The Write Path 2023

By NAWG Publishing

The Write Path 2023 contains all of the winning entries from the 2023 National Association of Writers and Groups members-only competitions, along with all of the judges' comments, and the Open Poetry and Short Story competitions, along with the winners of our festival flash competitions. Contributors include: Gordon Aindow, Charlie Kitching, Taria Karillion, Don Hogle, Jan Huntley, Margaret Morey, Karen Evans, Jean Eaton, Robert Crockett, Mary Lowther, Ray Offiah, Bernadette Walker, James Edwards, Fiona Bernhoeft, Hilary Feeney, Kerri Simpson, and Denny Jace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NAWG Publishing
• Release date: Dec 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781738436132

Book preview

OPEN POETRY

Judge: Daisy Watkin

Winner: Margaret Morey

Judge's Notes

As ever, deciding on the final shortlist from all the heartfelt, clever, effective and affecting poems submitted has been a very difficult task. The following poems were eventually selected as the ‘winning’ entries but I want to stress that another judge may very well have arrived at another list!

The winning poem is Organ Music. This poem says a lot about a dead father in simple, beautifully judged language and a cleverly structured narrative. The surprise at the end (and its poignant, understated effect) is masterfully managed - arresting the reader as well as the narrator.

The second poem in the final four is Foundry Fathers. Another great poem about a remembered father (an ‘iron tamer’). This one deploys a wonderful lexical chain powerfully evoking the harsh atmosphere of a foundry as well as recreating the vivid presence of an adored father.

The third poem to make the short list is the beautifully crafted The Art of Denial. Written in rhymed tercets that serve the narrative progress very effectively, this poem deals with a crisis of faith. The outer location and the inner thoughts are delicately and successfully expressed.

The fourth poem on the shortlist is On the Long Road Back. This haunting, cleverly structured poem deploys some clever internal rhyme to great effect. Its theme is universal and the use of the simple repeated question is truly moving.

Two highly commended poems

A Flock of Words consists of three sections dealing with three different species of bird.

The poet characterises them with witty, precise and well rhymed observations and clever imagery. ( I love the magpie strutting forth in Mary Quant/The sixties look your mum would want.)

Also highly commended is the unusual How it works. Each verse starts with a scientific quote explaining pain. The reader is then exposed to the reality of pain through plain but poetic language. A poem that explores linguistic registers so well certainly deserves commending!

ORGAN MUSIC

BY MARGARET MOREY

He’s long been dead

but his organ music’s here

yellowing, musty, piled

in a corner of the shed

he built himself,

which has kept out

more than my lifetime

of winters.

Some is bound in leather,

with gold-lettering,

in keeping with his Sunday

metamorphosis: strong,

wood-working hands

scrubbed, his only suit

worn awkwardly under

the white cassock,

which stopped him being

my Dad, made him

remote, back turned

behind stone pillars.

The music’s obsolete,

but such a shame

to put it in the skip.

My fingers linger on this

unknown, Sunday Dad,

dislodge a Playboy magazine.

I never would have thought it,

don’t fully understand.

FORMAL POEM: RONDEAU

Judge: Daisy Watkin

Winner: Margaret Morey

Judge’s Notes

The formal poem asked for in this competition was in Rubaiyat form of quatrains rhyming aaba. An example was given as a guide, 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' by Robert Frost which is in iambic tetrameter.

This is an interesting form where the rhymes carry the rhythm along to form separate end stopped stanzas.

This unusual form seems to have been a little daunting and the entries were mostly dominated by the strictures of rhyme and rhythm which impinged on the content producing a stilted feeling to the poems.

The winner, Memorial, overcame this problem and the content was powerful. There was enjambment between the first two stanzas but this was well handled.

The runners up, Heartache and Absent were also good in content and handled the form confidently. Heartache used no punctuation which I don't think helped it and Absent was more dominated by the rhymes than the other two. Both these things helped to put Memorial into first place but all three poems were of a similar standard.

Dream House was highly commended. It stuck to the Robert Frost form and handled it quite well but the content was a little lightly handled, although I can see why as it concerned memories of early childhood.

Well done to all who entered this competition. It wasn't an easy form and being unusual it would have been outside the previous experience of the poets and so new to everyone.

MEMORIAL

BY MARGARET MOREY

This church is not the place for me.

It isn’t where I want to be

when sun streams, jewelled, through the glass

on ancient stone. Her memory

is here; but soon the sun will pass

its winter height. This day won’t last

and it can never come again.

Outside, the river sparkles past.

Inside the church is loss and pain.

My sadnesses are not the same.

Theirs is the hardest loss to bear

the hardest heartache to sustain.

Their child has gone and mine are here,

but I remember how they were

when first they started on their way.

when trust and hope were everywhere.

But life has changed them, day by day.

It’s worn their sunniness away.

I mourn the price they’ve had to pay,

a different kind of death today.

SHORT STORY

Judge: Tim Wilson

Winner: Karen Evans

Judge’s Notes

There was an excitingly varied collection of entries for this year’s short story competition, with the given theme (glass or crystal bowl/ball) producing lots of imaginative entries.

The best stories were those in which the reader forgets the ‘prompt’ and simply becomes absorbed by the storytelling, the vivid use of language, and the emotional impact. I found this in all the shortlisted entries, but there was a particular intensity and assurance in the winning story.

Well done to all entrants.

KIRA AND THE RIVER

BY KAREN EVANS

Kira lived in seamless joy. The world a sky of sapphire, land of emerald softness and water of rippling iridescence. She was like this first world. Streamlined into curves of whiskered elegance, she flowed with the wind, danced with the sun and hopped with the rain. For she was water rabbit. Gentle and kind, quiet yet alert, she had no fear even from those who hunted with barred teeth and brush tail. Speed was her friend from those who snarled, underground was the perfect camouflage. Yet she knew World would keep her safe just as it gave her food, shelter and warmth and she loved World. She loved the trees though they wept leaves in Autumn. She loved the clouds that told stories in their shapes and most of all she loved river. River whispered lullabies in the spring and roared novels during the rains. Kira watched fascinated as stones were smoothed and banks carved by rivers’ persistent flow. River sparkled and told of places far away, bringing mementos of these unknown lands in its flowing streams.

It seemed to Kira that the place where River began was a wondrous place and, in her dreams, safe in her burrow, she believed she saw it in all its splendour. Yet when she asked to know more, the clouds would skitter past, the sun would hide its warming rays behind the land and branches from the trees would catch in fur. She asked River of the other places but there was no reply. Kira asked aloud no more, but she was patient. She watched as buds turn to blossom, flowers paraded their beauty and then World took up its mantle of copper and