Biscuit Poetry Competition 2008

First Prize: Pippa Little (United Kingdom) for This Was The Year. Pippa chose to have her book published, and to receive 75 copies of it. Foray, Border Reiver Women was published in October 2009.
Second Prize: Michael Woods (United Kingdom) for Clocher D'Enfer. Michael wins a Writer's Retreat / Holiday for one week in Talbot House, Flanders, plus £200 travel expenses.
Third Prize: Annie Bien (USA) for A future Author hallucinates as Wen Cheng in a dream, May 1972. She wins a £200 cash prize.

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The following Highly Commended Runners-up each win £25. They are listed in no particular order:

Diane Simkin (United Kingdom): A Garden of Remembrance
Arlene Ang (Italy): Raindrop Prelude
Asit Maitra (United Kingdom): Chapati Moon
Helen Okoronko (Bulgaria): Tvirem Aprilis
A C Clarke (United Kingdom): Carnival of Words
Charles Evans (United Kingdom): Common English Errors
Andrew Kelly (United Kingdom): To a deaf daughter

Judge's Comments

418 poems were entered and there were no disqualifications. Eight countries were represented although the vast majority came from the United Kingdom. I read every poem. A wide range of poetry forms were submitted: villanelles, sonnets, free verse, renga, to name but a few. Standards overall were extremely high. I was particularly pleased to see a number of prose-poems submitted as I feel it is a much neglected - and widely misunderstood (by readers) - form.

I feel bound to say some poems, however well constructed lacked an interesting statement, offering little more than a description of place (rather than a sense of), or an expression of personal angst or grief. Subject matter matters. Writer-Poets should be saying something to the world, addressing the topical, delivering the profound, demanding attention, stirring the masses, otherwise there's not much point in writing. Oh for the poet crusaders of yesteryear, bravehearts challenging authority with strong words, informing the masses with coded imagery. Many of the poems entered here did make powerful statements, trumpeted a strong message or whispered it beneath the surface. I prefer the latter, although I do abhor those pretentious riddle-me-rees masquerading as high literary art, srutting like pompous asses across the pages of some of the chapbooks and magazines these days. Readers do of course like to be intellectually challenged, meet the words on middle ground, engage with the poem. A few poets strove to deliver all of that but got lost in the entanglement of rules and form. "Sing it loud, sing it strong," but please - sing it simple.

Brian Lister