Friday 13 July 2007

Trumpet-blowing time!

I don't enter many competitions, but I like to have a go at a few, to provide myself with deadlines, and sometimes just to encourage me to write on a particular theme.
I was delighted, not to say staggered, to get an email just now saying that my poem Hares In December has been selected as the only runner-up in the adult section of the 2007 BBC Wildlife Poet Of The Year competition.
It'll be published in the October issue of BBC Wildlife magazine, and I win a nestbox and a lot of bird-feed!
The email from the editor, Sophie Stafford, says: "Though the entries were strong and plentiful as usual, your poem was unanimously selected by the judges as the only other contender for the winning spot. Though we usually award 3 runners-ups awards, this year, yours will be the only one published.
"They felt your poem held a moment of stillness in a world of movement and trusted the reader to follow your thoughts and the pictures you created."
Blimey! When I say staggered, it's not that I didn't think it was any good (I was pretty happy with it, but didn't think it had a real chance of a prize), just that it was very short, and I used to have the impression (wrongly, it's now clear) that competition judges liked their winners to offer a bit more meat.
I wrote the poem in April as part of NaPoWriMo2007, when we had to write a poem a day for a month. This was the 29th, so I was obviously just hitting my stride as we finished. I was taking as my starting point each day the first song that my iPod's shuffle chose, and this one was sparked by Fairport Convention's The Bonny Black Hare. Here's the lyrics of that song - proof that thinly-veiled sexual references and double entendres aren't the exclusive preserve of modern music!

9 comments:

Ivy said...

Congratulations, Matt -- that's awesome! :-)

Rob said...

Well done, Matt. Bet you're glad you did NaPo this year!

Andrew Shields said...

Congratulations! I wonder if I wrote anything on April 29 ... nope. Oh well.

Kirk Wisebeard said...

well done mate... nearly entered myself... but not having a poem ruined the plan....

Matt Merritt said...

Thanks very much everyone. Definitely glad I did NaPo - I've revised a few of the poems since, while others have branched off into other directions. It was definitely a huge help in getting me writing regularly.
Just had a quick look at your website, Ivy. A chapbook of Twin Peaks poems! I'm sending for it now!

Ivy said...

Thanks for checking out my website, Matt. Yes, A Slice of Cherry Pie is a pretty great chapbook anthology, methinks -- I'm sure you'll enjoy it. There's a US version available here. Oops, hope you don't mind me plugging it here! How crass. :-)

Kirk Wisebeard said...

matt.. remember my ode to donna haywood??

Ben Wilkinson said...

I'm a bit behind on this Matt; congratulations on your success! I notice that the Happenstance site is bang up-to-date on things too; the Salt Publishing of the chapbook world. I look forward to seeing the poem in print.

Matt Merritt said...

Thanks Ben. I hadn't seen the Happenstance site - I'll have a look now.