem. You write and re-write. You get to know it by heart. You fall in love with it, a little. You hope it really is a poem.  And then there’s the scary moment of sending it off to be read critically.
So huge congratulations to all who entered the competition. I read, re-read, and found something to like in every one of the poems.“

All poems which made it onto the Shortlist received an individual critic from Alex, which is so useful for any writer going forward. Thank you Alex for all your hard work, we are extremely grateful.

As with all good competitions, we are announcing in reverse order.

The Longlist

a song for her dying – Helen Smith
Bayou wedding (Revenge Poem) – Jean Cooper Moran
Encountering goats and Jane Austen – Ange Grunsell
Ethel – Celia Harper
Brasserie Depuis Ma Fenêtre (From My Window) – Jon Magidsohn 
Ode to our meadowlands – Michelle Pearce
Everything Jakub Schongauer knew – Brian Comber
Landscape – Sam Ashton
Quake – Celia Harper
spine – Helen Smith
Taste the Darkness – Mark Bayliss
The law according to mermaids – Jean Cooper Moran
Twilight – Ange Grunsell

The Shortlist

a song for her dying
Bayou wedding (Revenge Poem)
Brasserie Depuis Ma Fenêtre (From My Window)
Ode to our meadowlands
Quake
spine
Taste the Darkness
Twilight

Hay Writers’ Circle Poetry Competition 2023 – Winners!

First Prize – spine by Helen Smith

Second Prize –  Brasserie Depuis Ma Fenêtre (From My Window) by Jon Magidsohn

Third Prize – Twilight by Ange Grunsell

Highly Commended – Taste the Darkness by Mark Bayliss

The Winning Poem

Judge’s comments :

“spine – An ambitious and ambiguous poem that invites us to revel in uncertainty. However many times I read it, I can’t quite disentangle the bookshop from the hospital, or work out with certainty what is actually going on, especially the identity of ‘she’ (is she just a random book donor, or more significant than that? I‘m not sure), and what it is that the narrator eventually finds and buys. Perhaps it relates to the loss of the father? I’m not sure that this is always a problem, although a little more clarity in places might make it more approachable. However, the poem takes me on an absolutely intriguing walk. Conscious and unconscious links combine, as in the jump from ‘unboxed’ books to the loss of someone ‘so young, too young’, or the interleaved scents of old books, old patients, ‘chamomile tea, potpourri./ (dead skin and quarantine wings)’. The spines are also wonderfully evocative- spine of a book, of a person, of a story. And  I delight in  the provocative words ‘easy to get lost here, in the hospital district’  as the reader finds a tenuous path toward the end of the poem.
The choice of mainly implicit punctuation and the rambling structure in one long stanza work well, I think.“

The Winning Poem

spine by Helen Smith

the bookshop was a converted hospital
in Minneapolis
the sky was heavy
and the air thick with heat and sweat
I pushed damp hair from my cheek
drained the last of my water
stepped into air conditioning
and the smell of new books, paper and ink
laid out, freshly unboxed
(and so young, too young)
I turned away, and the smell changed
as I moved through neurology
and the acute cardiovascular ward to geriatrics
the old books, and the forgotten
chamomile tea, potpourri
(dead skin and quarantine wings)
books thumbed through with memories
boxed and cleared from the house of a father
she never really knew
I touched a spine, vertebra by vertebra
traced gilded edges
of a disintegrating story
words falling from the page like rain
as the heavens broke and the distant pavement
hammered a tune of violent release
I found it then, small and yellowing
between Robert Frost and Chekhov
hiding under 17th century needlework
I paid quickly, in the ICU
fumbling fingers dropping coins to the floor
remembering strip lights
vending machine coffee on the first floor
scrubs and silence and I’m sorry
I hurried through paediatrics
and out into rain that tasted of exhaust
and too many people
easy to get lost here, in the hospital district
fingers clutching a memory
I should never have bought
a long, long way from home

We will be sharing the other placed poems and judge’s comments later in the week.

Huge congratulations to our winner, Helen, all our placed poets and to everyone who entered our competition. Well done all!

Hope to see you all at Hay Festival next week – http://www.hayfestival.com

Event number 230 – Wednesday 31st May 8.30pm