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2009 WINNERS! 2nd Annual Poetry London poetry contest – April 2009 Judge: Patrick Friesen First Place Poem Thinning Light by Debra Franke Was that barn door always severed like that, hay-edged light bleeding through a missing piece of board like firelight thinning in the dark? And that fence, all the gaps and busted wire come loose around the yard from weather and time like lapses in speech, those pauses when my mother called us in for supper, her voice lost among backyard poplars, wind-swiped words that never returned to us, stayed buried in leafy handfuls of the highest branches, in eavesdropping roots of underground, open throats of sparrows. A door in the sky we opened, where it took us once our coats were hung and boots were knocked clean of mud: to the centre of blue I was sure would forget me like winter did every year when it abandoned the yard, the fast replacing of snow with an undertow of leaves, roof of the aluminum shed reuniting with shy waking light, bare surface for morning to land on.
Second Place Poem 2nd Annual Poetry London poetry contest – April 2009 Things could have no meaning at all. by Patrick Sullivan Things could have no meaning at all. The albatross could be killed ten thousand times and no one turn their head. The virgin could bear 1000 children each more miraculous than the next and not a single sacred text inspired. The dancing girls could shuffle and sway for the sake of it, men taking notes dispassionately. Science could have nothing to say about it, only art in the room as things are decided. It would be as though the homeless offered us money on our way home from work, as though the screens watched us, as though we grew young in time, as though sense slowly constructed itself and made mansions carefully of us. --------------------------------------------------------------- There will be no poetry contest for the 2009/2010 season. Please see our EVENTS page for a special call for poems.

2009 WINNERS!

2nd Annual Poetry London poetry contest – April 2009

Judge: Patrick Friesen

First Place Poem

Thinning Light

by Debra Franke

Was that barn door always severed like that,
hay-edged light bleeding through a missing piece
of board like firelight thinning in the dark?

And that fence, all the gaps and busted wire
come loose around the yard from weather and time
like lapses in speech, those pauses when my mother

called us in for supper, her voice lost among
backyard poplars, wind-swiped words that never
returned to us, stayed buried in leafy handfuls

of the highest branches, in eavesdropping roots
of underground, open throats of sparrows.
A door in the sky we opened, where it took us

once our coats were hung and boots were knocked
clean of mud: to the centre of blue I was sure would
forget me like winter did every year when it abandoned

the yard, the fast replacing of snow with an undertow
of leaves, roof of the aluminum shed reuniting with
shy waking light, bare surface for morning to land on.