{"id":9192,"date":"2020-10-06T16:29:42","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T16:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/?p=9192"},"modified":"2023-06-27T12:05:35","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T12:05:35","slug":"the-rialto-open-pamphlet-competition-2020-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/2020\/10\/06\/the-rialto-open-pamphlet-competition-2020-results\/","title":{"rendered":"THE RIALTO OPEN PAMPHLET COMPETITION 2020 RESULTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

REPORT FROM THE JUDGE, WILL HARRIS<\/strong><\/p>\n

I feel uncomfortable with the idea of \u201cjudging\u201d because it can suggest some kind of special objectivity and wisdom on the part of the judge. And my only qualification for this role is that I love poems, subjectively and with very little wisdom.<\/p>\n

But as a reader, I was so glad to get this opportunity. Everything I read gave me something different to love \u2013 some new twist on a phrase, or tug on a word, some unexpected image or idea. It was a particular honour to read work in pamphlet form, and so be able to see themes and forms teased out and experimented with over a number of pages.\u00a0 The whole experience has been moving and renewing, and I hope that all the poets who submitted \u2013 whether they\u2019re on the shortlist or not \u2013 will take my heartfelt thanks for sharing their work, and feel emboldened to continue writing and sharing their words with the world.<\/p>\n

The two joint winners, Fridge<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Queerfella<\/em>, are two pamphlets I kept coming back to, not because they\u2019re inherently\u00a0superior to the other brilliant pamphlets I read, but because, for whatever reason, their language felt important to me right\u00a0now. They\u2019re vivid and shifting pieces of writing, strange and sad, continually disclosing new subtleties of thought and\u00a0emotion. I feel like they have things to teach me about being human, about how to live with trauma, loss and love. They\u00a0also just fill me with a desire to share and talk about them. I hope other readers will feel the same way too.<\/p>\n

Before After<\/strong>
\nSearing work on relationships, mental health and gender transitioning. ‘Father’ and ‘Filing’ are beautiful, complex poems\u00a0about inhabiting identity. There’s a wise, philosophical, questioning voice apparent throughout, as in ‘Views’: “you only\u00a0speak\/ one sentence your entire life\/ and everything you live\/ is caught in its open line”. Not only is this a strong beautiful\u00a0sentiment, it\u2019s one the speaker has the strength \u2013 and the control of tone \u2013 to then undercut and complicate.<\/p>\n

Faint<\/strong>
\nThere’s a dreamlike attentiveness to the natural world \u2013 a storm is described as a “bluescale\/ of flapping threads.” This same\u00a0attentiveness is applied to dreams themselves, as in ‘This Dream is Going in Circles’ where the speaker says: “I am talking\u00a0to a mermaid with a witch-faced shadow.\/ I spill my words \u00a0 we never reach the end.” Often a colloquial register cuts\u00a0through the poetic as in ‘Return to Work’ and the brilliant ‘The Let-Down’, which dwells on “milk and skin” and maternal\u00a0labour.<\/p>\n

For the apocalypse team a pastel playsuit with coordinating clutch<\/strong>
\nBrilliant control of lines and line breaks, and of voice \u2013 at once brittle and elastic, funny and grieving, full of “singed\u00a0sweetness”. The poet has a real flair for titles (‘For domestic consumption and later revelation by history’, or ‘A butterfly of\u00a0the poet as a self-portrait’) and there’s an impressive openness to the range of references. On occasion, as in ‘The horizon\u00a0leans forward’, the language is startlingly spare and affecting.<\/p>\n

Fridge<\/strong>
\nThe interweaving of images and phrases \u2013 the eponymous fridges, a goose, a sack, a jug, the urge to cry, shame at crying\u00a0(\u201cwhy can\u2019t I be cool\u2026 like orange snow\u201d) \u2013 come together with astonishing cumulative power to evoke the way grief\u00a0continually feeds on itself, fuelled by new losses and remembered pains, as the poet addresses their parents, the suicides of\u00a0friends, and their own need to mourn, however incompletely and inadequately.<\/p>\n

Hello,<\/strong>
\nGreat use of the page. A caring evocation of an enclosed world, which opens out into something more surreal and ragged.\u00a0Poems like ‘The Enormous Chair’ suggest a grander, more prophetic imagination at work, unafraid of leaps in tone and\u00a0register. But I kept coming back to the first poems. I love the slide from the internal experience of work (the dramatic\u00a0metaphor of the ship coming apart) to the external one: that stream of polite \u2013 but obviously warm \u2013 \u2018heys\u2019 and \u2018hellos\u2019. It\u2019s\u00a0powerfully and skilfully done.<\/p>\n

Queerfella<\/strong>
\nThere’s a real consistency of voice throughout and an indomitable sense of the poet facing up to their chosen subject matter\u00a0“no \u00a0wonder \u00a0we \u00a0escape \u00a0bodies \u00a0that \u00a0sink \/ or encage ourselves in a sewered shame”. ‘There was a hole’ and ‘Alright really’\u00a0are deceptively simple poems \u2013 and all the more powerful for it \u2013 which make use of a fine storytelling gift. ‘I am not\u00a0straight’ is a particularly good example of a very tender form of directness. ‘Life imitates porn’ has an extraordinary final\u00a0couplet: “often the cum face is fake\/ & the dicks are on drugs”. Great variety and play, e.g. the “demi-ekphrastic poem”\u00a0‘Cock & Balls’. The last two poems, ‘Circling Crows’ and ‘Half-rotten, half-new’ \u2013 both in part about fathers and forgiveness\u00a0\u2013 are stunning: open, redemptive, beautiful.<\/p>\n

Sea Level<\/strong>
\nSea Level refers at once to the spectre of ecological catastrophe and to the speaker’s internal barometer of mental health.\u00a0The grim humour of the opening line of ‘Layby’ \u2013 “I’m suited for a funeral” \u2013 sets a mood which pervades much of the\u00a0work. ‘Saved’, for example, is an extraordinary poem: light and dark, humorous and sad, brisk and tender. Skilfully\u00a0constructed poems, ordered and charged with yearning<\/p>\n

Shit Happens<\/strong>
\nThe first poem ‘Hoor’ is masterful is its use of dialect \u2013 profane, profuse and intimate. Elsewhere, the language is equally\u00a0supple and responsive: “her stove hot bonnet warming bottoms” or “my brothers\u2019\/ sleep-limp slump”. The writing about the\u00a0natural world is always fresh and sometimes terrifying, as in ‘Bully’ where a boy squeezes a bullfrog to death. The sounds\u00a0make me think of Gerard Manley Hopkins at points, as in “tartled hooves compact the chaw”. Chewy, resonant writing.<\/p>\n

The Presence of Absence<\/strong>
\nSuch an impressively sustained study of Alzheimer’s, which makes powerful use of a variety of forms. I found ‘Your Front\u00a0Door’ a particularly affecting evocation of being “locked in\/ and locked out.\/ An alarm on both sides\/ your wired sentry.”\u00a0Little details \u2013 like the indented couplet in \u2018The Avalon Plum Tree\u2019 \u2013 carry such emotional heft. And I loved the sad\u00a0playfulness of \u2018Memory Clinic Haikus\u2019. This is empathetic, \u201cstraight in the eye\u201d, unsentimental but very moving writing.<\/p>\n

The Sushi Chef’s Wife<\/strong>
\nThe irreverence here glides along a surface of barely concealed melancholy, punctuated by brilliant novelistic details. The\u00a0description of Philip Larkin, for example, “in his sweat-marked DH Lawrence t-shirt” resting on a push lawnmower. ‘Keats\u00a0is reincarnated as a food cool store forklift driver’ surprises you with its wisdom, particularly about the function of poems as\u00a0a way of stemming expectations: “a sure-fire guarantee to get things back under control”. The voice is sardonic but rarely\u00a0cruel. Often, as in ‘The Twelve Lightbulbs Of Janet Frame’, it’s heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

Trombone<\/strong>
\nPainterly and precise, down to the “in-betweens where shellac rusts cobalt”. Great evocation of place, as in ‘Faithful’, and\u00a0the ways places are inhabited. The poet creates an amazing sense of a cast of characters who, though mostly unnamed, feel\u00a0very real. \u2018Trombone\u2019 itself is a beautiful poem and metaphor for the work\u2019s themes \u2013 not the instrument you might choose\u00a0(e.g. \u201ca cornet, a blues harp, a saxophone\u201d) but the one that chooses you. It\u2019s also full of more lightly drawn but deeply felt\u00a0novelistic flourishes: \u201cThe music teacher gave a shy talk to our crossed legs\u201d is a favourite.<\/p>\n

Will Harris<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

THE PAMPHLETS AND THEIR POETS\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

(In no particular order)<\/p>\n

Before After \u2013 Dana Swensen
\nFaint \u2013 Lucy Dixcart
\nFor the Apocalypse Team a Pastel Playsuit With Co-ordinating Clutch \u2013 Katherine Collins
\nFridge \u2013 Selima Hill
\nHello \u2013 Stuart Charlesworth
\nQueerfella \u2013 Simon Maddrell
\nSea Level \u2013 Roy Marshall
\nShit Happens \u2013 Jim McElroy
\nThe Presence of Absence \u2013 Jane Thomas
\nThe Sushi Chef\u2019s Wife \u2013 Paula Harris
\nTrombone \u2013 Annie Kerr<\/p>\n

(Lucy Dixcart withdrew her pamphlet because of acceptance elsewhere).<\/p>\n

From the Editor<\/p>\n

This was a wonderful competition, a large entry of excellent quality pamphlets. I want to thank Will for his comments and\u00a0also for all his work. We were longer than we had hoped we\u2019d be reaching a decision just because the standard was so high.\u00a0We\u2019ll now set to work turning the winning entries into printed form. Thank you poets and poetry.<\/p>\n

Michael Mackmin<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

REPORT FROM THE JUDGE, WILL HARRIS I feel uncomfortable with the idea of \u201cjudging\u201d because it can suggest some kind of special objectivity and wisdom on the part of the judge. And my only qualification for this role is that I love poems, subjectively and with very little wisdom. But as a reader, I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[221,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-competitions","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9194,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9192\/revisions\/9194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}