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Martha Robinson Poetry Competition 2009

The ‘Martha Robinson’ Poetry Competition Winners 2009

This year the competition attracted the highest number of entries to date! All the poems were of exceptional quality, and we would like to thank everyone who took part. In addition to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes there is also a short list of commendations. These poems will be printed in the spring issue of Perceptions next year.

And the Winners are…

First Prize £100 to Maureen Oliver
Second Prize £50 to A. Edmonds
Third Prize £25 to C. Gill

Congratulations to everyone, and better luck next year to those who never won. Remember you can submit your poems to the magazine throughout the year.

Winning poems of competition

1st prize. Maureen Oliver

The Maze

Sometimes it seemed futile
As she wandered aimless
Through the maze,
Uncertain of her direction,
Losing heart- would she ever find the centre?
And where was the exist?
What awaited her behind
The tangle of thorny growth
That hemmed her in?

Then there were potholes
And sometimes gaping chasms would
Appear so that she feared
Falling helplessly to her doom.
What would save her then?
Would some divine hand lift her
From destruction?
What was that force that
Drove her onwards,
That filled her beating heart to hope?

Dazed at times she’d stumble
Over rocky paths between the twisted vines.
She only knew she must go forward
To whatever awaited her,
Would there be glory,
Would there be joy?
In any event
The game had to end someday,
Then, at last she’d learn
The secret of the maze.

2nd prize A. Edmonds

The Saving Cure Was Far Eviler
Those war-born chunks, white pills to end my pain,
Were torture to my body, I convulsed.
It was as if Satan’s tears came by rain.
Hell’s agony in veins and it pulsed.
My breath was as on a mountains grey peak,
I was alive but dead on that cruel night.
My words left with the air, I could not speak,
I was subdued and had no chance of flight.
In that room I wished an end for my life,
But the Angels could not enter my room.
I hoped kind Death would come with his sharp scythe,
There would be soft peace in a grey stone tomb.
Grasped by pain I eventually slept,
If Angels were watching I’m sure they wept.

3rd Prize C. Gill

Lonely Battle
The psychiatric ward-
An ‘escape’ from life?
Not when huddled, locked
In the corner of seclusion
With noxious cobra spirits coiled to strike.
Brief, early hope of a haven of tranquillity and care
In this confined isolation
is brief. So dispelled,
As here had little retreat or peace to offer.
Our relentless mind torments may boil over
But support is meagre and personal space scarce,
Anguish and compulsive brain churnings
Thrive in this monotonous vacuum.
Severe sweating fear,
Desolation and desperation
Burn me up.

Lying like cattle in our communal stalls
On lonely strip light-flooded nights
There can be some blessed relief
In soporific, drug-fuelled slumber.
Raw morning awakenings
Destroy any scanty hours of peace,
As nurses’ commands toll out-
All join the medication queue.
Then to the breakfast queue
With the trusty, cold, leather toast
That becomes my familiar comfort and rare interlude
From the daily purposeless grind
That feeds only a profundity of poisoness introspection.
A nurse in the office files her nails,
Nonchalant, bored.
Apparently heedless to the surrounding suffering.

The cries of our jailors-
“Accept you are ill”
“The pills are essential”
Don’t condemn us to the end.
Release from our nightmares is possible, so resist-
Finding the ultimate path to peace in death
And accept-
It is a single –handed lonely battle
And we all owe ourselves survival.
Work to escape ourselves is hard,
But fight on to challenge over-sensitivity, suspicion
And pray for strength
In the perpetual, seething sea of pain.
And in the emerging freedom
Peace and happiness can ultimately thrive.

More about Martha Robinson here.
Also see this year's commendations