It is with great pleasure that we can announce the winners of the Creative Writing Competition 2018. We had a fantastic number of entries for this year’s Remembrance themed competition and the standard was very high. Thank you to all of those who entered.
And the winner is… Karen Izod with her beautiful monosyllabic poem ‘Last Day’.
Congratulations also to the Highly Commended… Belinda Borissow with ‘August, 1939‘
Please enjoy the poems for yourselves at the end of this article.
We would like to thank Wendy Falla (Head Judge), the Cranleigh Writers Group and the 1000 Monkeys for all of their support with the competition. Thank you also to the Cranleigh Lions for sponsoring the prizes. The next Spoken Word Night will be kicking off the Literary Festival 2019 on Tuesday 5th March 2019. Hope to see you there!
WINNER
Last Day
Massacre of the landless, Extremadura Campaign, Spanish Civil War 1936.
By Karen Izod
A shaft of light breaks at the edge
of the field, its sun-slow creep leads
a path through the quince trees, ripe now.
Soft mist holds to the ground as dawn
hosts its own call, goes at it full tilt:
bird-song, goats’ bells, a far-off bark.
And did they know, as they held their ground,
feet hard with war, bared to the land,
that this is where they would spill,
that all these years gone, a red earth
would force through this crust, still blood raw,
graves still warm, the burn and scorch of lies?
No dew here to gift them their spent youth,
mark their time, stay in a mind’s eye.
HIGHLY COMMENDED
AUGUST, 1939.
By Belinda Borrisow
Caressing the edge of the copse, where we ran,
long grasses beckoned our trailing hands
to abandon their perch above eyes
staring down Summer skies
In the gentle breeze, unborn seeds filled the air,
with landings planned for places to hide in nature’s womb,
while butterflies flickered
in cloudless skies;
brief spirits floating sideways on freshly printed wings
And in the shade of the willow, fossil ghosts
shivered in beds of shale;
ancient treasures in streams
trimmed with minnows
in secure shallows
Such was the reverie of August, 1939
when innocence blossomed, unscorched by the sun,
on vines we brothers climbed to castles in the air;
Before our bodies went off to war.
Before our hearts had been anywhere.