New Writing WOMEN'S POETRY COMPETITION 2007 Guest Editors U A FANTHORPE AND R V BAILEY introduce the winner and runners-up. IN ‘Too Close,’ the title (which suggests all sorts of possibilities), is one thing that can safely be said about any hospital ward, where unwanted intimacy is forced: not just physical intimacy (‘I could reach out and touch him’) but the random details of others’ private worlds, from ‘date of birth’ to ‘desperation.’ The vulnerabilities, the loneliness, the distresses of hearing and seeing things ‘that should be done and said behind closed doors,’ as well as the ‘small sharp unkindnesses’ of nurses, are deftly dealt with. A careless reader might not notice that this is a hospital ward – and indeed a mixed ward – until verse three. But the writer is very sure-footed, very confident of her material. The claustrophobic closeness is intensified by the distances indicated at the beginning and ending; it’s a poem that neatly moves full circle, from the pillow of the writer to her ‘world,’ from the ‘Scottish vicar’s wife’ to 500 miles away. It’s a brilliant ending. It comes over even more strongly because until then the writer has not said anything at all about herself. Neither of us thought ‘Salt’ would be a prize-winner to begin with, but its courage and originality kept making themselves felt again and again as we became more familiar with it. It wastes no words, strikes no attitudes despite its strange material; it simply tells the unlikely tale with all its special details, its strong submerged passions – the poet’s as well as Harry’s wife’s – only hinted at briefly towards the end. Brave, economical, well-managed. ‘Sunday Monday Tuesday’ was adventurous in another way, leaving the reader more work to do. Desperate events are delicately lodged within the monotony of those everyday routines which hold life together, and each of these layers of experience makes significant the other. Again a whole world is suggested through the careful selection of detail; again the writer refuses to over-write, letting the simple words carry all the weight of the poem. Every word here has earned its passage. For the complete essay, and for U A and R V's full selection of poetry winners, read issue 34• Subscribe! Read the winning poem chosen by U A Fanthorpe and R V Bailey Too Close by Ann Alexander Read the top three prizewinning poems
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