Poet Stephen Holden celebrates receiving his £1,000 cheque and trophy from United Press.

Newspaper clipping nets top prize for Preston poet

An article in his local paper has earned Stephen Holden £1,000 and a national title.

" My sister saw a story about a free poetry competition and mentioned it to me " explained Stephen of Preston.

Stephen has only been writing poetry for two years. "I’ve submitted work for competitions where it costs about £15 to send three poems,” he said. “So when I saw that I could submit three poems for absolutely nothing, I just had to have a go. I knew I had nothing to lose and £1,000 to gain."

Stephen (56), a worker at BAE Systems near Preston, is the £1,000 first prize winner in the biggest annual free to enter national poetry competition there has ever been.
Tens of thousands of poems were entered for this UK-wide annual competition which began in 1998, aimed at unearthing new poetry talent. Stephen received the cash prize of £1,000 plus a magnificent trophy to keep for life.
"I’m delighted at this success, " said Stephen, who has been wheelchair-bound with multiple sclerosis for many years.

Out of all the entries that are submitted every year over 250 are picked to represent different regions in the UK and all are printed in the annual National Poetry Anthology. Each author receives a free copy of the book and votes for the best poem in it. "To be chosen as the winner by so many excellent poets is a wonderful experience, " added Stephen

Stephen is an avid Preston North End FC fan. He is married to Linda and they have one son, David.
"Stephen’s prizewinning poem On The Slate Worked Hill, is an evocative study of life in a mining town, "said United Press Managing Director Peter Quinn, who made the presentation.

ON THE SLATE WORKED HILL

On the slate worked hill ’neath the slate grey skies
View the slate grey town with those slate grey eyes
There the slate grey men and their slate grey wives
Work the slate grey slate all their slate grey lives

’Neath the coal black hill in the coal black seam
From the black coal face hear the coal black scream
On a coal black night wives in coal black, cope
As their coal black men die in coal black hope

Kiss the blood red lips ’neath the blood red skies
Through the blood red mist soldier blood red lies
In the blood red fight rivers blood red run
’Top the blood red hill sets the blood red sun

Stephen J Holden, Preston, Lancashire

The poem above is Stephen Holden's winning entry. Those below are a selection from this year's anthology.

Screened by trees and bushes
Near the park’s main gate
Lenin’s toppled statue lies
Prostrate in a wooden crate

His upthrust fist exhorts the clouds
He rants but no-one heeds
His bearded jowl rests on the ground
He speaks to grass and weeds

Debris fills his iron folds
His face is stained with rust
The colossus of the Comintern
Is turning into dust

A child peers in at Lenin
Observes with awed surprise
The giant man is weeping
As rain runs from his eyes

Antony J Matthews, Windsor, Berkshire

Snatched by swollen, storming tides
pulled deep beneath the puckered swell
no voice to cry or scream or yell
alone on nature’s carousel
where swirling, stirring, foaming froth
has claimed the lives of loved ones lost.

Year after year these fractured limbs
drift far across the ocean’s brim,
stripped and hollowed,
tossed and torn,
’til an ebbing tide discards this worn
and yet inimitable form

Castaway on rippled sands
this sculpture stands -
a testament to nature’s hands
returned by churning, turning tides
smoothed by rocks,
bleached by the sun,
a natural phenomenon.

Justine Zaritsky, Haslemere, Surrey

Children of Africa, I hear you cry,
I feel your pain, and hear your sighs,
I know you are hungry, and for water you thirst,
Condemned to death since the day of your birth.
Your bellies are swollen,
And your limbs are so thin,
If I could help you, where would I begin?
For I am a child, and also in need,
Without any food on which I can feed.
I thirst for water, my pains are great.
My mother is weeping. She can only wait
For help and support, and someone to care.
For medicine and shelter. From whom, and where?
So many children upon this earth
Are also suffering from hunger and thirst.
They just exist, like you and I,
For this isn’t living, it’s waiting to die.

Carol Hooper, Redmarley, Gloucestershire

Above my head the shades unfurl
Subtle and soft as mother of pearl
From palest peach and tangerine
To golden ochre laced with cream

Deeper and deeper, the colours spread
From burnished bronze to vibrant red
Like some enormous passion flower
A defiant show of waning power

Then a change of mood ensues
As the colours change to greys and blues
Suggesting pounding surf on piles
Of rocks on the coast of the western isles

This majestic pageant’s final scene
Is of velvet darkness, calm, serene
The beauty holds me, makes me stay
As I stand in awe at the death of a day

Dorothy White, Whitecrook, Scotland

© Terry Thornton - 2006-2008 United Press Ltd