Frist Prize
Sunny Blundell-Wignall, “I Draw Out” written to “What a View” by Rhonda Kellenberg
Highly Commended
Shey Marque “How to Print a Flawless Heart” written to “Abstract” by Marianne Percudani
Deanne Leber ”The Weiro Dances” written to “The Genie” by David Brandstater
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Poetry Judge Report
We are all very privileged to be here, on Whadjuk Noongar land where water and land meet.
I want to begin by thanking the Creative Connections executive committee for this beautiful act of community. When there is so much to regret about what is happening in the world around us, I found it really inspiring to have my eyes and heart opened by the artwork and the poetic responses in this collection. And here we all stand on this cold winter’s night, warm with a sense of connection and belonging.
Sincere congratulations to the artists for their work, which as Geraldine Pillinger describes in her introduction, is “bold, fearless, big-hearted, elemental, intimate, quirky” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The art of creating is a wonderful liberation; Self expression through the creative act can open windows to let the light in where there has been darkness. And art speaks across all barriers, real and imagined, to bring us together into our common experience of being human.
And so to the poets, where I was asked to select a winning poem. Of course this is almost a ridiculous notion! There is no one winner here. We are all winners, standing here in our happiness, our grief, our bewilderment, our insight, our disabilities, our abilities but standing together as a community. This project is called Creative Connections, and wherever a connection has been made, there is a winner. Wherever someone looked at a work of art and a spark flew and words fell onto the page, there is a winner. Whenever someone looks at a piece of art or reads a poem on the walls here and feels a connection, there is a winner. and whenever someone opens the pages of the anthology and feels a connection, there is a winner.
Nevertheless, I did fulfil my obligation. No easy task. In 15 lines or less, there’s not a lot of room for a poet to flaunt their poetic prowess. I also know most of the poets who submitted.
But I did my best to be objective. No doubt, another judge would have chosen differently. I did read all poems many times and I asked myself just as often, what makes a good poem?
I realised how much I love an engaging opening line,
For example, Margaret Ferrell’s ‘I lost my kaleidoscope but now I’ve found it’
or ‘Are you ready? I am!’ by Jacui Merckenslager
and Sally Gaunt’s “Can’t you see Joe, Tegan wants to dance”
“I am that menagerie” in Sunny Wignall’s Penny Wong poem
These beginnings immediately take the reader into a space that moves back and forth with the painting. Your attention is engaged and expanded.
Some poems just resonated with delight: as did Maree Dawes and Julienne Lee Juschke’s poems that responded to Leighton Beach.
Maree’s ending was infectious too: Dogs, dogs, dogs. It’s a party!
I loved being jolted by an original idea: Leonard James’ poem made of emoticons, Kevin Gillam’s The Difference – many poems that made a leap from the artwork to somewhere unexpected. Andrew Burke’s poems were almost short stories, they suggested so much in so few lines.
There were many references to other artists and other artworks, and I enjoyed having these extra layers to the poems’ imagery.
The poem ‘Fire and Ice’ was like a dance. employing repetition and rhythm.
There were so many gorgeous images: ‘from our eyrie on the third floor we watch flowers walking’ in Virginia O’keefe’s poem“ and lines resonant with texture and movement in Rose van Son’s poem ‘where life like lava flows.’ and ‘ a plasticine, where hope is sponged.’
Look there were just too many moments of beauty to name them all here. Every poem had some magic that lifted it to the realm of “poetic”.
In the end, the three poems that I couldn’t stop thinking about were poems that moved from the artwork and into an expanded experience. There is always an element of mystery in a special poem and these three poems have an unspoken layer that I felt, but can’t necessarily see or explain. I wanted to keep reading to discover. As always, the choice of language, the arrangement of rhythm, the suggestiveness of it all is what held me.
The winning poem responds to an artwork that is very direct in its depiction of the sea. Rhonda Kallenberg’s What a View is a frothing ocean scene with a red and white lighthouse standing tall against weather and the ever changing moods of the ocean. It’s a long stitch embroidery and the poem begins with the act of stitching, described with intimate familiarity, and moves rhythmically, like the act of embroidery, to and from the scene observed and the artist. It looks at the elements of the scene, ”gulls, light, cloud” ( a little like I am looking at the elements of the poem) and almost unravels it before it can open to ‘stretch and texture’ (hear the rhyme). In phrases, almost like breathing, the poem arrives at the ecstasy of colour. We’re talking here about the act of creating – the impulse, breath, myth. I can’t wait for you to hear it. Congratulations Sunny Blundell-Wignall.
The two highly commended poems responded to very abstract paintings and went into a zone where as a reader, I was intrigued and mesmerised. This was achieved by intelligently and musically chosen language. Both poems have a cohesion of language that captures a small world.
In Shey Marque’s response to Marianne Percudani’s ‘Abstract’ titled ‘How to Print a Flawless Heart’, that small world is the world inside a beating heart. Umbrellas, parachutes, small mirrors – these are unexpected but perfect metaphors for what is really the gift of life, and haven’t we been made so much more aware of that miracle in the last three years? Congratulations Shey.
In Deanne Leber’s response to David Brandstater’s The Genie, we enter the small world of a weiro, or is it the poet or the artist?, in a cage. Somehow, the alliteration, the lineation, creates something magical about our longing for freedom. Congratulations Deanne.
Josephine Clarke
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Frist Prize
“What a View” by Rhonda Kellenberg
I draw out the slack thread, stitch
then tighten, check its position
and repeat.
Like any other act of making,
the tangible world – gulls, light and cloud –
must first unspool,
let go the weight
and wait
of becoming, be open
to stretch and texture –
the myth – of breath.
That giddiness,
when impulse
pushes
to colour.
Sunny Blundell-Wignell
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Highly Commended
“Abstract” by Marianne Percudani
How to Print a Flawless Heart
How breath travels in leaky red air-
bags that fold down just like mini
umbrellas to fit inside the narrowing
vessels. One by one they slide into
capillaries & open their parachutes,
tu-tump, tu-tump. I’ve made a 3-D
network with this map, red ink &
tiny mirrors. Dhak-dhak, dhak-dhak,
feel this new thing under my skin
—it’s learning to kick like a heart.
Shey Marque
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Highly Commended
“The Genie” by David Brandstater
the weiro dances
nudges the bell
spells out secrets in seeds
messages scattered
across newspaper
censored
wing tip to wing tip
tests the cage
its edges
counts down time
to crack the cage’s code
and fly
Deanne Leber
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