National Poetry Anthology 2005

The sixth year of the National Poetry Anthology.

 

CHILD IN A TRAIN

You cannot buy me child, with your winning ways
Coy, with your dimpling curls,
Coaxing the expected smile.

How well you play the tricks to catch my glance
And snare my heart.
That pout,
The teasing turn,
The sudden pool-blue flashes through
Honeysuckle lashes.

I wait and so do you.

Then I decline your invitation,
As I might deny the fawning dog a pat,
Push away the smarming cat.

You, your repertoire exhausted, reward withheld,
Drop the pretence of being only three,
And from your ageless eyes now fixed on mine,
The woman in you glares at me.

Lawrette Williams, Drayton, Somerset

 

SCATTERED SOIL
I felt her breath even closer
Than the sweetpeas I dropped upon her coffin
Now resting within the earth.
These were her flowers and I brought them
From her garden, she blushed with colour.
Without her, the seasons will melt into one
And become, an adjacent trinity.
The earth that I now scattered upon her
Was once her foothold
And infinitely sure
She walked upon it
Until infinity
Drew in her scent
And floundered
For she was lovely,
And when the angels welcome, or whoever comes to greet,
May they welcome in,
A guardian
Who will lead the apostles
To find the earth and goodness
Closer than the darkness
Of scattered soil.

Andrew Woodhouse, Ripon, North Yorkshire

 

SUMBARINE
when you look up at the night sky in hebden bridge
you count streetlamps instead of stars

we bought a half of bells at the co-op
and I drank it in a bus shelter
as the pulp and enamel gears of her mouth
performed an act of northern hospitality
our grandmothers would've thought impossible
she even took off her hat

in her friend's attic we smoked a fingernail's worth
and listened to the beautiful pennine rush
of white noise on the radio
static following the naked moors
like a tongue along skin

we watched the skylight fill with rain
till everything was underwater
morning found us drowned
clinging to the fronds of streetlamps
waiting for the tide to bring buses

Shaun Shackleton, Guernsey, Channel Islands

 

DEPLETED URANIUM
What shall I tell my dying son, how shall I best explain
The tired and tawdry trading of the hangman and his whores,
The sordid and the seedy sale of slow insipid slaughter,
With profits for the corporate pimps from cancer-coated wars?

And home of the Enlightenment, how shall I best explain
The ironies of progress and the shadows in the sand;
What shall I tell my dying son, he's just collateral damage
As drawn out, war wrought, listless deaths advance the Rights of Man?

John Kelsall, Dunoon, Scotland

 

MAMA'S WAR
I feel at ease with your familiar face
The trials of life mapped in your skin
Bewildered I watch as you trace each peak and furrow
Fingers worrying, worrying.

How strange you say
You who had clung to youth so tenaciously
Had come to look this way
You were now officially old.

I tell you, wrinkles happen, enjoy them
That you've earned each one
Think of them as monuments of memories
Of life's little ups and downs
Think of them as some old some new.

Smiling at the wisdom of one so young
At the hint of challenge in those words
And as if taking up the gauntlet
You tilt your chin to the light
And with dogged determination
Hang that face out there.

Rosalyn Cosentino, Dunstable, Bedfordshire

 

SONNET
Day-long my daughter has defied the sea:
breasting the big waves; racing rollers home
to Crawford Tartan and a flask of tea.
Sand has been her playmate. Alone, she's roamed
the known horizon: cool pools to hot dunes;
skipping across her tracks, a brazen beach
girl, followed heel on heel by pleasure runes.
At four, half-seen through sand-steam (beyond reach),
she taught me how to surf late fatherhood.
At eight - fed, tented and down-deep in sleep -
her salted hands reached out, clasped mine (that should have held her over
every wave). But steep
tsunami of dream took them, then, to seize
her found necklace - a little piece of sea.

Tim Noble, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

 

THE SEA
The sea resounds within my skull
as though within a shell
- a restless susurration -
surging deep, relentlessly
retreating and returning.
Never ending waves
swirl to cleanse and scour,
snatching and hurling
- detonating caves,
eternal ebb and flow.

Beguiling blue beneath reflected sky,
gleaming, the sea remains
untamed, rippling with latent power -
a mighty creature poised to lash
with towering wave, the disrespectful,
or drag below with clinging undertow.
Unseen, the current snakes across the bay.

Hazel Davies, Porthcawl, Wales

Regional Winners

SOUTH EAST

BEDS:
Ann Ireland, Luton, Louise Mills, Leighton Buzzard, Rosalyn Cosentino, Dunstable.

BERKS:
Juliet England, Reading, Tracy Briggs, Slough.

BUCKS:
Kevin Saving, Winslow, Anne Reynolds, Beaconsfield, Archie Wilson, Widmer End.

ESSEX:
Susan Rosamund Ganley, Colchester, Joan Stanton, Saffron Walden, Paul Clark, Westcliff-on-Sea, Tim Noble, Leigh-on-Sea, Jeremy Allan-Smith, Great Holland.

HANTS:
June Bond, Liss, Frances Sweeney, Emsworth, Freya Bryant, North Baddesley, Barry Froggatt, Romsey, E V Brooks, Southampton, Robert Lambert, Alton, Elizabeth Strand, Petersfield, Tanya Neave, Waterlooville. Rowan Harrop, Southampton, Lorna Stark, Yateley, Jennifer Arnold, Alton.

HERTS:
Sylvia Goodman, Watford, Richard Robinson, Welwyn Garden City, Mukaddes Gorar, St Albans, Janet Erskine, Royston, Rosemary Anthony, New Barnet.
ISLE OF WIGHT:
Cyril Hudson, Cowes.

KENT:
Thelma Vandridge, Chatham Historic Dockyard, Philip Moss, Whitstable, Vic West, Rochester, Wendy Holmes, Herne, Rebecca Hammond, Dover, Steve Coots, Tunbridge Wells, Chris Calvert, Sittingbourne, Lucy Rhodes, Hythe, Trevor Lawrence, Maidstone, John Solomon-Clarke, Rochester.

GTR LONDON:
Matthew Wilkinson, London, Felicia Bolton, Shepperton, Jacky Radclyffe, London, Kaye Lee, Muswell Hill, Jodie Portugal, Hayes, David Erdos, London, Simon MacCulloch, Edgeware, Paul Jeffery, Harrow, Anthea Bennett, London, Julie Jeana, Bermondsey, Declan Sweeney, Vauxhall, Mary Ann Ranken, London, Tara Anjali Short, Harrow, Jonathan Attrill, Barnet, Saz J Lass, London.

OXON:
Gwilym Scourfield, Bicester, Raymond Start, Banbury, Alison Jones, Oxford.

SURREY:
Pat Mear, Croydon, Mary Ellis, Purley, John Treneman, Claygate, Alwyn Marriage, Guildford.

SUSSEX:
Andrea Bradbury, Lancing, Richard Rhodes, Brighton, Margaret Wilmot, Polegate.

SOUTH WEST

CHANNEL ISLANDS:
Shaun Shackleton, Guernsey, Annie Parmeter, Jersey.

CORNWALL:
Alan Robinson, Mawgan Porth, Crispin Williams, St Ives, Rebecca Platt, Truro.

DEVON:
Jason Kenny, Torquay, Ian Walkington, Tavistock, Kirsten Freiesleben, Crediton, Paul Teed, Sidmouth, Janet Beardsall, Ottery St Mary.

DORSET:
Robin Waite, Shipton Gorge, Sheila Newman, Christchurch, Janine Vallor, Bridport, Barbara Ellis, Blandford Forum, Barry Ferns, Poole, Brian Harris,
Bridport

GLOS:
Jacqueline Cockram, Dursley, Katie Redman, Gloucester, Janet Illingworth-Cooper, Gloucester.

AVON:
Isabel Cortan, Bristol, John Evans, Weston-Super-Mare.

SOMERSET:
Frances Lowe - Bridgwater, Jovie Harfield - Farrington Gurney, Margaret Castle - Wedmore, Mike Elliott - Cheddar, Peter Cooper - Yeovil, Helen Moore - Radstock, Lawrette Williams - Drayton

WILTS:
Kieran Davis, Swindon, Suzie House, Devizes, Brenda Lee, Swindon.

EAST ANGLIA

CAMBS:
Rex Collinson, Cambridge, Martin Chester, Huntingdon, Lucy Lewis, Cambridge.

NORFOLK:
Tony Carter, Attleborough, S J Robinson, Downham Market, Andrea Tallarita, Norwich.

SUFFOLK:
Joseph Wells, Hadleigh, Yvonne Allen, Ipswich,Elizabeth Walker, Needham Market, Stephen Studd, Felixstowe.

EAST MIDLANDS

DERBYS:
Alkan Fisher, Buxton, Emma Bebbington, Chesterfield, Tricia Mitchell, Bradwell, Janet Newstead, Ilkeston.

LEICS:
George Lovett, Measham, Elaine Whitesides, Melton Mowbray, Therese Bradshaw, Sileby, Phil Fox, Leicester, Mo Ward, Hinckley, Mary Cooper, Loughborough.

LINCS:
Stephen Emmerson, Louth, Michael Hoadley, Spalding, Angela Horton, Skegness, Daniel Ellin, Lincoln, Bill Becker, Grimsby.

NORTHANTS:
Maurice King, Higham Ferrers, Faith Bricher, Northampton.

NOTTS:
Dorothy Barlow, Long Eaton, Rob Bingham, Newark, Hilary J Cairns, Retford, Martin Bloomfield, Nottingham.

WEST MIDLANDS

HEREF:
Ursula Mills, Hereford.

WORCS:
David Parker, Kidderminster

SHROP:
Kath Shaljean, Oswestry.

STAFFS:
David Brunskill, Stafford, Colette Horsburgh, Stoke-on-Trent, Patricia Edwards, Tamworth.

WARKS:
Frances M C Harvey, Rugby, Stephanie Codsi, Leamington Spa.

WEST MIDS:
Ros Murphy, Birmingham, Glyn Jones, Solihull, Glenda Bennett, Stourbridge, Claire Boylan, Coventry, Ann Wallace, Wolverhampton, Christina Philpott, Kingswinford.

NORTH WEST

CHESHIRE:
P G Horton, Macclesfield, Lisa Boucher, Altrincham, Brian Bovington, Stalybridge, June Hindley, Northwich, Sheila Parry, Blacon, Stephanie Dickinson, Hartford, Winnie Pat Lee, Hale.

CUMBRIA:
Glen Caldock, Carlisle, John Boyd, Whitehaven, Daniel Elsworth, Ulverston, Tracey Turner, Barrow-in-Furness, Dorothy Coxon, Coniston, Kate Calico, Kendal.

LANCS:
Michael Ward, Lytham, Helen Melrose, Blackpool, G Richard Hall, Morecambe, Lesley C Rutter, Fleetwood, Hayes Turner, Preston, Rachel Adamson, Nateby, Katherine Farrimond, Ormskirk, Laura Sheridan, Burnley, Vicky Hozaifeh, Chorley.

GTR MANCHESTER:
Christine Fairclough, Worsley, Jackie Taylor, Rochdale, Gary Morris, Bolton, Beryl Davies, Eccles, Colin Halsall, Wigan, Dave Hughes, Cheadle, Clair Rooney, Stretford, Scott Charles Blakeley, Middleton, Elaine Speakman, Crumpsall, Heather Ferrier, Failsworth.

MERSEYSIDE:
Dorothy Burgess, Crosby, Eugenia Kelly Viner, Liverpool, John Reynolds, Birkenhead, Joan Mercer, Formby, Peter Ben Davies, West Kirby, Margaret
Gleave, Southport.

NORTH EAST

CLEVELAND:
Nick Luke, Middlesbrough, Amy Bell, Acklam.

COUNTY DURHAM:
Brenda Whitelock, Chester-le-Street, Sue Percival, Durham City.

NORTHUMBERLAND:
Trish Clark, Cramlington, Laura Scott, Hexham, Carlotta Miller Johnson, Morpeth, Christine McEwen, Birtley.

TYNE & WEAR:
Annie Moir, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Kathleen Potter, South Shields, Juliett Branche, Sunderland, Roger Harvey, Whickham.

EAST YORKS: Nina Hanney, Goole, Sheelagh Harrap Taylor, Hull, Margaret King, Hull.

NORTH YORKS:
Rev Andrew Woodhouse, Ripon, Nicola Louise Dixon, Boroughbridge, Louis Kitchen, Whitby.

SOUTH YORKS:
R A Morley, Doncaster, Charlotte Harrison, Oughtibridge, Judith Sanders, Rotherham, Richard Green, Barnsley, Jennifer D Wootton, Sheffield.

WEST YORKS:
Eddie Purcell, Holmbridge, Naomi Willard, Huddersfield, Elizabeth H Hopkinson, Clayton, Sandra Harrison, Pudsey, Stephanie Stafford, Brighouse, Philip G Kirk, Bradford, David Wheatley, Leeds, Emma Turner, Wyke, Susan Darlington, Leeds, Ken Frankland, Pontefract.

WALES

Janet Hughes, Montgomery, Parveena Mano, Ammanford, Amy Bowen, Abermule, Frances Blockley, Llanidloes, A G Tovey, Pontnewydd, Graham Jones, Garden Village, Hazel Davies, Porthcawl, David Peters, Newport, Jan Davies, Porthcawl, Philip F Hughes, Wrexham, Simon Smith, Port Talbot, Liz Black, New Radnor, Kishli Laister-Scott, Cowbridge, Martin Taylor, Penrhyn Bay, Rebecca Lowe, Swansea, Caroline Clark, Aberystwyth.

NORTHERN IRELAND

R Stephens, Banbridge, Margaret Johnston, Hazelbank, Marcus Gilmore, Portadown, Scott Boldt, Belfast, Sharon Truesdale, Newtonards, Gavin Weston, Kircubbin, Margaret Cameron, Belfast

SCOTLAND

Sarah Wilson, Edinburgh, Hamish M Brown, Burntisland, Lesley Atkins, Glasgow, Harvey Duke, Dundee, Deirdre McAuley, Wishaw, Peter Robinson, Coaltown of Balgonie, Leyna Hunter, Dunfermline, James Watters McKean, Sauchie, Josephine Duthie, Aberdeen, Heather Innes, Blairgowrie, Tina Harris, Ellon, Elaine Kelly, Dalry, John Kelsall, Dunoon, Hannah Bateman, Denny, Penny Hemans, Stonehaven, Val Pvhler, Falkirk, Alan Gay, North Berwick, Steven Loveland, Moray, Dr George Carle, Tighnabruaich, Kate Armstrong, Dundee.