Blossom, Creeping Doubt and Belly Buttons

The days are lengthening, the trees are fat with blossom and tiny leaves, the birds are singing me awake every morning and the sun has been shining for several consecutive days now.When you hear that your poem, along with five others, has been chosen by Ian Duhig to celebrate 40 years of the National Poetry Competition, you begin to wonder if things can't get any better. But they do. Wakefield, City of Sanctuary, recently hosted a poetry competition and it has also selected a poem of mine as the winner. So, yes, I admit it, I am grinning from ear to ear.

But it's funny how winning a competition or having your work published can affect you. Pleasure is, undeniably, the first emotion you feel. It's nice to be rewarded for your hard work. But then comes a strange sort of creeping doubt. Why didn't they choose someone else's poem? Surely there must have been some better than mine. And when you read the other poems, you really do wonder why yours and not theirs.

Having been a judge myself, I know how nerve-racking it is to choose a winner - even if there is one poem and one poem only that is shouting at you from the pile. It is impossible to be 100% objective. What about your mood that day? And the collection you were reading the night before? And your particular penchant for this and your dislike of that? Or your inability to understand what a certain poem is about? Some poems have to be read again and again before they start to grow on you and become firm favourites. Who am I to judge? That has always been the  question I have wrestled with when placed in this position. If you are one of a panel of judges, you learn how contrary some decisions seem. One judge may change another judge's mind by an observation that shows up the other judge's oversight. And let's face it, not all nuances are perceived in the same way.

These are understandable reasons why some people despise competitions. The ultimate choice is always subjective, even if there is consensus. But does this mean that competitions are without value? The dilemma, of course, is something editors are faced with. Sooner or later a decision has to be made, otherwise there would be no poetry magazines or books and there would be no festival readings. And there would therefore be nothing to aspire to. This is where I have to come down on the side of competitions. Aside from the  monetary gain - and let's face it - most poets are stony broke - there is one essential fact. Someone whose work you respect has chosen a piece of work on the basis that it is of a high standard. Now, we might disagree about what makes a good poem, but it's surprising how many winners have made it into my own personal list of favourites. Think about your favourite poets. Think about why you like some poems and not others. Think about the last poem you read that made you see the world anew or even differently. Someone chose that poem. Perhaps you did. You heard it read in a workshop and you said "I like that." You didn't say that about the others. You only said it about that one. Why?

I find myself in good company today - read the poems that Poetry News will be featuring - and rather than doubt, I find I am filled with a desire to be more rigorous, more accurate and honest, more attentive to language. If someone's imagination thrills me, then I have new questions to ask of my own ability to fling open doors and windows. Doubt is only useful when it leads to a desire to stretch and test boundaries. Navel gazing is just navel gazing, and unless you have a desperate need to make sense of belly buttons in a truly dynamic and startling way, you should resist it.

So, thank you, Ian Duhig. And thank you to the person or people of Wakefield - I am looking forward to meeting you all at the Art House on May 2nd. And finally, thank you to every poet who has fed my wonder and imagination and taught me to think more deeply about the world.


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Wakefield City of Sanctuary