Read the 2019 Winning Poems...
above from left: 1. Dinah Hawken reads her Judges Report 2. Gail Ingram reads her winning poem, The social-meadia cat got their tongues. 3. Runner-up David Shulz reads the fungibility of thought. HIGHLY COMMENDED: 4. Carolyn McCurdie reads Dog written by Mary Macpherson. below from left 5. Claire Beynon reads R channels David Attenborough also written by Mary Macpherson. 6. Emer Lyons reads her poem, Somebody killed the cat. 7. Pam Morrison reads Second Language written by Ruby Solly. 8. Alan Roddick reads his poem, Catch and Release. [Tuesday 26 November 2019 at the University Bookshop]
The Caselberg’s International Poetry Prize Awards Night was held at the University Bookshop on Tuesday 26 November 2019 — and here are the winning works —
First place went to Gail Ingram from Christchurch for her poem The social-media cat got their tongues
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The social-media cat got their tongues
by Gail Ingram
Crying help while the cat
slipped around their legs, her tail
wrapping and coiling them
as she went. They longed to run
their fingers through the soft
white fur. Everybody
reached for the cat, thinking of
a Russian princess, and she purred
a soft rumble like tyres over gravel.
The people mistook the pinpricks
under their skin for blood
shot through with royalty. For it was
a striking cat
with a very long tail coiled
around the crowd, sending
the people toppling.
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the fungibility of thought by last year’s winner Derek Schulz was placed second.
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the fungibility of thought
by Derek Schulz
So what about the post-human era?
Martin Rees
Let’s go deeper. We’re retroventing
the human race right now, trans-
animating into a cloud of wetware
self-connectedness. The standard
model is broke and the Cyborg
from the Assimulate, with a heart
of co-textual evaporate and the
big data noise of his eight or nine
minds at once, is out of the
amphitheatre and into the street.
This is the next big boy, so will
need a von Neumann schwabing
re-avatared into being, because
enlightened self interest and the
profit motive, aligned to Big Science
and the survival of the imperious,
are the best ways forward beyond
this realm, with its view cephalic,
on a course symphlitic, stalled
in the ABC of its own nostalgia.
There’s a brave new world out there,
where the sun is but a quant mine
and the sky the very limpet, now
the Darwinian game’s in play and our
Bot bot’s reboot has set the path
already taken, to breach a door
through a wet brain e.fade and
recombinate the you, into the
technofictive mind we’ve all been
yearning for.
It’s looking at us.
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The five Highly Commended entries were Dog and R channels David Attenborough both by Mary Macpherson (Wellington), Somebody killed the cat by Emer Lyons (Dunedin), Second Language by Ruby Solly (Wellington), and Catch and Release by Alan Roddick (Dunedin).
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Dog
by Mary Macpherson
She thought of herself as a portrait.
Not the kind she was afraid of
as a child, with expressions
sharp as arrows. In her picture
fingers rippled across
the rough heartbeat of a fence.
When she looked through
her curtain of hair, lips a soft O,
people and trees appeared
as a faded transparency. Her sense of not
belonging was a devoted ragged dog
snuffling alongside. Except she forgot
to imagine a leash so the dog figured
it was free to run to the glittering bush
at the end of the street. Alone, she practised
stepping outside the frame. Saying really
and answering quiz questions
and grinning. Sometimes she got it
and buildings moved out
of the shadows, revealing
themselves solid as fences.
It was a fine day and the world
stood up for her. Shadows lay down
at her feet.
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R channels David Attenborough
by Mary Macpherson
How is it for the worm? R closes
his eyes to darkness and raw
warm earth. There’s stabbing, a blaze
of steel (do worms comprehend steel?)
earth crumbling, tunnels collapsing,
squirming, clods and rain. Pink
succulence is exposed and air slips
through skin.
(R now understands that by gouging
a tangled mass of roots from the soil
he has destroyed cities.)
A sleek bird-boat touches down.
Beady-eyed, the thrush darts forward
across fresh earth – Oh – half the worm
is bobbed back, then the pincer
flashes again.
R needs to share his dismay. Y, even X, would do.
How should he illuminate the sequence?
He needs the bird's point of view – something
about needy young beaks. He needs the worm's
point of view. Himself as Man. The raw earth.
Prey.
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Somebody killed the cat
by Emer Lyons
We shave off our eyebrows in mourning
filter the day to perfection
the bush like ash bagged up from the fire
the smoke cascading water
we sit in rooms
paintings of people afloat
in boats of their own culture
hang off centre
nobody has legs below the knee
don’t leave me here alone
with only the sound of the dog howling
you are the only person who remembers
giving the fish space to flail on the rocky beach
sitting on barrels
babies on our chests
I can’t look directly at anything
that might hurt to remember
that we were once so close
we wanted our eyeballs to touch
now you are the only person
on the train made of timber
leading the way into the scratching light
far far away
from our eyelashes trembling.
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Second Language
by Ruby Solly
Once I met a woman
who couldn’t speak.
When she became angry,
she would look you in the eyes
and bite her hand
until it bled.
As a child, my parents let me roam free.
They knew I could always talk my way home,
no matter how far away I went.
A teacher was shocked I was Māori,
because my English was so good,
In that moment,
there were no words in either language
to help me find my way back.
In my high chair I would point to the kettle’s steam
Mamaua! Mamaua! Mamaua!
and my parents would laugh at me
at my baby speak,
at my gibberish.
The understanding lying as a dormant seed
unable to find the conditions to germinate
for generations and generations
stacked upon each other.
Now I speak in needs
I am hungry Kei te hiakai au
I am thirsty Kei te hiainu au
I am tired Kei te ngenge au
I am tired Kei te hiamoe au
I am finished He taku manawa kiore tenei
Speaking in front of my people
I am as small as my understanding,
I tuck Whakatauki into my speech
as treasured toys into bed.
They stick out as sore thumbs
that have been bitten
until they bleed.
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Catch and Release
by Alan Roddick
i. m. Ted Tapper, d. 19 August 2017
A shadow in the shadows,
you would read the river
and place your fly, right
for the taking, then gently
take your catch in your hand
to hand back to the water –
until, from the shadows, this shadow
struck, set its hook:
your turn to be caught.
Your chance to be released? No,
your turn to be the catch,
checked this way, baffled that way,
played, breathless,
bewildered in the net, now
your turn to be released
to be light on the water
at the end of the rise,
a shade among shadows…
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