Lockdown Poetry Competition

On this page you can read the winning,
runner-up and commended poems,
along with comments by our judge Kathleen Jones.

The winner - Adult category

LEARNING WHIMBREL - Martyn Halsall

He watched the birds by sound after his blindness,
calling to mind from hearing small cassettes
species from song; each voice, as experts phrased it.

He played tapes in the car, as fingering notes.
Historian, he never saw their geography.
Light was just dawn or dark, denying detail.

Lock on his eyes made prison, but also flight
as birds came, bringing in their ancient music
stories he’d once squint manuscripts to decode.

Tapes brought him gifts of fluency in recognition;
house martins‘ trr, trr, or bier, bier alarms
as harvesters scythed air; adobe nesters.

Locked down by plague, he’d conjure miles they travelled,
tartan migration, by flung songs that he’d heard;
sea-eagles’ krick-rick poise, ge ge in soar.

His wife would check descriptions in her bird book,
kliep kliep in oystercatchers’ black and white;
Lowlanders’ pluit from an avocet.

Evening in islands, listening from memory,
her hand guided his elbow; his folding cane
probed track for boulder, he caught the lochan’s music,

hearing uid, uid, uid, as Nordic phrasing
of whimbrel, mottled plumage like the burn
that flowed among the words she read to him.

The judge's view: Kathleen Jones

Difficult decisions had to be made in every category. In the end the poems that rose to the top were ones with an original angle, and where the form and the subject matter complemented each other. I was also looking for language and imagery. I read every poem at least three times and these were the ones that still had something to say to me at the end! There was a wide range of forms from the more traditional to poems that created their own forms. A poem has to show me why it’s the shape it is. There was some prose poetry, which I like, but it has to make its case for being in that category. Prose poetry has a particular shape and feel and uses language in a way that ordinary prose would not.

Under 18s

Silently Ignoring the World (Winner)
I like this because it summed up what living under lockdown felt like, on your own, with your mobile phone the only point of contact with the outside world. It identified that feeling of normality ‘Everything is normal/Everything is good’ while also knowing that ‘the world is in shambles’. It had a nice form and I loved the way the repetition framed the poem.

Hidden (runner up)
I liked the concept of a riddle and having to guess what it was. Well constructed.

Saviours burning the midnight oil (Commended)
This was an arresting account of Covid in India and the stories of those who played a heroic part in fighting it. Ratnaprabha Dabholkar, who, despite being ill, ‘never lost her spirit’. The garbage collector, Subhas Mahadik, who kept on working until he died. Dr Trupti Katdare who was ‘pelted with stones’. Another woman doctor Zakia Sayed who was injured, but ‘keeps on fighting’. It was only the form that let it down – the poem didn’t seem to know whether it was prose or poetry. A prose poem would have needed to be shaped differently. But this young author is a brilliant story-teller and needs to keep on practising!

Adults:

Learning Whimbrel (winner)
This was such a beautiful poem about identifying birds from their song after the ‘he’ of the poem can no longer see. It rose to the top of the pile from the first reading. There is such a wonderful evocation of the invisible landscapes and the way sounds run together in his head; ‘the burn/that flowed among the words she read to him’. Sound is very important, using words to bring us the ‘voices’ of the individual birds. It is very much a ‘Nicholson’ poem. Norman loved the natural world and himself lived with physical limitations that restricted his interaction with it.

What to Wear in Lockdown (runner up)
I liked the form of this poem – offsetting the comments of people in the street against the words of the narrator. It’s the story of a fur coat and a family feud, in one of those vivid dreams that seem to have characterised lockdown. There was a good use of language, humour and originality.

Wildwood (runner up)
When I read this poem I was immediately taken into the middle of a wood in the middle of a city. I could see everything down to the finest detail and hear the smallest sound. And then the lovely conclusion, bringing together the time the trees have taken to grow – ‘every ring a ripple’ – and our own brief timespan. Ecology was very close to Norman Nicholson’s heart and this account of an ecosystem is one he would have liked.

(Commended)
He She It
I loved this highly original prose poetry take on the pronoun dilemma and the incessant form-filling we are plagued with at the moment. This is a ‘make your own poem’ poem, where you fill in the blanks yourself. Perhaps not enough poetry to make it into the top three? I actually thought it might make very good flash fiction.

The Goats of Llandudno
Loved this humerous poem about the goats that came down into Llandudno at night during lockdown and grazed people’s gardens.

Violet Carpenter Bee: Spring 2020
Very accomplished rhyming form about the endangered bee trapped inside a room ‘In wild frustrated agony to pass/ The inexplicable barrier of glass’. It’s a thoughtful poem and there’s a very nice parallel between the trapped bee and our own plight. It asks a valid question, even when they find a vaccine ‘can mankind/Defeat the pathogen within the mind’?

Kathleen Jones
September 2020

Runner-up - Adult category

WHAT TO WEAR IN LOCKDOWN - Marion Leeper

Last night I dreamt
I went out into the street
wrapped in a long fur coat.

People pointed. Shouted
from doorways, windows.

They did not know that I was swaddled
in a hundred years of stories
to keep me safe from danger.

They called out: ‘A disgrace! An ugly woman
Wearing the skins of beautiful animals.’

I said, it was a hundred years ago
my father wore rough fur
to line his coat, that Peking winter
when foreigners were locked down in their compounds
against the riots, sharing their meagre rice in bamboo rooms
and skating to keep warm.

They remonstrated: ‘Unprotected!
In the street without a mask! You’ll catch your death!’

I pulled the coat’s round neck closer to mine, and said,
you do not know
how that long-forgotten lining
became a peace-offering between
my sister and my mother in their ten years’ war
about clothes,
how my sister wrapped it round her, so the folds rippled
across her flanks, and her eyes
narrowed like a cat’s.

Still they pointed: the coat waved behind me
a royal banner or a badge of shame.

I said, you’ve never seen how
those tawny markings, charcoal and umber,
particular as lifelines
spread over her bed, that winter
she spent alone, no money
in a stone-cold cottage with a too-small fire;
how, enveloped in a solitude of fur,
she read survival from their hieroglyphs.

Then I woke, remembering
that the coat had long ago gone to moth
and the streets were empty.

Third place - Adult category

WILDWOOD - Martin Rieser

This is as close as the city gets to wild:
below the thunder of arterials, a blackbird thrills,
magpies clatter and complain, and a dog pauses
to listen, free from walls
and enclosed air, stale with traffic and fags.

Limestone spurs and gorges , grey-brown water,
stink of wild garlic, sheet-white frothing down the valley
and oaks, sentient oaks
standing their ground through season and storm,
their channelled bark, cicatrice worn
as skin, roots ravelling away into dark, touching
underground colonies, worm paths,
minerals and funghi; converting sunlight,
for the strong branches to cage the day-moon’s face,
pushing slowly skywards.

They stand, every ring a ripple
out from the first shoot-
and our timespan barely girths an inch.

Three poems were commended in the Adult category

VIOLET CARPENTER BEE: SPRING 2020 - Deborah Maccoby

A big black Bee against my window pane
Crackles with rage, struggling in vain
In wild frustrated agony to pass
The inexplicable barrier of glass.

The window’s stuck. But I open wide
The big glass patio door, and guide
My winter tenant to the spring outside.

She circles once, then seems to hesitate –
Then sallies forth to feed and pollinate.
And I feel honoured to have set her free,
Essential worker for humanity.
When hierarchy breaks down in the hive,
Only the wild Bee keeps the world alive.

Carpenter Bee, brought to these northern climes
By a warming planet, in perilous times;
Violet Carpenter Bee, whose wings change hue
In sunlight to a dark translucent blue.

Wild flowers unfold for her their nectar treasure;
All nature wakes to labour that is pleasure;
Birds build their nests in budding trees and sing --
With gold-dust glistening on leg and wing,
From flower to flower my Bee goes visiting,
Oblivious to social distancing.

But while I set my Bee at large to roam,
Mankind immobilised remains at home.
A microbe holds humanity in thrall
Behind a baffling and invisible wall.

Lockdown will end one day, when they will find
A vaccine or a cure; but can mankind
Defeat the pathogen within the mind,
And, breaking man-made walls and distancing,
Experience at last the human spring?

HE SHE IT - Flo Au

Fill in the blanks with the words given.

It starts in _______________ (China/ Italy/ France/ Germany/ Spain/ America…) and drowns boundaries to suffocate every healthy lung. It intensifies ___________________(apprehension/ arguments/ animosity/ anxiety…) among people of colors, same or different. To it, all __________________(places/ colors/ ages/ genders…) are the same. No mercy on him. On her. On you. On me. Just it breeds and buds. ____________________________(Protests/ Tear gas/ Petrol bombs/ Gun shooting/ Ravings…) it fears not. It _______________(lurks/ loiters/ plots/ snickers…) around the corner, fully armored in frequent, fatal ambushes over the frenzy for a vaccine. It has long existed in his, her, their and our world, some scientists say. Then why now? Why him? Why her? Why them?

The reporters say the sky is ________________(cleaner/ clearer/ bluer/ brighter…) with wisps of bleach white, cotton clouds leisurely and joyously floating around. Rivers are _________________(less smelly/ greasy/ trashy…), shimmering in light with ripples welcoming the dance of its fish woken from the dying state of slumber. Birds and insects of all kinds, unknown exotic species, in couples sing _________________(more loudly/ sweetly/ touchy…) in the layers of green and red, yellow and orange, blue and purple. ______________________(cows/ sheep/ boars/ geese…) daringly leave their cramped habitats and stroll languidly along highways. It is different---the nature is back. What has ______________(he/ she/ it) done? Sacrifices for prosperity Vs sacrifices for restoration of beauty? Who has the answer? Does he? Does she? Does it?

THE GOATS OF LLANDUDNO - Isobel Thrilling

Goats are eating the municipal flowers
in Llandudno,

they trot from plate to plate
of tulips,
primulas, violets,
set out like iced cakes.

Here comes the light orchestra
of hooves,
occasional bray from a throat,
small blasts
from vocal accompaniment,
bleat-music.

And people locked up by the virus,
those who fashioned
the gardens
as stained-glass windows,
watch through panes,
as creatures devour a street-fest,

retreat
to the Great Orme at midnight,
to sleep off
the crimson, scarlet, purple and gold.

ALSO SHORTLISTED

Adults: Ouzel (Rich David). One Walk a Day - Haiku (Anne Banks). In The Air (Kerry Darbishire). Demeter (Nick Grant).

Under-18s: Saviours Burning the Midnight Oil (Mehak Vijay Chowla). The Island, Our Last Hope (Samantha Dias).

CONGRATULATIONS to the winners, runners-up, commended and shortlisted poets and thank you to everyone who entered.
We will contact the winners direct to arrange for the presentation of the prizes. The Society intends to publish a book containing a selection of the poems - news about this will be posted here and on our social media when we have it.

A big thank-you to our judge KATHLEEN JONES.

BBC Radio Cumbria plan to feature the competition between 7pm and 8pm on Monday October 5th. Do tune in!

posted 30/9/20

My ways are circumscribed, confined as a limpet
To one small radius of rock…

Has the coronavirus lockdown moved you to write some poetry? Do you have heartfelt experiences or inspirational moments from these last few months that are itching to get out there? Here’s your chance.

The Millom-based Norman Nicholson Society is now inviting anyone with the urge to compose a suitable poem to submit their work by September 1st, and be in with a chance of winning a specially engraved trophy, the official biography of Nicholson, and a copy of Nicholson’s ‘Selected Poems 1940-1982’ – plus publication of your work on the Society’s website.
The competition has two categories, for adults and under-18s.

Chair of the Norman Nicholson Society Charlie Lambert said: ‘These last few weeks have been a unique period in the lives of all of us. Many have suffered terrible distress, all have seen uplifting examples of heroism and determination. We have been reassessing old values and priorities. Some of us now have a closer understanding of what life was like for Norman Nicholson, stuck in his solitary room in a sanatorium for over a year. Whatever the lockdown has done for you, if you have a poem please share it with us. We will publish not just the winning entries but all commended poems, and we may go on to produce a book of these lockdown poems as well’.

Let the lockdown unlock your creativity!

Norman Nicholson knew all about lockdown decades before the word was invented. As a teenager he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent nearly two years in a sanatorium far from home in Hampshire, much of that time confined to his own room.

For years afterwards he had to safeguard his uncertain health by avoiding places where infection might lurk and spending long days alone in his attic bedroom where, in 1954, he wrote one of his best-known poems The Pot Geranium.

‘My ways are circumscribed,’ he wrote in the poem, ‘confined as a limpet / To one small radius of rock…’

Many of us now know exactly what he meant.

COMPETITION DETAILS

Prize for the winners: a trophy, a copy of Norman Nicholson’s ‘Selected Poems 1940-1982’, and a copy of ‘The Whispering Poet,’ the official biography of Norman Nicholson.

Closing date: September 1st 2020

Judge: KATHLEEN JONES Kathleen is a highly-regarded poet, novelist, biographer and broadcaster who is also a fellow of the Royal Literary Fund and vice-president of the Norman Nicholson Society.

CONDITIONS OF ENTRY
1 The competition is in two categories, Adult and Under-18s. Please state in your accompanying letter or email which category you are entering.
2 Poems should be in English, must not have been published either in print or on a website, nor be currently submitted or accepted for future publication. They must not have been awarded a prize in any other competition.
3 Poems must be your own original work and must on a subject relevant to, or inspired by, the coronavirus lockdown of 2020. The judge will read ALL poems entered. The decision of the judge is final.
4 Poems must be typed and no longer than 40 lines.
5 If sending poems by post, each poem must be on a separate sheet of paper, which must not bear your name or any other means of identification. On a separate sheet of paper, you should give your name and address and the title(s) of the poem(s) submitted.
6 If sending poems by email, each poem should be in a separate Word document, which must not bear your name or any other means of identification.
7 A maximum of four poems may be submitted per entrant.
8 We regret that we are unable to return poems, or amend them after entry.
9 The winner in each category will received a specially engraved trophy, a (pre-owned) copy of ‘Selected Poems 1940-1982’ by Norman Nicholson, published by Faber & Faber in 1982, and a (new) copy of ‘The Whispering Poet’, the official biography of Norman Nicholson by Kathleen Jones, published by The Book Mill in 2013. (Update 19/8/20: Kathleen has generously added a copy of the Bloodaxe anthology 'Being Human', edited by Neil Astley, to the prizes for the winner).
10 The closing date is 1 September 2020. Results will be announced in early October on the website of the Norman Nicholson Society, the Society’s Facebook and Twitter feeds, and in a press release.
11 Copyright remains with the authors, but the Norman Nicholson Society reserves the right to publish winning and commended poems on the Society’s website, and in any book which may be produced as a direct result of this competition. If you would prefer your work not to be included in any book, please state this in your accompanying letter or email.
12 Members of the committee of the Norman Nicholson Society are not eligible to enter.
13 Entries by post should be sent to: Norman Nicholson Poetry Competition, 14 St George’s Terrace, Millom LA18 4DB. Entries by email should be sent to [email protected]
14 Names and contact details of entrants will be stored only for the duration of the competition and will be used only for communications relating to this competition. They will not be passed to any third parties.

Norman Nicholson Society July 2020

The winner - Adult category

The winner - Under-18 category

The judge's view: Kathleen Jones

Runner-up - Adult category

Third place - Adult category

Runner-up - Under-18 category

Three poems were commended in the Adult category