21 SHORTLISTED POEMS FOR THE LATEST FORTNIGHT PRIZE

POETRY IS A KIND OF SUMMER PLAY

Here are the 21 shortlisted poems. The winner will be announced no later than Monday 21st of August, before midnight GMT. The new contest begins tomorrow.

1. ALISON PALMER –‘Days Fallen Into’
2. AMY SONOUN – ‘The Death of Clive James Has Been Postponed Again’
3. ANDERS HOWERTON – ‘An Original Series’
4. ANNA LENA PHILLIPS BELL – ‘Qualifications for one to be Climbed by a Vine’
5. AUDREY MOLLOY – ‘On the Rocks’
6. BRIDGET SPROULS – ‘Chatter’
7. BURNSIDE SOLEIL – ‘Sundays’
8. COLIN DARDIS – Lost to the Night’
9. DAVID ADAMS – ‘Dominar’
10. EMILY OSBORNE –‘Diacritics’
11. ERIC SIGLER – ‘Celestial Probability’
12. HALEY KARIN – Cover Girl’
13. LOU HERON – ‘The Ant Under The Bar Stool’
14. MAUREEN MILLER – ‘Funeral for my Excuses’
15. MEG EDEN – ‘spirit houses’
16. MEGAN COLEMAN – ‘Licorice and the Underworld’
17. P.C. VANDALL –‘After a Poem by Leonard Cohen’
18. PAMELA JOHNSON PARKER – ‘Months Later, I Stand Here Ironing’
19. TOM DOLAN – ‘Surrounded’
20. WES LEE – ‘You Are The Envoy’
21. YESSICA KLEIN – ‘Let’s Do Some Work Then We’ll Make Love’

Comments

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

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