Wide open wordsmiths

An open competition, for poems on any subject and in any form, allows writers the opportunity to follow their muse wherever it leads. This freedom urged a great many poets to enter, and to stretch themselves in every direction while producing some fascinating writing.

Entries were nostalgic, political, witty, descriptive, emotional, erudite, insightful, or any combination of these; but whether the text was a simple glance at a beautiful garden or the expounding of a complex philosophical theory, every poem had something to offer. It’s intensely disappointing for an adjudicator to be bored by a poem. This did not happen.

We are living through difficult times, and this fact was not ignored in the poems entered, but it was good to find joy and exuberance, warmth and empathy in much of the work submitted. In many cases, this was complemented by top-quality poetry techniques, so that the use of figurative