The 2020 Poetry Readings and Prize-giving took place in the Parish Church of St Peter & St Paul in Shepton Mallet on Saturday 15th February 2020.
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We would like to thank our sponsors Harris + Harris Solicitors for their ongoing support of the Poetry Competiton.
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The 2020 Poetry Competition has been judged by Jane Draycott who lives in Oxfordshire
www.janedraycott.org.uk Jane Draycott is a poet and translator, whose collections from Carcanet Press include The Occupant, Over (nominated for the T S Eliot Prize), Prince Rupert's Drop (nominated for the Forward Prize for Poetry) and a modern translation of Pearl, a medieval dream-elegy for an infant girl.
A recipient of the Keats Shelley Prize for Poetry, she has been nominated as a Next Generation Poet, been Writer in Residence in Amsterdam, and was winner of the 2014 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. She teaches on creative writing programmes at the Universities of Oxford and Lancaster. |
The copyright in all of these works rests with their authors
Winners
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18 & Over
Quiet Curves, Sarah James, Droitwich Midnight passes; you’re working late, entrenched in the worn armchair beneath our snowdrop-shaped lamp. White blown-glass petals soft-light your bowed head, book and papers. Lost hours cast patchy shadows on the lounge wall: flameless candles, or small arches to somewhere unknown. I miss you, wherever it is you go then. While you sleep in, I wake to the year’s first glimpse of snowdrops, spilt-milking the lane’s wet grass. Their quiet curves catch grit spun from cars passing too fast to notice the half-hidden floorshow. Tired drivers miss the wind’s dance as delicate as your eyes and fingers chasing words across the page. When you do rise, I will share this, though words won’t be the same as white petals flickering with dawn. These stalks slant more surely than the hopes we can’t yet voice. Soon there will be crocuses, bold daffodils and unbuttoned tulips. But first the cusp of winter into spring, and a need to trust in opening up and letting go of the cold fears we’ve hugged tight in our closed petals. |
12 to 17
about the rebirth, Anya Trofimova, London never fear old friend, dormancy is also transient, same as your winter depression. when the year has finally yawned and turned upon a half-revealed shoulder remember the first scrambling moil of enchanting white snowdrops break our backyard drowse of seasonal disrepair; the first sparse and tentative spills as they appear uninvited on our neatly tendered roundabouts, spring’s exploding over the curb’s edges in alabaster petals, winking like children striving for the tallest obejct they can reach. sweet warm honey and milk combined and dropped into the melting snow. the other day I nearly picked a bunch for you, my dear friend, but remembered in time how in your own garden you’d always prefer to let them shrivel back into the coldest soil, how you'd stubbornly insist that it invigorates next year’s stock. |
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11 & Under
I Dream of an Invisible Realm, Aurora Blue, Stoke-on-Trent snow drops onto a grey-green lawn in an early dawn light lit by a lunar eye; a bride-white, spotless confetti falls and drifts silent, dissolving spectral snowdrops, whose veiled heads hover above camouflaged bodies, absorbing their matt absence of colour into pure invisibleness, like the whiteness of sunlight at dawn this is a marriage of two witnesses and of two whitenesses the garden wears a wedding bouquet over its sleeping banquette ghost-shapes of former things disappear, as do horizons - and near boundaries blur grey, all is cloaked in a new peace and silence... WINTER FLOWER |
Special Mention
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18 & Over
Daughters, Estelle Price, Cheshire Right until the end you said you preferred cowslips. Adored how they appeared, like a yellow tablecloth in the field, when winter’s grey silences could be forgotten when it was safe to walk to the gate without my arm. They were so compelling, you’d pick a handful, place them in your favourite Spode jar on the windowsill, inform your carers how perfect were the egg-yolk flowers, cupped like little cooing mouths waiting to be fed. Not for them the inappropriate thrust towards the light when snow still crisped the sleeping soil. Not for them the porcelain petals that made you think of death. I don’t remember you ever clearing space for snowdrops in your kitchen, only noticing when their stalks bent as if you thought loving them came with too much risk. |
18 & Over
The Snowdrops are out in the Park, Alison Riley, East Yorkshire I. Him Hard as frozen earth, cool as a corpse. An ignominious start – born in a cold flat, dad legged it, mum never hugged him. It’s all black and white. Pauper prince in green combats, white hoodie. Three green stars on the back of his hand: one for each kid – throwing snow until they look like snowmen. II. Her A slip of a lass, cool as collagen, beautiful skin, in spite of her diet. Hair tucked in a beanie hat. White coat, green leggings. Wants no hot tea or sympathy. Life’s shades of grey. She could have been a painter but her work’s cut out with three under-fives – lying in the snow, making snow-angels. |
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12 to 17
The Coders,Tomas Lockyer, Shepton Mallet Schools Commendation - Whitstone School Take a moment to think, about the white flowers. One of them is the Snowdrop. Why are they drooping? Why are they sad? Take a moment to ask, are they alien? How can they be from Earth? How can they blend in so well? What language do they speak? Take a moment and pause, look at them They are a mirror, but onto what? What are they saying? Why do the code U? They wait for the right person. They wait for the right time. They wait for the question, Why can’t I remember? Stare at them and they stare back, Wonder about them and they wonder about you. Talk to them and they talk back. Talking about your history. The moment you’re born, a snowdrop awakes. Awaken to record your history They recall and they can talk. But only to you. They talk about that question The reason you can’t remember, is they remember for you. To you they are known as snowdrops, To a few they are known as Coders. |
11 & Under
The Snowdrop, Jasmine Kneebone, Stanchester Academy The snowdrop in snow falling The snowdrop in sky blue Lasts through harshest wind Stands firmly in its dripping green shoes Winter comes and winter goes Will they survive through summer? Who knows The snowdrop droops The other rainbow flowers thrive Standing tall over the proud, chalky flowers Again in winter they will come alive The trees overhead bend like old men The branches moan Shaking snow off heavy withered leaves Snowdrop sits beneath Wind swirls as the Snowdrop grieves Trees blossom Snowdrops shine bright like stars With dew beneath sun They start to dance in the wind Oh such fun! The humans run and play Splashing through the ice covered water While the snowdrop watches Head bent in thought |
Highly Commended
18 & Over
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On quiet small days - Virginia Astley, Dorset In the lull of February the trees all stick, bristle, mummified berries it’s possible to walk at night by a fortified river to a churchyard frilled with snowdrops to reach out to the magnolia just in bud – to be who you might have been. And when the day opens on celandines and crocuses violets and primroses and an outbreak of blackthorn changes our lane you notice how the sun moves round how everything in turn receives its share of light. |
Snowdrops, Highfield House - James Baty, London Time was, they were on every surface, rising up like raindrops in reverse. Moving a book, you would come across one, long green stems firm in soil as if slipped, fallen from God’s hands, time was. Time was, they were bulbs in corners, bulbs in pockets, heads of bulbs, hiding in the onions, or old and hoary, petals crinkled like wet paper, they brushed the floor, were old white moths touching wingtips, time was. And when the first grey furs appeared he was ruthless, almost wept to kill so many, see so many sink beneath the mould like living frost. Like buzzing flies remembered now too late too late the small pale seed of death they held between their teeth, time was. |
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Would there be snowdrops? - Jenny Dooley, Devon
If I returned to the wild roadside to that breathless slice between death and life when you were squashed into a place too small to hold a human, would I feel you there in the voltaic air and would there be snowdrops? Twenty-seven years ago I knelt on the unforgiving verge to dig the hard white clay to plant hard white bulbs where your song was cut and your generous spirit floated away like a red balloon. Your blood, my tears, all those years and surely the hypnotic gleam of green-tinged snowdrops nodding in minute reverence a galvanic mist electrifying the darkness charging space daring the decades as they drift like banks of wind-blown snow. |
For Deliverance From Snowdrops - Dominic Fisher, Bristol
Keep them from our sight, your snowdrops lock them, Dark Mother in a vault of long hours. Bind them under a tomorrow where we see only an incline a skyline, tree fingers. Let them not come out like white burrowing bees these long wrong months. Let their blades and points not pierce the surface to taunt us with our crimes. Keep them as you keep us in our hideouts, nursing sparks conserving a small store of fuel. We are your creatures now hard-wired to your service, hold the snowdrops back, Mother Night until the world tips and true bees can come. Release them only then under birches and blackthorn like a last fall of snow. |
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The Hungerford Line - John Wheeler, Kent
From the window the land is mirrored in winter rain iron branches are bolted against a sky swept with a single stroke of grey. Here inside they order cappuccino click at spreadsheets playlisten to a phone and miss coal-black canals white swans a strong horse motionless against the woods and the sharp green promise of the snowdrops against the still cold earth. |
White - Dilys Wood, West Sussex
To the end she hopes she’ll still be seeking knowledge, taking a long look, trying to make a memory of snowdrop clumps in raised beds, on eye-level when drawing up in the wheelchair. Bells hang on nothing! Green striations make white look whiter. ‘New Year’, ‘New-Born’ are names she’ll give to white as pure as this. These are the common kind: children know the flower and its challenge to lifeless winter; she’s excited, though, as if eye-to-eye with exotica, sensing risk, one of nature’s wilder gambles... Her black mood shifts. Looking and still looking she cuts deeply into a raw white core. |
The Allen Prize for Best of Shepton
The Power of Nature - Belinda Blackwell
Surviving the winds, so cold, waiting for the sun to shine, a solitary white flower beside a
yew, sleeping by a small green mound, a piece of stone – a snowdrop proudly stands alone.
A visitor graced amidst her darkest hour, a droplet fell upon milk-white, and forthwith the
sun arose she glimpsed the flower where her tear lay bright. Bowing head so innocent found,
a child once born, the bells ring loud.
The flower – tiny and brave, mark with courage the little grave. Enduring life humble and
wise, sometimes lifts a face disguised. Its magic empowers that one day the birds will sing
and give her strength of heart again.
She smiled and thanked the power of nature - little beauty dressed in white, touched with the
colour of life and light. The magic of a single flower had warmed her heart, and now
tomorrow, she would have a better day, to live in the hope of joy, one day.
The following year, a blanket for her resting child, in white, a beauteous sight. A solitary
flower surrounded by friends, to you, dear mother, their hearts they send. A sign of a brighter
day – when snowdrops, like snow – adorn the way.
12 to 17
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Ol’ Bernadette and the Snowdrops - Jolin Chan, USA
Ol’ Bernadette matched her snowdrops-- drooping low, head graced with white, woolen emerald vest knitted by hand. Ol’ Bernadette dreamed of summer, a vague, California-esque landscape with poppies and buttercups. Red carpet under her feet and gold dancing around her eyes. But Ol’ Bernadette loved her snowdrops, whispering words of yearning on a wooden stool. Ever since the peonies left, they needed it. So Ol’ Bernadette stood tall—well, as tall as she could. Gifting them the gold in her eyes, the warmth of her heart, she was their sun. In the summer, she waited for them to rise again. |
Snowdrops - Riley Green, Whitstone School
White capped warriors, fighting the weather, Standing in their thousands row upon row. Attached to the ground like a dog on a tether Braving the cold, the wind, and the snow. Covering the floor like a blanket of cotton, Soaking the countryside in a sea of white. Beautiful and angelic from top to bottom, Blowing and glowing in the dead of night. Forceful yet peaceful, strong yet calm, Pushing through the ground like a rabbit in his burrow. Strong enough to live, but soothing as a balm Fighting hard today so they come out tomorrow. |
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A Field of Snowdrops - Isabelle Horrocks-Taylor,
Northamptonshire A soldier He looks out upon the minefield Stained with rubble and red The winter air is biting A Cold War emerging But no flag of white in sight Flailing in the bitter wind To liberate or to give hope Or give a breath of warmth And he treats every step with care And tends every step with concern It takes one slip of his boot To end a life. A boy He looks out upon the minefield Cleansed with flowers of white And his scarf flies As it embraces the breeze In love and peace The winter air is singing But he dare not dance to the song He treats every step with care And tends every step with concern It takes one slip of his boot To end a life. |
Nanu - Jenny O’Gorman, Edinburgh
We shiver too In the starry frost that strips you to the bone. Like gloved hands our stems are buried Deep, we do not emerge Until first-light breaks through the endless night. And in the cobbled street, the sounds of feet Are quiet in the snow, but in the soil we do keep To remind you this deathlike sleep is only for a while. Nanu was born in February. Her cancer came swiftly in a blind Sweep of the scythe. Her soft white hair drooped and Fell, sure destruction came with machinery and poisons But she never stood down, though her hands cowered On their stalks. She whispered “Grandchildren - lay your palms open, Here are seventy snowdrops for my 70 years They’ll come up every year on my birthday And I will live again.” When all seems quite, dark and dead, I wait for snowdrops in my head. They rise From the earth like restless brooks that stay and still depart Before spring grass is green. White-helmet heads bowed Like medieval knights climbing up the spiral staircase roots, Like bobbing boats at Oban when the way is clear ahead And winter runs towards the outstretched spring In its warm cheerful dress As grandchildren do. |
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Five Uses for a Snowdrop - Madeleine Oliver, Tonbridge
I Fill your bath with snowdrops and you will find that they will clasp your skin like water would, forming white droplets with their beady heads on your stomach, against your hairs, like dew on grass. Let their petals mummify you in a new membrane. II By placing a snowdrop on your lower lip and closing your eyes, you will be aware of a new sensation, a space of cold, like the curved face of a spoon with the lightness of a new-born’s fingernail. Let a snowdrop substitute for a kiss, gentle and cool. III A petal like this is interchangeable with an eyelid. See the veiny fibres, like a sieve, dissecting daylight and as you line it with the curve of your eyeball, you will only find a muted kind of orange sunshine. Let this flower blink for you, let it daytime-snooze for you. IV In case of an emergency, a splinter or a scraped knee, this petal may become a plaster. It will trace your skin with a silver wax, binding to your flesh like the seal of an envelope, twisting your wrinkles together. Let a snowdrop mother you like this, it is like a womb. V Perhaps, you will say your “I Dos” through a snowdrop veil. It will cup your face with warm shadows and you will catch the first scent of spring, crisp as clean bed sheets on the cup of your cupid's bow. Let a snowdrop embody the temperature of these soft vows. |
Snowdrop Tapestry - Dhylan Patel, London
Dripping cans and dirt-dust pots, Scissors snipping brisk, Bag cut, it weeps, odour seeps, Round greenhouse like a whisk. Dense dark brown sliced through, Enters metal trowel, Forks generous sliver into pot, Pats bouncing pile down. Adorned with glowing crown, With vestments of white, Bars of green and silver bells, Like shining lampposts bright. Or rather like umbrellas, Which huddled cross the street, Mixed colours shapes all jumble, When their spindly handles meet. Then several summers later, They rise to droop again, Domesticated rain forest, A jar of coloured pens. From uniform descendent, To assorted zoo of sons, A circus full of daughters, Where their changing genome runs. |
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Explosion (poem with a twist) - Cornéliu Tocan, Canada
All scientists agreed with that, It was the overwhelming heat Helping the bursting to succeed. No weatherman was able to predict, It was evidently a matter of wind Producing some extra hot steam. The chemists also conjectured The unusual pressure of the mercury Able to raise any puddle to a gas. The physicists forgot the eclipse glasses, Suddenly the sky burst into a blaze The flame appearing to spread by itself. No photographers were there in time. The flickering fire melted the eyes. For a while, was it still really noon? For astronomers was quite invisible. There was a round white glow Dripping down to the earth. In the white-dressed environment, The sun, crowned with an icy halo, Coronated the iridescent swaying Of the snowdrop. |
11 & Under
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Snowdrops - Josh Gane
Schools Commendation, Croscombe Primary School Snowdrops they come and go in Sun, Rain and Snow. They glisten in the beaming sun giving joy to everyone. If you look closer you will see a small green heart beating for you and for me. Its tall thin stalk perks up elegantly and grows to the sky like a tree. Their fragrance is very sweet and petite. The flower assimilates the dew as it exposes it’s new droplets. It sits there on the ground with no more of its kind around. |
I Like Snowdrops - Jonathan Carroll
Croscombe Primary School Station to the magical world No sadness On the train to the magic world Waving in the wind Snowdrops take you down To the magical world Ready to explore Open your imaginations Popping out of the ground I like snowdrops. |
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Snowdrops – Phoebe Hopkins
Schools Commendation, Ditcheat Primary School A snowdrop is like a showerhead facing down It’s not like a ball rolling on the floor It’s not like a person trying to run 5 m It’s not like cars driving to school It’s not like a rose bush growing It’s not like a bird singing It’s not like a plane flying A snowdrop is like a showerhead facing down |
Snowdrop Winter - Sophia Meader
Ditcheat Primary School As the pale white snowdrops bowed their heads like praying nuns, I froze top to toe. A crystal clear drop fell from the white flower onto the tears of the white winter. I crouched down to stroke the beautiful looking snowdrop’s soft blankets covering the green insides of it. As the snowdrops continued to drip their surreal tears, the damp cold snow began to turn to wet slush. Slowly growing bigger and bigger, a purely white petal fell to the white ground. No longer snow or slush, the ground turned to damp green grass. The harsh breeze slowed down. The cold air began to turn into a world of warmness. Winter was finally ending as the bright green stem began to turn brown. All the petals fell to the ground. The beautiful white snowdrops were no longer beautiful and no longer here until next year. |
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Snowdrops - Lexy Buckland
Schools Commendation, Sidcot School Snowdrops bloom in the winter gloom, Rising from the stoney grave Peeping through the bitter land, Like a sunrise following a wild winter’s night. Brave and bold bending in the wind that freezes. Beautiful against the ancient winter trees. Such hope follows when the snowdrops come, It means winter’s grasp has nearly gone. As sunlight appears the snow vanishes from its earth, The snowdrop gathers its strength to burst. Casting shadows on the newly grown grove, Adding to mother nature’s treasure trove. How lucky we are to see so much beauty, In fields and wood and above winter burrows. Remember to stop and admire the views, It won’t be here long, there’s time to lose. Tiptoe gently around this precious life, Preserve its delicate features until it dies. |
Snow drops - Tilly Mead
Sidcot School The delicate petals fall, On early frosty morns, They come when the cold is here, Leave when the frost steals them away. We question why their petals fade, Or if we really see them so, Do they know they touch the world? And reach up to the angels above. Do we know what they are If they are all what they seem to be. Are they innocent? Are they hiding beneath their purity? They are.............. The spirits of cold, The winter flower, The white heart, The pure rose, The bud of eternity, The waking of new life, The white fire in everyone’s heart. |
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The White Army – Archie Blee
Schools Commendation, Wells Cathedral Junior School In a meadow running free with the breeze guiding me, Paying homage to the season and woodland deity. Strong yet small, dipped head and all in the forest armies lie, White as snow, vast as the sea, with beauty unrivalled to my eye. Galant battalions breaking through the ever frozen soil, Hear their sighs after their arduous daytime toil. Short-lived they make way for the heralds of Spring, To their wintery, frost-specked life they cling. |
Snowdrop - Daniel Lewis & Riley Candy-Nicholls
Whitstone School Wanna see my snowdrop x4 A frozen gasp in my mouth I’m a snowdrop ready to drop, what do they hide? They hide nothing (repeat nothing x4) Hey you there, what’s the matter little plant you feeling down? It’s time to be strong and fight your way out, (repeat x3) I’m powerful, bigger than ever I rise to shine, on the last day of December, Looking better than ever. (Wanna see my snowdrop x1)(fade) |
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Snowdrops - Leo Wiseman, London
Oh flower of spring; small beauty! So, proud people, add your jewellery – for never shall you be spectacular as a snowdrop. I think even the wizard of wizards could not conjure a thing as divine as you. So, snowdrop, grow bulb to blossom and survive the harsh winter. Live, snowdrop, live. |
Judge's Comments
from the 2020 judge, Jane Draycott
from the 2020 judge, Jane Draycott
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James Allen called two of his most well-known snowdrop varieties ‘Merlin’ and ‘Magnet’, conjuring with both names the magical attraction they can hold for us when we first catch sight of them in deep midwinter, with their flash of green growth and their sudden bright appearance out of the cold and dark.
You might think that snowdrops with their immediate call to images of whiteness and snow might be hard to write about in fresh new ways, but so many young poets in the ‘11 & Under’ category have managed to do just that, writing poems which were almost like songs or inventive new fables or tales. Reading the poems in this category, as well as the ‘12 to 17’ poems, I realised that I was learning more about snowdrops than I ever knew before – their relationship to the weather and the seasons, the small botanical details of the plant’s formation and habit – for which I have to thank those poets. Many beautiful poems in the ‘12 to 17’ category were also alert to the ‘drop’ in snowdrop, its association with images of tears or jewels, of falling, of bowing the head or of prayer. In this age group too, there were several very strong poems which used the snowdrop to think about human situations, often very interestingly using character and drama to explore feelings common to us all. |
The ‘18 & Over’ category was rich with poems that were transformative, elegiac, personal, attentive to the many-faceted emblematic charge of the flower: as a marker in the year, a sign of new or recurring life, of the persistence of deep memory, of a quiet light of hope and survival.
In all of the categories, the Winners’ and Special Mention poems stood out from the promising Highly Commended entries for their strong power to not just engage our imaginations but to surprise us as well, travelling a long distance in their short span. So, a competition that’s not just a unique celebration but a necessary one, and a wonderful marker for the new decade as we watch the first snowdrops of 2020 appear as if by magic, again. Jane Draycott, February 1st, 2020 |
The 2019 poetry winners can be viewed here
