THE WINNER IS FINN ANDERSON

Montana poet, Finn Anderson

For our second iteration of this already-excitingly successful prize (in terms of getting entries from all levels of experience, and all over the world), we have that most pleasing of winners (arguably - a genuinely new poet, emerging from the wings for the first time, blinking in the footlights, to take their first shy bow). Indeed, this winner entered under an alias, but turns out to be Finn Anderson. He will be paid his £140 today, almost instantly. Now here is the judge, Alexandra Payne, weighing in:

Judge’s Comments:

Among the poems read in the judging of this prize, many stood out for their starkly imagistic slants on reality, often transmuting somewhere into the magic and music of great poetry. None, however, with more wit, surprise and wistfully elegant tragedy than the sonnet, 'The Trampoline'.

Its mastery of form and subtle yet heartbreak-inducing rhymes transform a familiar domestic object into a perfect objective correlative for the everyday tragedies that pockmark all our little lives. Step out from anonymity, Orfinn Ani. This sonnet deserves it.

By contrast, my runner up, Vik Shirley, showed us how comedy can be a delightful element in poetry with her 'My One-Year-Old Niece' which also had me in raptures.

My congratulations to all the short-listed poets, and indeed all who entered. It was a delight to read all your work, especially from those who are as yet not published, yet show enormous sensitivity and talent. Please keep writing! - AP

The Trampoline

The trampoline is old and broken now.

Around its ambit absent springs, like teeth,

show gaps; we find them rusted underneath.

The sagging tarp is pocked, the metal bowed

and pinched from weight, and rain. The laminate

warning label's faded, its yellow ink run

brown to a shade of puke, or cigarette stain.

Of two divorces, two surgeries, you'd think

our father would've scrapped it long ago,

or given it to some kid down the road,

not left it, skeletal and mean, for his sons

to pallbear in his pickup to the dump.

He must have watched it patiently erode.

I wonder if he ever tried to jump.

@2017 Finn Anderson, the author

Finn Anderson (pictured above) is a young American poet from Missoula, Montana, age of 25. He writes: 'I've worked in restaurants, bars, done construction, been a white water rafting guide, a ski instructor, a student. I've always loved reading. I love Leonard Cohen. I love skateboarding. I love my parents, and the summer.'

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se. What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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