Now in its 24th year, the Strokestown International Poetry Competition is delighted to announce the shortlist for this year’s competition, judged by acclaimed poet Jane Clarke. The following five poems and poets have been selected, listed in alphabetical order:
René Laennec Remembers the day he dreamt a stethoscope by Olga Dermott-Bond
Driving Across the Humber Bridge by Paul McMahon
Footfall by Winifred McNulty
On Leaving by Judy O’Kane
Americana by Matthew Wimberley
Judge Jane Clarke commented:
“Among the 700-plus entries, many poems stood out and warranted rereading. The five shortlisted poems shone in their exploration of relationships with both intimacy and restraint, bringing diverse people, times, and places to life through a deft use of language that evokes music and imagery.”
The overall winner will be announced at a dedicated event on Sunday, 4th May, as part of this year’s Strokestown International Poetry Festival.
René Laennec remembers the day he dreamt a stethoscope
The girl was young, embarrassed, a blueish tinge
around her lips like dried lavender, labouring
for each breath. I imagined being able to listen
to her heart, that small fist of pandemonium;
of being able to bring those distant muffled hooves
nearer to me, to canter their rhythm in my ear.
I dreamt then of my stethos kopos, special
as Galileo’s glass, a listening piece of wonder,
that would allow me to track that beautiful
stricken animal hidden inside her chest,
as if, through sound, I could place my hand
on her struggling heart, feel it riding side saddle,
limping lopsided across the field of her body.
Yes, it was as if I had imagined a new landscape,
fog lifting inside her, feeling damp ground,
rivulets and rabbit holes, ready to encounter
the marvel of her trembling flawed centre
that was whispering so quietly alive, alive, alive.
Olga Dermott-Bond
Driving Across the Humber Bridge
my ex-girlfriend tells me,
in Spanish, the verb to hope
is also the verb to wait.
We were travelling from
Barton-upon-Humber
on the south bank and
headed toward Hessle
on the north bank.
She was smiling but
shaking her head at
the same time while
gripping the wheel
as the morning sun shone
in on the right side of her
face, through the strands
of suspension cables strung
like the skeleton of an upended
piano, and when I asked her,
Which comes first? she said,
Hope, then she stopped smiling
and began nodding out front
at the white road markings
flying by like we were
the bird shadowing Hansel
swallowing the breadcrumbs
that show the way home
and I prayed for those little
bones we’d never get to bury
as we approached the shoreline
of Hessle, the harbour,
the pier, the sandy beach,
and I knew it was somewhere
that we would never reach.
Paul McMahon
Footfall
Steps, the width of a breath, measure
grass and gaps to the small field for a calf.
I follow your tracks, tracing the notation
of stone in a shed where phrases are musky,
full of cow’s breath, the dash of milk
into a bucket, your face soft against her hide.
My mother gathered small stools, all her life
to sit in comfortable rooms, her face level
with Brownie’s wide flank. Just out of reach
of the kick of the bucket, just inside a song
she knew once, embedded like language,
full of silence, winter sea and a raw wind.
A wild song. Some heard it fainter
and fainter, an echo in red brick streets.
So they went out to the parks, lay there
all night to see if they could hear it better,
to see could they follow it back.
Winifred McNulty
On Leaving
The car pulls out of Place de Carnot,
the carousel is closed for the season.
Soon the rain will wash what remains
of the abbey of St-Vivant from our boots.
From the train, vineyards
flow down the hillsides
in lines of gold. For days,
winegrowers: pioneers
and pilgrims in Māori
and in French sang songs
of love of their land.
On the Hautes Côtes,
they danced to jazz bands,
surrounded by magnums
strewn in night lights.
On tabletops they danced
the complicated ritual
of terroir: a rite, a religion.
For the briefest of moments,
all of this came into focus:
the fall of light on the Côte d’Or,
the patterns of climats,
each parcel of land
recognised and mapped.
All of this will fall away,
like fluency in a language
not spoken frequently,
to occupy some distant space,
still not entirely lost. In the distance
Clos Vougeot disappears from view.
At Dijon we change trains, at Paris
we will go our separate ways
Judy O’Kane
Americana
Under this layman’s
music, I hear the rattle
of my stepfather’s keys
in the understory of boyhood
as he heads out for the ten
hour day—sun just hitting
the clouds, blushed, brilliant
as hands in the near
zero cold. The wind
is working for time
and a half. It makes
me nervous to hear it now
and then— hours soaking
his collar and armpits, making
his t-shirt tighter. Shadow
the oldest measure of time—
him with grease under his nails
a socket wrench between his teeth
humming Steppenwolf
to pass five or six minutes.
He did it like this for years
so I wouldn’t go hungry
so I could be bored even,
could crawl all summer
through leaf fall, come home
late, having no clue
it was dinner time,
so I could stop to notice
the first punch of wind
in the pines— a worker
clocking in after
the slow drive, sitting
in his truck to catch
the last guitar riff
of a song from another
life, Roan Mountain
and a shim of moon
in the rearview
holding up the crooked
dark.
Matthew Wimberley