While we await a few confirmations before announcing the winners of our recent Fiction Competition, there’s still time to enter our 2025 Poetry Competition. The judge this year is a talented Gareth Writer-Davies and the closing date for poems up to 40 lines long on any theme is midnight, Tuesday 22nd April. Anyone can submit poems and we look forward to reading your exciting creations.

For full competition details and to download your entry form, please head over to our Competitions page.

To inspire and keep the poetical theme going here’s a couple of poems by HWC members, Jean O’Donoghue and Emma van Woerkom. We sincerely hope you enjoy them.

CIRCUS 
By Jean O’Donoghue

Stretching out, the high wire is like my nerves
Alert and vulnerable
My eyes look out for the limit of the stretch
A wobble comes. It gets bigger until its shaky parabola
Signals to me that I had better get down.

Next are the garish gaudy unfunny stupid clowns
One of them looks a lot like me.
And then the poor dumb huge beasts
Their eyes vacant with defeat.

And the ringmaster! Looking a little like my father
A little like my absent husband. He
Fruitlessly twitches his impotent whip.
I hope that the lions revolt and eat him
And that the sea lions refuse to clap

I mount the rope ladder again and face
My partner on the flying trapeze.
Can you trust a man wearing a spangled cod piece
And spray on tights?
We start slow – just a few innocuous passes.
The tension mounts as we fake a stumbled catch
But then it’s the major play
Shall I? Can I? Will I?
The safety of the net is almost irresistible ….

April by the Wye
by Emma van Woerkom

Ever seen the green leaves shimmer?
Water cascade all a -glimmer?
Twisting, arcing feathered gambol
Swallow swoop on darting damsel.

Ever viewed hill clouds grow fatter?
Spots on slabs slap, pitter-patter.
A fine bronze rainbow rise to bite
The Iron Blue in maiden flight.

Soft stirring in bright brindled beds
Vestal violets raise their heads.
The changing tune of Winter’s King
Now just a wren at end of Spring.

Cold chimney with it’s feathered guest
Mad lambs all leaping four abreast,
Blue-black flies sill-spinning for sun
Sly spider silk on blossom spun.

Skyward wheeling sleet-winged hawks
Circling squalls on thermal’d torques.
Ever seen this land un-wasting?
Thirsty, greedy for the tasting.

I do not think this month so cruel,
Less I am judged an April Fool.

(NB – an Iron Blue is a fishing fly used for catching brown trout.)

Photo credit – Fly Fishing the Wye – by Emma van Woerkom ©2025

Reminder – Hay Festival
22nd May – 1st June, 2025
Tickets Now Available – CLICK HERE

The Hay Writers Live! – Event 71

Date – Saturday 24 May 2025 Time – 7pm   
Location – Writers at Work Hub – Hwb Awduron wrth eu Gwaith

Come and hear the writers share and discuss some of their recent work. The Hay Writers’ Circle is a dynamic group, active in Hay for more than 40 years. It offers three competitions annually for poetry, fiction and non-fiction, each of which is open to both members and non-members. There is an active work in progress group for those working on longer projects. The Circle has an ongoing, productive relationship with a local primary school.

Price: £5.00 – CLICK HERE for tickets

We hope to see you there!

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