1 March 2004

Prize winning poets

Photo opportunity 1pm, Tuesday 2 March,John Smith's Book shop, College Green, (back of the Tower Building), University of Dundee.

The winners of the University of Dundee's annual poetry competition will be recognised tomorrow at the prize giving ceremony.

Collette Bryce, Writer in Residence at the University and Jim Stewart from the English Department both judged the competition and will present the winners with their prizes.

1st prize will be 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 student and Dr Tim Chappell, a lecturer in the Philosophy Department.

Collette Bryce said: "We had a tremendous response to this year's competition with over 100 entries from staff and students from all around the University showing that our writing community is alive and thriving in Dundee."

Notes for Editors.

The winning poems are printed below.

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 Hawking - 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.

Third Prize 1 - 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.

Third Prize 2 - 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?

By Jenny Marra, Head of Press 01382 344910, out of hours: 07968298585, j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk