Prize winning poems

The positive response to this year's poetry competition proved that the University's writing community is alive and thriving. The winning entries were recently awarded at a prize giving ceremony.

Collette Bryce, Writer in Residence and Jim Stewart from the Department of English both judged the competition and presented the winners with their prizes.

1st prize was awarded to Richard Watt, a philosophy student, with second prize going to Cathy Whitfield, an administrator in the School of Life Sciences and joint third prize to Janey Neville an English Literature student and Dr Tim Chappell, a lecturer in the Philosophy Department.

Colette Bryce said, "This is the second year of the competition and it seems to be going from strength to strength with twice as many entries as before. It's good to be reminded of how important poetry is to so many people across the university. I hope the competition will continue to be an annual event."

Ist Prize
Richard Watt

Lungless Boy

From the eaves of a white window
set among rose-hips on a rococo building
I look at children playing, wishing to join them.
Wiping my nose on a sleeve, I know
the difficulty of taking these machines
outside; the assorted latex masks; a drip or two;
some foil-covered tubes,
which make me think of being bitten
or submerged.

In the days before you left
Mum didn't let me phone;
she said that every time I made a sound,
it cost her a pound.

Looking then to the window, and your silhouette bird book.
There was a tape with it
and I'd like more than anything
to imitate the calls; but my words fall deaf to meaning.

Sometimes I think that this is the end of my life.

When you come around, I can barely breathe
even with the masks and all the rubber things
which make incessant sonar pings: my muteness
vanishes in the press of your hand.

I try to place my feet in the imprints of your shoes,
when you go:

to fit around my own path
when it’s time to follow.

2nd Prize
Cathy Whitfield

Hawking

She's at her hunting weight;
Two pounds, two ounces
Of feather, beak and bone.
A bag of sugar's weight,
Perched on my hand.
And yet she's light,
Ready for the off,
Half-poised for flight.

I grip her jesses as a child
Tethers a balloon,
And feel the same lift;
The soar of air under the wing,
The wrack and tilt of the ground,
The hurtling plummet,
The wind's rasp.

I feel the spine snap in my grip,
And am uncertain if my cry is hers,
Or the hare's;
If the taste of blood on my lip is sweet
Or sour.

Joint third prize
Dr Timothy Chappell

Leaving Dundee

We build lives where we can. In factory towns,
or willow-hollows on the dusty Downs -
in sandstone's gold, or brick's suburban browns -
roots anywhere are preferable to none:
your roots grew best beneath a late-night sun.

Mountains on one side and multis on the other,
harsh in its welcoming yet brusquely kind -
home of the friend sticks closer than a brother,
town of the tunes stick longest in your mind -
this is where you were kicked down, then recovered,
hope-enticed on, then tripped up from behind.

You know the line's first bend will end the scene,
your River and your wooded hills be gone,
your living places turn to what has been.
The diminutions of the South

are coming on.

Joint third prize
Janey Neville

Charming Interior

Lying in bed dreary-eyed
and dozing off, a left
hand perched as a
cigarette burns away
against the bedside lamp's
light, I consider
dropping
it.

If I let it burn a
hole would I flinch?
Or let it produce a
fire that society
automatically conflicts.
And as the fire roars
will I just melt away?

Melt away like an
ice-cream in the summer's
sun or will my
average exterior just die?
Will my life be changed
with an unimpressive exterior
of black, burnt skin?

All that is left is a
charming interior that
has seen me good so
far. But now that my
shield of an exterior
for decoration has
deteriorated would
anyone notice or
care to comment?