Stage: Not Averse To Verse
In a move from stage this week we look at the 2015 Sussex Poets Competition
Brighton & Hove Arts Council are delighted to have launched the Sussex Poets Competition for the second time, following the tremendous success of the first one in 2013/14. We hope this will become an annual event alongside our Spring Art Exhibition and our Drama Awards.
This year’s competition opened on 11 May and will run for 3 months, and we are particularly pleased to have engaged Clare Best, local prize-winning poet and author, university teacher and facilitator of Creative Writing and Writer in Residence at the University of Brighton as our Judge (see photo and poem).
We see the Poetry Competition as a great opportunity to encourage people across, or with any connection to, Sussex to flex their poetic aspirations and gain the opportunity to test their abilities through the judgement of a distinguished poet. And possibly to win a significant prize and some publicity into the bargain.
This year the poetry competition is supported by the University of Brighton College of Arts and Humanities, and their two centres for contemporary writing C21 and Work, Write Live. The University of Sussex School of English and Alumni and Development Team are also working with us and providing sponsorship and support. And on the commercial front, Brighton Taxis have come on board, while Higgidy of Shoreham maintain the local flavour!
How to enter
Entrants can choose their own theme and structure but the poem must be limited to 40 lines only and be written in English. Entrants must be 16 or over by 10 August this year to enter, and have a connection with Sussex by birth, residency, study or work.
Further details of this year’s competition and how to enter are available on-line, from our website www.bh-arts.org.uk/Sussex-poets-competition-2015 or from our Facebook page (Brighton & Hove Arts Council). Application forms can be found in Libraries, Arts Centres and other venues near you. The Awards event will be held in the autumn, with both our Judge and the winners reading their work.
So get those pens/keyboards out…..
The Aftermath Inspector, by Clare Best won the Poetry on the Lake International Poetry Competition a couple of years ago.
The Aftermath Inspector
The boy wakes to the red call in the green night.
Unmoving on his narrow bed, he hears
his father run downstairs to fix quick tea, and then
his steady dressing – overalls, gauntlets, waders –
according to what kind of aftermath it is.
Hours until he’s back, hours the boy wonders
how many yards of buckled track, how many carriages.
He imagines arclights, inspectors gathering screws
and bolts, identifying scattered parts.
Later, his father props the waders in the shed
and sits. Resting, he says. The boy stays close,
waits for him to search his bag. A trophy from the site.
Over the years he’s brought three merlin feathers,
the cracked skull of a hare, one perfect ammonite,
a roe buck’s antler (velvet still attached)
and now this grey stick with the sway of a swan’s neck.
The boy watches his father place the keepsake
on the store-room shelf, he sees him
climb the stairs to wash, and dress
in other clothes for other work, as people do
who witness engines burst open in the dark.
