The Winnings Poems

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 361, 24 May 1946, Page 21

The Winnings Poems

P 8 The three winning poems by

Mary

Stanley

ag > grouped by the judges in order of

merit, are given below:

poi mrad after the death of Miss Jessie Mackay in 1938, the New Zealand Centre of the P.E.N. decided on the establishment of an annual award for the best poem written by a New Zealander, the competition to be known as the Jessie Mackay Memorial Award for Verse. Sufficient funds were collected to enable a prize of three guineas to be awarded to the successful entrant. Poems were solicited from New Zealand writers, and members of the P.E.N. throughout the Dominion were asked to submit for entry any worthy poems coming under their notice during the year. The following statement covering the award for 1945 comes to us from Pat Lawlor, secretary of the New Zealand Centre of P.E.N.: HE first competition was held in 1940. Because it was the first National competition of its kind, and was well publicised, more than 400 entries came to hand. The judges, Professor Sewell, of Auckland University, and W. F. Alexander, of the Dunedin Star, took some months to sort out the huge piles of entries. The result was noteworthy in that the winner, Douglas Stewart, of Eltham, has since made a name for himself in Australia, where he is now established as a poet and playwright. Subsequent Awards Although no winner has since reached the celebrity of Mr. Stewart, the successful entries have justified, in a moderate degree, the importance of the award: except in one year-1944-when the judges, Isobel Andrews, and O. N. Gillespie, announced with painful brevity that, in their opinion, no entry received justified the awarding of a prize. By this time the entries had considerably decreased in number, there being a marked and ‘fortunate diminution in the volume of sniping rhymsters, It had also been found necessary to restrict each entrant to a maximum of three poems. The Latest Award As the same judges were appointed for the latest, 1945, Award, their decision was awaited with interest. Would the poets, smarting under disciplinary action,

The New Philosopher (1) T is small use now to bid us sit With tutile hands clasped like old men Praying for rain in a dry season. This is not what we have learned As we rode eagle-winged dawn wind Upon the tides of air. Reason Prompts us now to hasten Time’s Imperative, take action, move The deadened skin that hides new growth. We shall not forget landfall On foreign coasts, sea-grave by ice Or coral white like bone; these both The mind have jarred, the taut nerve strung. The new philosopher comes home to farms Sloping northward to the sun To factory above the harbour To the playground where gulls settle At lunch-time and children run To summer bays, young-moon-curved Under fire-petalled trees. Of these He dreamed half-world away or felt Again for one heart-beat the cool Of early morning streets, inland In some small town, saw snow melt Milky green on shingle, ere The earth reeled over, washed him then To unknown shores. Such hard-won prize Will not be spent on sport for fools Or crazy knaves who garner wealth Out of our comrades’ tears and cries,

Love By Candlelight (2) IFT up your brown arms And let fall your heavy hair. Here no one may enter None climb this stair. END down your ripe mouth. Love’s fire-bright silence, this Halt-paintul, shadow haunted So-much-longed-for kiss. (OPEN your green eyes. Pin-points of candleshine In caverns of coolness gleam Here, close to mine. REST your dear head night-long In its accustomed place. I seek no other heav’n Beyond your mortal face. To The Atom (3) HEY are not content to leave unstormed This last citadel of ee Lay bare The infinite, probe the last secret With scalpel-mind. The heart goes unreformed. The old passions still smoulder in forests of stone Girded and hedged with steel, lit by strange sums. Death is the same-so fine a cut can pierce . This pitiful small armour of flesh over bone. Do we bow down and worship you, god Of a new order, head crowned by winds and stars? Our feet still follow ancient paths, our eyes See only where the blind worm breaks the sod. ° All men must wake before this latest cloud Weaves all about us now its stifling shroud.