The Winning Poems 2007

The Winning Poems 2007 Winner, Senior Secondary who ate a car – one spoonful Robert Hortle, 18 at a time. Hobart College, Hobart Tas. We believed his murky eyes, his The Old World wheezing roar. But mum looked Papa is Skep-tik-al. uncomfortable in his old man shape. Papa surveys the old world Tinkering From his armchair, salt cured hands spinnaker set. twitch for He doesn’t believe wire to solder, in email. rope to lap, metal to twist. Judges’ comments Robert has mastered some of the most Papa stopped smoking. difficult poetic crafts: the marriage of The old pipe emotion and rhythm. The magic of stays on the bedside table, and poetry at its best is that it is able to the greasy smell crystallise an idea and, through that stays in marriage of emotion and rhythm, and his clothes, clever repetition, allow it to flower into his paper bag face, something that moves the reader. his waterproof hair. This is exactly what Robert achieves. It is significant that Robert never strays Papa into grandiose language ornamented kept the sea, by adjectives. His words are simple sold the boat, but translate his clever metaphors into kept the stories, ideas and pictures that make you sold the boat, catch your breath. There is something kept the sea else apparent in his writing. Where in a blue knit jumper many other young poets stray into and a roving telescope – melodrama, angst and darkness water because they can “milk” it for effect, trickles into the lounge room, Robert remains grounded in simplicity, yachts sail past his chair. and in doing so he celebrates the miracles of everyday life with both Papa knew the man humour and love. who could swallow wine glasses, who floated naked down the river, Runner-up, Senior Secondary Sophie Clark Ogilvie High School, New Town Tas. Pollock Caked alabaster, swagger. Textured like bird droppings on Jackson staggers on. struggle-worn hands. Trips along, His skin is wild animal hide, Whipped raw by yesterday’s Gripping, thrashing, splattering, heartache, Deceitfully chaotic, It’s a long pilgrimage, He tracks the canvas, Shame no one told him, Shoulders hunched, To bring water, Eyes tight and piercing as an eagle, Not wine. Desperate to feed its young. Still, Always one step ahead of his prey. Everybody loves a car crash. Stick for a paintbrush, Lee warned him about it, Splintered and precise, Krasner, that is, like the contents of a grandfather’s Warned him about getting caught up in shed. it. Hovers above, Bottles, bottles, bottles, Teasing, Down his throat, Taunting, Down the sink, Gravity’s will. When she could. The stick never touches, Lee’s gone now, Just guides. Her psych warden smile couldn’t Tempting gravity’s bond, sustain, The canvas succumbs as it always Less painting than bottles. does, He’s gone now too. Like an exhausted bull to sleep. Like all the real cowboys. Pollock. Strong as the steel of a samurai sword. Judges’ comments His stick cuts and slices. This is a poem that is both sophisticated He massacres the colours, and crackling with energy. Sophie has The canvas is merely the ground recognised the power of the verb to create beneath the victim. an action poem that brilliantly parallels the He wears the violence on his leather chaotic painting technique of the great American artist and his dissolution. She shoes, captures the raw, unstoppable drive that He wears the violence on his mind. gave him both his talent and his downfall. We see the paint flying off the artist’s stick “A real broken cowboy, that Pollock.” and onto the canvas as an act of They snigger, violence. The language is laconic, Sucking down tobacco, ironical, tight and surprising. The clever Laughing like hyenas, use of enjambment leads the reading eye Laughing like throat cancer. into suspenseful pauses before carrying “A walking icon, that man.” us forward into phrases that explode off With his very own Jimmy Dean the page. Winner, Junior Secondary Edwina Murray, 13 years Taroona High School, Hobart Tas. The city, come 5:30 A sky like the sea Unfold out the door. Broken with grey My dad does this; every day! A smoking, desperate city Jutting up into the day. Neon lights burn bright Red, yellow, and white A small bag on my back Busy Chinatown light. My little hand in his ‘Come eat here!’ He took me ‘Good food-dine in!’ To see all of this. Golden dancing dragons Watch the New Year begin. Wild city streets Tangled like hair ‘Just a bit of change’ Overpasses, roundabouts, bridges and ‘A bit of change –‘ stairs. ‘change’ Vacant, driven people His shouts turn to whispers Completely unaware. His begging arms drop to the floor His words aren’t questions. Strung and woven through the streets He’s the small change of the city – Are the powerlines. Weathered and worn But how do they keep The city from falling into the sky? And we walk And watch Through streets As those who are left Smokey traffic streams. Are swept up Seagulls coo and rasp, And thrown out – While below the tyres scream. With the night. A thin, scribbly train Sprayed and tagged with names Judges’ comments Fillled with dirty-green lino seats Point of view is the critical factor in this poem about the city. Seeing it through the eyes of a Snakes its way through the streets. small girl, hand in hand with her father, we see it as if for the first time. The barrage of images Click-clack coming at us all at once is almost Click-clack overwhelming. It is a world of contrasting Click-clack sounds and confusions that the child must make sense of. And she does, poignantly, by Click-clack focusing finally on a homeless man begging Its feet bound to an endless track. for change. All the sensory input of the environment becomes dwarfed beside the Then one after the other reality of what the city does to human beings. Two The writing has a deceptively childlike simplicity but the accumulation of simple lines, Three some only one word long, some consisting of Four nothing but a sound, build into a desolate Heartless paper-chain businessmen reality. Runner-up, Junior Secondary Lewis Pascoe, 14 Kardinia International College, Geelong Vic. Submarine The eye slowly ascending, Twisting, turning. A black, razor-sharp knife, Seeking its prey. Cutting through the sleeping waters of the Endless Deep. But isn’t it strange that, A nightmare, diving, dodging, gliding of all things, wherever it wills. it only fears one. The submarine. A ping. A whale afraid of shrimp It sinks, it rises. A president afraid of a voter It glides like a dolphin. A god afraid of his religion. Venomous as a snake, Lethal as a shark. The submarine. Black as night Deadly as nightshade. Judges’ comments The submarine. Lewis describes the lurking power of a submarine with ironic grace. This is a A killing trap, poem whose structure may be seen as waiting for the chance a metaphor in itself. The lines of free So that it’s jaws can close. verse are long at the surface, or A lethal modern killing machine. beginning, of the poem and then It fears only one thing. shorten as they take us zig-sagging The submarine. down to its isolated conclusion. Like the submarine, his poem dives It cannot breathe, but holds its breath. through, and then beneath, the It cannot eat, but sucks through a obvious similes, to discover straw. vulnerability and paradox. In the final It throws fire, but cannot catch it verse we see his original declarations Dangerous, graceful, divine. of the submarine’s invincibility slipping The submarine. sideways and out of control and finally reaching the bottom, with nowhere A gleaming hull, else to hide. An original and an eagles perch. beautifully resolved piece of work. Winner, Upper primary Elizabeth Waldron, 10 Haberfield Public School, Haberfield NSW Colours Esmé Zaffre, widow of the Blue Mountains, lounges in a scarlet seat of velvet Embroidering vermillion thread through a satin cloth, Rose by rose. Outside the window red dust, red sunset sky, red kangaroo behind a tree At the roadhouse Esmé looks in disgust at the waitress with her rosy cheeks, lipstick and sunburn, and wonders, wonders, how bad this ochre outback will be. Later she dreams of opal miners, opal strikes, flashing opal red. Beryl Smalt of Dismal Swamp, lady of the land, Strolls through leaf litter, ferns brushing at her hands, Intertwined branches blocking out the sun. She weaves through slim slivers of viridescent light, As vines twine and loop above her head. Moss blooms on rocks like verditer on a bronze statue. Saying goodbye to the jade land, travelling where the opal waits. Beryl and Esmé finally meet outside the bluestone hotel opposite the school. Children in navy uniforms run to meet their parents, As adults in denim jeans and chambray shirts babble and drone. Beneath bluegums a shallow dam evaporates under an azure sky The ladies share a cuppa in willow-patterned china, Craning their necks around the hydrangeas and agapanthas in a wedgewood vase. Together they create an opal of sorts; of red and blue and green. When they find each other, oh, what a sight, it is a colourful world they see. Judges’ comments In this poem Elizabeth has created wonderfully colourful word pictures of two larger- than-life characters – ones who could fit around the same table and find much in common with Dame Edna Everage. Esme Zaffre and Beryl Smalt are vibrant and alive and the whole piece fizzes with the excitement of the dazzling and sometimes, startling imagery.

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