We are pleased to
announce the results of the Sentinel Annual Poetry and
Short Story Competitions 2012. These competitions closed
on the 30th of November 2012 and the judges
have stated that the quality of the entries was
particularly very high. Because of this level of
participation we have decided to recognise more poems
and stories than we had originally advertised. We were initially going
to have just three winners (1st, 2nd & 3rd) and five Highly Commended authors in
each category, and the winning poems and stories were to
be published in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly
magazine. What we have done
instead is to have in Poetry category, 12 Commended, 5
Highly Commended, and the top three winners. In short story category
we have 5 Commended, 5 Highly Commended and the 3 top
winners. The judge felt very strongly about 2 other
stories which have received special mentions. The other change is that
instead of publishing the winners in Sentinel Literary
Quarterly magazine, we propose to collect these 20 poems
and 15 short stories in a winners’ anthology to be
published in the Summer of 2013 by SPM Publications. Here are the results and
adjudication reports by the judges. RESULTS: SENTINEL
ANNUAL POETRY COMPETITION 2012 Commended (in no
particular order) Commended poems do
not receive any prize money, but will be included in the
winners anthology. Robin Mvers – The threat
of sweet peas Mandy Pannett – A
marrying of Herbs Steve Scholey – The
harmony of swallows Adrian K.S. Shaw – Holy
Trinity Margaret Eddershaw –
Hibiscus Lesley Burt –
Freeze-framed John Robinson – To My
Wife, Our Life Clive Burson-Thomas –
Morning milking Carolyn King – Quarry Christine Coleman – An
Arrangement of Bones in the British Museum Eilidh Thomas – Sweet
Wood and Apple Pie F. Philip Holland –
Foxfire Highly commended (in
no particular order) £25 each plus
publication in anthology. Norma Powers – Sir
Walter Raleigh – On His Portrait Joe Hackett – Father’s
Knife: My Apples Julie Mellor – Meat Deborah Harvey – An
Approximation Catherine Edmunds –
Later Third Prize £125 plus publication
in anthology John Lindley – John
‘Hangman’ Ellis. Second Prize £250 plus publication
in anthology Linda Burnett –
Stand-off with hare. First Prize £500 plus publication
in anthology Oz Hardwick – The
Genesis of Falcon. RESULTS: SENTINEL
ANNUAL SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2012 Special Mentions Rhuar Dean – Blood Dress Stephen Atkinson – Table
Top Invitation Commended (in no
particular order) Commended stories do
not receive any prize money, but will be included in the
winners anthology. David Crewe – The
Mysterious Man Mel Fawcett – The Family
Way Shiko – Damned on the
Kitchen Floor Anne Oatley – Mr
Carrington Valerie Knight – The
Lure Highly Commended (in
no particular order) £25 each plus
publication in anthology. Patricia Murray – The
Berries Andy Fawthrop – The
Jumper Belinda Rimmer – The
Lady Who Feeds the Squirrels Helen Holmes – Counting Deborah Birch – Kindness Third Prize £125 plus publication
in anthology Valerie Knight –
Vengeance is Mine Second Prize £250 plus publication
in anthology Joanna Campbell – Dream
Work First Prize £500 plus publication
in anthology Alison Bouhmid – The Day
a Heart Shifted Sentinel Annual
Poetry Competition 2012 – adjudication report by Roger
Elkin One of the highlights of
my poetry year is the adjudication of the Sentinel
Annual Poetry Competition. For several weeks I
am allowed in to a wealth of poetry worlds, and the rich
pennings of hundreds of folk from a variety of
backgrounds, relationships, cultures and countries. What
adds a particular frisson is that because the
competition is adjudicated anonymously, attention is
focussed entirely on the poems before me, without any
distraction that knowing names and reputations might
bring. What matters is the words, their sounds, their
mystery and their patterning, and their subsequent
achievements. An indication of that achievement can be
seen in the tremendous variety and wealth of the 20
poems that made my final short-list. As with the two
previous Sentinel Poetry Competitions I have been
honoured to adjudicate, the general standard of the 326
entries was extremely high and the arrival at final
positioning took several days and with an incalculable
amount of pleasantly-agonised reading. Here, in no particular
order of excellence, are the twelve Commended poems: The threat of
sweet peas:
a questioning exploration about evolution, and the
nature of man from close observation of sweet peas,
whose “flutterings” become “butterflies, / debutantes
with untried wings / too scared to launch”. Changing to
“lifeboat pods”, that “start flying”, “Perhaps their
eggs take root”. The descriptions are exquisitely
delicate; and the range of imagination and
philosophising as disturbing and intriguing as the
poem’s startling title suggests. a marrying of
herbs: a
poetic discussion of the interface between action,
“making a soup”, and “musing on the word / dissolve”.
The description of it as “an elusive, long-limbed word”
gives way to a catalogue of beautifully-realised
parallels of incident and state, so that the poem opens
out to embrace the world of faith, jewels, sea, love,
life and death. A beautiful, delicate, yet simultaneous
probing poem. The harmony of
swallows:
an account of a seven year old child’s ringing of a
bronze church bell, which disconcerts the child as
“twice, it clangs again, reverberates”. The description
is precise, exact, and touched with wit: “Alarmed / by
the element of its tune – the throbbing hum, / the
strike tone, tierce and quint, the piercing nominal – /
you pitch, diminuendo, run to my arms.” Such fine use of
diction is the stuff of poetry. Holy Trinity:
a poem modelled with octave and sestet as a partially
half-rhymed sonnet which explores the life and values of
an unnamed woman, whose “marble headstone shining in the
rain” serves as a reminder that “such cleanliness … is
next to piety in God’s eyes”. The Holy Trinity of
“Bicarb, bleach, vinegar” with which the poem opens is
the visual prompt for both poet and reader: an
economical exploration of a much fuller life. Hibiscus:
a moving poem paralleling a father’s admiration for the
hibiscus he “sheltered … on a window-sill” with his
life, and slow, quiet death. A beautifully-realised
extended poetic metaphor with some finely detailed and
exquisite descriptive writing. Perhaps the clumsiness of
the dedication could be overcome by replacing the
initial “He” with “Dad”: this would allow the reader to
investigate the poem for him/herself. Freeze-framed:
an economical description of a caught moment in a
family. The writing manages to echo the
stillness/completeness/certainty and concentration of
the photo-taking that it describes. Lovely writing: just
look at the exactness of that “thwack”! To My Wife, Our
Life:
exactly what the title suggests: a searching, if not
critical, examination of a marriage, its hopes and
disappointments, its meetings of minds and its gradual
driftings. This is a sad poem; intensely honest; and,
therefore, moving. Morning milking:
a delightful, life-affirming account of cows coming into
the milking-parlour. The diction is so exact: just
consider for example the opening image of the cattle,
“Mud mothers with slab shoulders”; and marvel at the
accuracy of the verbs: “barge”, “Slip-slop”, “skate”,
“wrestle”, “ruck up”, “haloes” – lovely, characterful
writing. Quarry:
again, economic, effective description – albeit leaner –
in this account of searching for a “murdered girl”
memorialised by a tree-sculpture: the use of blank space
within the line is very effective: “beautifully defaced,
still growing.” An Arrangement of
Bones in the British Museum:
the three lengthy questions which open the poem and
delve into past events give way to the present, nicely
located in stanza 3 via the use of shorter sentences in
command idiom. The description is visually-exact; and
the stance nicely distanced, though not at the expense
of sentiment. Sweet Wood and
Apple Pie:
an exotic paralleling of pieces/notes/quotations from
history re the nature of “cinnamon, myrrh and spikenard”
alternating with stages in the preparation, cooking and
serving of an apple pie. The poetry lies within the
contrast: the spices, nicely luxuriating in poetic
repetition/alliteration/assonance; the apple pie, a
series of blunt, factual statements. Foxfire:
a full-blooded account of the mating and coupling of a
pair of foxes. The writing is rich; and effective –
though, occasionally, becomes slightly-portentous as in
the penultimate verse charting the interface between
human and animal worlds. Elsewhere, a pruning of
adjectives might reap dividends. Now to the five Highly Commended poems: Sir Walter Raleigh
– On His Portrait:
a searching historical poem that cleverly comments on
the painting via the use of a first-person account. Here
Raleigh condemns the artist he “trusted” but who “gives
no hint of risks I take”, and “will not dare the
perilous waters of the mind”. The poet (using a similar
level of verbal skills) has Raleigh applaud the artist,
“Velvet, lace, brocade, he paints with a kitten’s tongue
/ and rapier’s accuracy”; and yet finally considers the
portrait “so poorly done”. The reason? Why, “my hand”,
“my effeminate hand”, “that weak hand”, “that hesitant
right hand”. The repetition hammers out Raleigh’s
discomfort. Just one caveat, try to avoid ending lines
with the definite article. Father’s Knife: My
Apples:
an economic portrayal of a familial and generational
conflict pivoting on a bequeathed pocket knife. Dad’s
knife has over the years become the symbol of the family
conflict, “suitable for pruning … words / from the page
of my transgressions”; “to slice out all juicy untruths
… my wriggling fibs”; and yet “entirely missing the
bloody point”. The punning wit is typical of the brutal
honesty of the poem; and the description of the knife
beautifully-honed. The finality of the isolated last
word is a comment both on the picked fruit, and the son.
Survival is all! Meat:
in five quatrains, the poem offers an insight into an
entire village community via the description of a split
second butcher’s “fall of … hand”. This heralds the
commercial activities of former butchers; Billy
Hinchcliffe, Alf Marsden, Arnold Roberts. Their
meat-dominated lives are exquisitely, humorously and
economically depicted. The detail is carefully chosen,
as much for its visual impact as for its wit: the
punning ambiguity of the final clause is admirable in
its simplicity. An Approximation:
this poem attracted with its mystery, humour and vision.
Written in quatrains, it transcends the earthly and
urban. Its subject is seeded by a quotation from The
Life of William Blake, and the poet uses this to
explore Blake’s imagination as he records the
“intimations … rustlings in twigs.” The writing is exact
and unfussy; the sense uncluttered, even though an
element of mystery, and epiphany is conveyed in the
“approximation” of the poem’s title, “I might dream an
approximation of angels.” Perhaps too much was
given away within the referencing quotation? And the
poem not allowed to realize its full, independent
vision? Later:
a disturbing, disturbed poem about an after-life of a
man whose wife has left him, or who has died. The
uncertainty is important: this poem is uncertain – its
structural disjointedness, with irregular stanzas,
freely-associative imagery, repetitive patternings and
dislocated events is mimetic of the man’s troubled mind
and life. Every piece of the detail, though economically
and visually-realized, as it attempts to depict a mind
coming to terms with its own disorientation and the
littlest bits of meaning left in life, is in itself
disorientating. Now to the three Prize Winners Third Prize goes to John ‘Hangman’ Ellis. This is a powerful poem
whose gruesome subject matter – the suicide of the
Hangman, John Ellis – is made more powerful by its
strict stanzaic form of six regular quatrains written
with an ABAB rhyme scheme, usually in pure rhyme. Only
the final verse stretches the half-rhyming thinly:
surely someone with such verbal-dexterity should be able
to pull the form off completely?!!! Say, a slight
re-writing could place “tablet” to half-rhyme with
“bullet”? But, that’s being pedantic! What is important
is the grasp of the irony that a barber should eschew
“the wrench, sway and dangle” of the hangman’s rope, in
preference for the “quick rip” of the cut-throat razor,
and the “red reservoir at his throat.” It is the
questioning of intent, and the querying, “Who knows for
sure/ how such impossible choices get made?” that make
this poem essentially human, and memorable. Well done! Second Prize goes to Stand-off with hare. This is an outstanding
poem: an exploration of a face-to-face confrontation
with one of Nature’s beauties. Throughout, the poet
leaves no doubt as to his wonder, awe and sheer thrill
of the sight of this magnificent creature whose “staring
gold” of “fixed amber beads” reaches “from the pit /of
its brain, as if shot through with piercing insight / or
superior sensibility” and in which the “starkness of its
gaze dissolves / my bones.” While he feels “exposed”,
the hare is “composed”, “imperious, bold”, “stands firm
… as though theatrically posed / for camera lens.”
Notice the internal rhyming here, and elsewhere. And
marvel at the way in which the visual reference is
translated with tremendous sensitivity and skill in
image after image: from the “delicacy of moths”, via
“the undulating flaps of shaken table cloth” to its
“face marsupial”. A further cluster of images
underpinning the dramatic nature of their “O.K. Corral”
stand-off pivots on in-built contrasts such as the
“ecstasy of stillness” that becomes a “brusque
dismissal” that leaves the poet “unutterably cold”. And
is it any wonder: for all his poetic energies have been
conscripted in the writing of this and the capturing of
their “all-consuming play”: close, visual detail; a
wide-ranging diction; masterful and imaginative imagery;
the full battery of assonantal and alliterative tools;
internal rhymes and verbal chiming; and a controlling
structure of half and full rhyme. This is an enviable
achievement. Congratulations! First Prize goes to The Genesis of Falcon. It is such things as the
absence in the title of the (second) definite article to
precede “Falcon” that demonstrate the poetic mastery of
the writing. This Falcon with a capital F is the Bird
with a capital B of the third stanza, the product of an
“easy” “Perfection”. The mix of the everyday in the
description of the act of creation (with a lower-case),
and the refusal throughout to refer to God as nothing
more than “He” or “His”, and reduced to an inspired
“Cocky and careless” mechanical engineer, almost
cavalierly negligent of “Health & Safety” – “By the time
He had done chickens / puffins, parrots, and everything
else” – contrasts comically initially, but subsequently
wonderfully with the wonder of the whole of God’s
achievement. This is exemplified by concentrating on the
particular in the shape of a detailed description of
Falcon spread over ten lines; so to some extent, the
poem becomes almost mimetic of the creative act it is
delineating. Look at the careful phraseology, the exact
diction and imagery – “soldered eyes like beacons
flashing / warnings” – , and internal rhyming –
“ripping”, “gripping” – and the way in which Bird, like
the poem, is built incrementally piece by piece, feature
by feature, line by line with clear, hard-edged
perception, that both acknowledges and glorifies the
creature as instrument of life, and of death: Perfection came easy:
Bird rebooted to ripping machine of
beak and talons gripping His wrist. He
held it close, kissed his creation,
inspired it with steel, darkness and plunging
fire. There is admiration,
awe, love, intensity, fear and ownership here. This is
an enviable work. My congratulations go to
the writers of the winning poems; and my thanks go to
all who entered for letting me share a space in their
poetic worlds. Thanks, too, to Nnorom
Azuonye and the Sentinel Poetry Movement for their
efficiency and organization, and for inviting me to
adjudicate. It is heart-warming to see poetry thriving
– long may it continue! Roger Elkin SENTINEL ANNUAL SHORT
STORY COMPETITION 2012 –ADJUDICATION REPORT BY DAVID
CADDY Reading the Sentinel
Annual Short Story Competition was an uplifting
experience. There were many well-written entries drawing
upon family and other relationships, childhood memories,
experiences of old age, crime, gypsy and ethnic cultures
and colonial life as well as mental illness, historical
and feminist perspectives. Each entry was worth reading
and had something to say. Sadly, there was often a lack
of structure and unpredictability about many entries. It
is simply not enough to have a static description of a
memory, moment, state or condition that involves no
action and revelation. A minimalist approach to story
development can work if the detail is exact within a
knowing or flawed first or third person narrative. The
best stories in the competition were incredibly varied
in style and tone. They were thoroughly unpredictable,
page-turners, that grabbed attention with narrative
force, and strong atmosphere, precise and memorable
detail and a clear structure that stayed in the memory
after reading. Several of the best stories were also
very funny or mysterious. ‘The Day A Heart
Shifted’ won
the First Prize. It has a formidably strong narrative
force and arc. The first person narrative filters
information as the story line develops within a
beautifully described sultry setting and leads to a
ferocious and violent crescendo. It has an unrelenting
pace and fierceness that lays bare the narrator’s
refusal to accept an unequal relationship and its
consequences. It focuses sharply upon a woman ironing
and raising a family without any help from her partner.
The consequences are unpredictable and internally
coherent. The short stabbing sentences beautifully evoke
and mirror the condition under review and work to make
the story linger long after being read. It is the best
executed story in terms of writing, plot and narrative
force within the word limit. ‘Dream Work’ won the Second Prize. It has a similarly strong first
person narrative that develops within a testing
narrative arc and also reaches a transcendent ending.
Every word and detail counts in this story written with
a vernacular accent that deepens and widens during its
course. It has the widest social reach of all the
entries and great charm. It has an expertly controlled
and unpredictable narrative that keeps the reader fully
engaged. It is the simplicity of the story’s arc
supported by considerable and significant detail that
the reader remembers. ‘Vengeance is Mine’ won the Third Prize. It is economical, diligently
delineated to maximize effect and turns on a joke at the
end that surprises and delights the reader. The contrast
between the hard-drinking Christian, colonial bigot and
his devout Muslim manservant works splendidly with the
underdog surprisingly upstaging the protagonist at the
end. The story’s arc involves the bigot unwittingly
drinking his own urine after mistakenly thinking that he
had poisoned his manservant with his it. This wonderful
twist makes the story memorable a long time after
initial reading. It is a simple story that works through
attention to every detail and builds up the story’s
pitch to a fitting ending. Amongst the Highly
Commended Stories ‘The Berries’ is an outstanding
story that is deeply imbued with atmosphere of time and
place that brings the reader back time and time again.
It has a cinematic richness in its imagery and a
mysterious quality that lingers. It is perhaps more
narrow in focus and has less of an arc than the top
three stories yet it beguiles and works through
authentic and concrete detail. ‘The Jumper’ is
also a memorable story about a drunken man discovering a
man about to jump off a high bridge and going on to the
ledge seemingly to talk him out of jumping off. It is a
tragi-comic story that surprises and delights the reader
with its mixing of the narratives of two characters. ‘The Lady Who Feeds The Squirrels’ sequentially
unfolds a narrative concerning a murderer that has lost
his memory and works through things that are unsaid. It
makes good use of the form and shows what can be
achieved within a word limit. ‘Counting’ shows
how childhood experiences help form an adult character
in unforeseen ways. There is great use of detail and
plenty of narrative action that propel the story
forward. ‘Kindness’ covers much ground within
the word limit and impresses with its narrative skills
delineating how an individual can be drawn from one
world into another as well as showing how actions can
lead to consequences in a surprising way. All of the Commended
Stories impressed with their structure and were in
different and compelling ways memorable. ‘The
Mysterious Man’ is a self-contained story within a
story concerning the meeting of a mysterious man with a
mythical tale. ‘Damned on the Kitchen Floor’ reveals the emotional and psychological impact of a
participant in a struggle that leads to a knifing.
‘Mr. Carrington’ is a study of a young girl’s
infatuation with her violin teacher that culminates in
her coming of age and seeing her teacher in mature
perspective. ‘The Family Way’ has some tragi-comic
twists and turns as a man with a pregnant wife turns to
an escort for sexual relief only to discover that his
sister has become an escort in order to earn a living. ‘The Lure’ is a mysterious study of attraction
between murderer and victim. These stories merit a
special mention; ‘Blood Dress’ concerns the
emotional, psychological and physical impact upon a
woman who finds and cannot keep her perfect designer
dress. The movement from triumphant bliss to
unforgiving loss is wonderfully modulated. ‘Top Table
Invitation’ by moves between the internalized
thoughts of a character and narrative description and
action within a circular symmetry. David Caddy | 
