PHOTOVESE poetry winners 2017

PHOTOVERSE POETRY WINNERS 2017

So here are the winners of the very first PHOTOVERSE competition – we were delighted with the range and quality of the entries, showing real evidence of the imaginative and creative talents of Hurtwood. Judging was not an easy task, and we shortlisted and re-read, compared responses, and read again, before we came to these three winners.

Our key criteria was integrity – truthful response to the stimuli, creating sustained and rigorous ‘imaginative worlds’.  We feel the winners are refreshingly different from each other, as well as thought-provoking and original. Take a look for yourself, and see whether you agree.

Over the coming weeks we will be posting up more of the poetry entries for you to enjoy.

FIRST PRIZE : UNSAID   MIA MELHUISH

I sat the afternoon by your absent-side

a tumble-worn sack of necessities

and stole a glance of your wayward hand

but found you to be elsewhere.

Tracing skyward our encounters,

I am left gaumless;

a gumless sanctified positionary

who neither writes nor rhymes

But find myself tracing backwards words

and down-trodden smiles

with clumsy lips

that bite me deeper

I fear,

than you know.

How long shall I chase this vision

that keeps me paralysed,

calculating

syncopated breaths

between sips of conversation

that I half-draw

and half hum.

It is in the silent buzz

of where we stand

what we wear

in matching scarlet crowns

that seem to fade each day

while we are senseless.

I follow your end-stopped trail with a metronome

and a cold hand of creased cards

In bitter love.

You have stolen my essence,

and I have been lost to all these things

Unsaid.

SECOND PRIZE – PLAY-DOE – ELISE BUGEJA

Everybody loves play doe.

A pot of play doe encompasses exceptional potential.

Possibly id make a realistic realty using proper purple play doe

Perchance id perpetuate a proper purple play doe show

Perhaps id produce a proper pop-up purple play doe town

With little play doe shops and not a carefully carved frown

Id compress the proven play doe with my fingers and my hands

And try with all my might to make the pretend people stand

I’d make a purple play doe person and another like a clone

In fact a whole plethora of purple people to make the world feel less alone

Id scrupulously sculpt a stunning magnificent mansion

And id meticulously monitor my little world’s expansion

But I wouldn’t want to deal with the play doe people politics

With pretend people problems projected in the play doe metropolis

fights forcing friction from facing broken promises without proper apologies

With all the misshapen laws causing riots over play doe policies

I would turn a blind eye at the purple people propaganda

For the superfluous promises poured from the face of some commander

And I wouldn’t attend the play doe population elections

For it seems all its carved out to be is a fight for attention

Purple politicians put plaster cast over problems and don’t provide

An idealistic ideology. They use inaccurate accusations in which to hide

From this, annoyed alloys bond together to make allies

And try to destroy the soft society on which we all rely

But id shape them into not fulling off authority

And to make, loving one another more of a priority

play doe people have the ability to build each other up

and to work together to create change in order to help each other up.

They would see each other’s potential and celebrate just that

because they never know when it will be the last time to do just that

Surely doesn’t it make more sense to work as a one and give each other a shot

as after all they are all made from the same pot

THIRD PRIZE: HOME – SASHA ROSE COOK

she carried with her a string

of broken homes.

too big, too small, just right.

but she had not hair of golden rye

nor a bed that would contain her dreams,

and so she escaped to where the

sky was the ceiling and the stars were her safety net.

too big, too small, just right, until

it wasn’t and the comfort of the freedom she

once coveted grew suffocating and

tight.

home is a carefully constructed creation of

warmth and some people are simply too

cold.

she would settle for a house instead.