{"id":1426,"date":"2018-06-06T17:46:32","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T16:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2018-10-17T09:50:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T08:50:16","slug":"poetry-prize-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/2018\/06\/06\/poetry-prize-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cosmo Davenport-Hines Poetry Prize: 2018 winners"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0by Caitr\u00edona O’Reilly<\/a>, lecturer in Creative Writing and Cosmo Davenport-Hines poetry prize judge<\/em><\/p>\n

The theme for this year\u2019s Cosmo Davenport-Hines poetry prize was \u2018Reconciliation\u2019; a prompt which promised to be both relevant and timely. Nevertheless, among the 96 entries there were \u2013 perhaps surprisingly \u2013 few on the subject of politics. Or perhaps it is not so surprising that lyric writing should focus on the preoccupations of the self?<\/p>\n

Most entries interpreted reconciliation in the light of personal relationships, whether with significant others, siblings, or parents. Other interpretations were more abstract: politics (yes, occasionally), but also the attempt to reconcile different parts of the personality; different cultures with their conflicting claims on the self; or present realities with the imperatives of memory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My fellow judges and I had our own small work of reconciliation to carry out, of course: deciding which among these competing and widely differing voices would eventually emerge victorious. Thankfully \u2013 and I know judges of literary prizes almost always say this, but this time it happens to be true\u2014 a harmonious consensus was achieved with minimum discussion. Many of the poems on our personal shortlists overlapped, and the standout contenders declared themselves at an early stage in the judging. As in past years, we had the luxury of awarding not just a First Prize, but also a Second, Third, and three further Commendations, which kept all of us happy.<\/p>\n

If the successful poems have anything in common, it is the qualities shared by all good poetry: an eye at an unexpected angle to reality; a strong sense of line; a way with metaphor; a convincing and consistent tone carrying through the poem from beginning to end; and most importantly, that quickening in language that is unmistakeable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The judges of this year’s prize were Richard Davenport-Hines<\/a>, \u00a0Luke Roberts<\/a>, \u00a0Alan Marshall<\/a> and Caitr\u00edona O\u2019Reilly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Highly commended: \u2018Upon a Tightrope We Walk\u2019 by Deekshu Umasankar (Medicine); \u2018Boxes\u2019 by William Edwards (English); \u2018Reconciliation\u2019 by Rebecca Harri (English).<\/em><\/p>\n

The top three prize winners are reproduced below, and each poet has produced a post script on their work for the King’s English blog.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Third Prize<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Ismene Stands in Silence\u2019, by Lars Malmqvist (MA Medieval Studies)<\/em><\/p>\n

Her tragedy had been to be born the only one
\nwithout a tragic fate.<\/p>\n

She always lacked her family’s intense capacity for suffering; powerless against the normal run of violence
\nexcept for her acceptance of the thing.<\/p>\n

Things prophesied never seem inevitable
\nin the light of day,
\nregardless they inexorably follow their inner logic.<\/p>\n

Jocasta by her hand
\nAntigone by her hand
\nPolynices and Eteocles by each other\u2019s
\nOedipus not by his hand, but by his wit.<\/p>\n

After they’d buried Antigone, she had brought the wreath
\nthat had hid the red neck to the sacred grove at Colonus,
\nwhere the pierced eyes of Oedipus no longer saw into themselves.<\/p>\n

She laid it in the olive’s shadow and prayed:
\n“Gods, who by your words shape the fate of mortals, I beg you stop.
\nDon’t whisper stories in the wind,
\ntell no one the mysteries of the forest,
\ndrop no prophecies in the water of sacred pools.
\nLet all be silence, reveal no more truth.”<\/p>\n

She stood there a while
\nand, forgetting herself, sighed,
\nthen as a statue moving turned by the power of steam,
\nshe retraced her steps to the unrepentant city.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
“When I started thinking about the word ‘reconciliation’, Ismene was an early association. Daughter to Oedipus, sister to Antigone, Eteocles, and Polynices, she still – at least in some versions of the myth – went on to live a perfectly ordinary life. If you can be born into one of the most cursed, self-destructive families of Greek mythology, live through the mayhem, and still somehow find a way to sustain an ordinary life, doesn’t that in a sense make you a mythical figure of reconciliation? I thought it might, hence the poem.” – Lars Malmqvist.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Second Prize<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018A Guide To Reconciliation’, by Larissa Rosendale (MA Medieval Studies)<\/em><\/p>\n

Step One: Find a mirror.
\nNow this is the hardest part\u2014
\nfind your reflection
\nand search out your own eyes.
\nRealise you\u2019ve only ever seen
\nyour own irises
\nin reflection and blurry photos,
\ntaken when you were moving just a bit
\ntoo quickly to be seen properly.<\/p>\n

Step Two: Find your mouth.
\nTouch your lips.
\nWatch\u2014does the reflection
\ntouch its lips?
\nGood, you are on the right path.
\nNow, make low vowel sounds
\nand watch how your lips and
\ncheeks stretch and wrinkle.
\nooooooooohhh…
\naaaaaaaaaahhh…
\neeeeeeeeeehhh…<\/p>\n

Step Three: Raise your hand
\nfrom your side\u2014
\nif doing this correctly
\nyour hand should have dropped
\nheavily to the side of your thigh
\n\u2014and gently press the pads of two or three
\nfingers to the glass.
\nLook at your hand.
\nNow the reflection.
\nNotice the space between the two.
\nPress harder so the joints closest to the nail
\nturn a little pale.
\nEye the gap between imitation and actuality warily.
\nGive up,
\nremove your fingertips
\nand inspect the glass.
\nNotice the smudge of
\nspiderwebbing whorls.<\/p>\n

Congratulations!<\/p>\n

“This poem began with a refrain running through my mind: \u201crealise \/\/ real eyes\u201d. The double beat of the words was akin to a heartbeat, a constant thrum whispering \u201cfigure it out!\u201d. It finally came to me one day as I looked around my room and down at myself, taking stock of what existed when I first awoke: \u201cI\u2019ve never seen my own eyes before\u201d. I stood and looked in my full-length mirror and marvelled at the disconnect between my reflection\u2014the ghostly shadow mimicking me\u2014and my soul, voice and perception” – Larissa Rosendale.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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First Prize<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018First Love, First Rites\u2019, by Teresa Francis Cherukara (MA Comparative Literature)<\/em><\/p>\n

I try to treat the past like a dead grandfather: that is, with
\nappropriate reverence.
\nYet every now and then I am reminded of a body buried deep beneath damp Indian soil,
\nof earthworms, wood-rot, and a gravestone I could not read alone, even if I wanted to.
\nIn the end, all relationships become exercises in embalming.<\/p>\n

I like to judge men by the length of their fingers. Every time I try be pliable, I find a new edge:
\nI am always ready for a fight. I have tried soaking in Epsom salt, lime juice, fabric softener.
\nMemories that sound like muffled tears double as indelible lessons in starching.
\nLegacy requires pride in cyclicality, even of error. So love cautiously, grieve recklessly.<\/p>\n

Grieve like a man on the street hollering about repentance.
\nLike a hysterical four-year old, bleary-eyed and unintimidated by snow.
\nLike an insidious suit with an agenda, no care for collateral damage.<\/p>\n

I think of you and try recall veal cooked too rare, pink pools of blood afloat pale cream sauce
\ntoo heavy for either one of us. Dreams reject heresy: there remains the sunset soaked city,
\npromises as holy and collapsible as communion wafers, pious devotion to being vouched for.
\nI stay patient, replay familiar arms raised in surrender mid-plummet.<\/p>\n

This is part elegy, part apology never required or requested, so in some sense I am sorry to be sorry.
\nI was tired of waiting, and your shadow cast the perfect shape. Transfixed by our silhouettes,
\nplaced together in the corner of that dark bar with the neon lights, your candescent halo.
\nThrilled when they joked we were too in love, to stop now, enough now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Stop<\/em>, I never could do things in halves. Hand me a matchstick, I will show you a forest fire.
\nEnough<\/em>, stand on cool ash, speak of the phoenix and restorative time while fumbling with cigarettes.
\nI am not fooled. No appropriate reverence to a god wrought in gold.<\/p>\n

“We often speak of reconciliation as being synonymous with resolution, but as I was reflecting on this years\u2019 theme, I was struck by how much it shares with the process of grief, since both necessitate a kind of loss.\u00a0 The poets that move me the most are the ones that speak honestly about grief \u2013 its frustrating cyclicality, its paradoxical tenderness \u2013 Edna Millay and Meghan O\u2019Rourke are amongst my favourites. I was trying to emulate those voices in \u2018First Love, First Rites\u2019, and I\u2019m so glad it resonated with the judges, especially amongst such wonderful entries!” – Teresa Francis Cherukara.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Featured image: ‘Paris’, by Michael Handrick<\/p>\n

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You may also enjoy:<\/p>\n

‘Swallow’ (early draft), by Nadia Saward<\/a><\/p>\n

Cosmo Davenport-Hines poetry prize winners 2016<\/a><\/p>\n

Ruth Padel drafts ‘Capoeira Boy’<\/a><\/p>\n

Blog posts on King\u2019s English represent the views of the individual authors and neither those of the English Department, nor of King\u2019s College London.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0by Caitr\u00edona O’Reilly, lecturer in Creative Writing and Cosmo Davenport-Hines poetry prize judge The theme for this year\u2019s Cosmo Davenport-Hines poetry prize was \u2018Reconciliation\u2019; a prompt which promised to be both relevant and timely. Nevertheless, among the 96 entries there were \u2013 perhaps surprisingly \u2013 few on the subject of politics. Or perhaps it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":1443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,25],"tags":[224,472,471,475,474,118,469,198,470,473],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary","category-life-writing-creative-writing-and-performance","tag-creative-writing","tag-identity","tag-personal","tag-poem","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-prize","tag-politics","tag-reconciliation","tag-short-read"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1635,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions\/1635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}