2020 POETRY COMPETITION
IT GIVES US GREAT PLEASURE TO PUBLISH THE NAMES AND POEMS OF THE WINNERS OF OUR 2020 LOVE in THE TIME OF COVID POETRY COMPETITION:
ADULT CATEGORY
First Prize Anthea Garman for her poem When I get out I will order a repeat supermoon
Joint first prize Pamela Williams for her poem – Isolation
2nd prize – Christine Coates for her poem LOCKDOWN BRIDGE
3rd prize – Adre Marshall for her poem Remembering
Highly Commended Award John Ellis for his poem Cruise Ship
YOUTH CATEGORY
Joint First prize – Zindi Van Zyl for the poem Asblikkinners
Joint first prize – Rozadin Fortuin for the poem The Covid Test
Merit Award for Achumile Ntabeni for the poem Stuck in a shack
Merit Award for Shiba Phiri for the poem Huh! What’s to love in the time of Covid?
MAGDALA AWARDS
The Magdala Awards highlight poetry as a creative practice that awakens the Poet. In the process of writing, poets connect with their true nature, open an inner eye to see what is real, and speak from their deepest ground of belonging. Through the –Magdala Awards we remind ourselves that the journey of maturing as poets is also a beautiful pathway of evolving as human beings. The widest purpose of all is to nurture the traditional role of poets as Wisdom Keepers.
First prize – Seamus Wilson for his poem Sonnet
2nd prize – Gillian Rennie for her poem Ever After
3rd prize – Ghaireyah Fredericks for her poem In Die Tuin
YOUTH MAGDALA PRIZE
Juanita Marks –Bayman for her poem Being Love in the Time of Covid
TEMENOS AWARDS
for poems highly commended by our judges:
Mike Kamstra A McGregor poet) for his poem Love in the time of Covid
Risha Lötter for her poem Isolation
Winners of the Patricia Schonstein Poetry in McGregor Award
Joint Winners 2020
Chris Mann for his poem A farewell in advance of death
Ilze Olckers for her renderings into Afrikaans of Rumi’s Zero Sirkel, and Rainer Maria Rilke’s Liewe Verdonkerende Grond
Acclaim 2020
Lionel Abrahams (1928-2004) for publishing, during the height of apartheid, the poetry of Oswald Mtshali and Mongane Wally Serote, through his Renoster Press, thus heralding the emergence of black poetry in South Africa; and also for his own contribution to the South African canon.
POEMS OF THE FINALISTS
ADULT CATEGORY:
Social Distance
ek het groot geraak,
jou hande kan my nie meer hou nie
ek skrik nie meer as jy my voor die beord gryp nie
nie as jy my nagte uit jou huis sit nie
nie vir jou kil woorde wat my altyd laat huil het nie
ek het bitter geraak
jou hart kan dit nie hou nie
nie my verwyte nie
my onvergewensgesindheid
die woede wat ek daagliks in kweek nie
jy’t drome vir my gehad, Daddy
ek was jou sagste kind
een wat nooit teё praat nie
nooit t’rug slaan nie
die een wat vrede vra
maar, Daddy, my hart kon nie die lewe se punch vat nie
ek was nooiy sterk soos jy nie
ek het geknak, my Pa
die breek het hom jare as heel vermom
en my têksnommer is tevergeefs
my ou UIF bydrae kan nie brood in die huis koop nie
hier kom nie meer mense by my nie
is nie oor gremdeltyd nie
nie oor masker of sanitizer nie
jy hoef nie te sê jy’s teleurgesteld nie
die jammer in jou oё as jy my kyk
sê dit daagliks wanneer ek jou melk tee
in jou groen PEP koppie in die garage loop afgee
daar was distance tussen lank voor COVID
jy sug
ek is nie soos jy gedroom het
ek sou wees nie
jy draai my nou in watte toe.
By Lynthia Julius
When I get out I will
Order a repeat of the supermoon
and it will be pinker and huger and brighter and kinder and softer
than any moon we ever saw before
because we missed it
We’ll sit on the rocks at Dassiekrans and watch
because we will be out,
and it will be out,
and the dog
– especially the dog –
will be out
for the supermoon
pinker and brighter and kinder and softer
By Anthea Garman
CRUISE SHIP
a homeless cruise ship
lies quarantined off my balcony
huge and white by day
at night rows of purposeless lights
it faces north
as though it cannot bear
to look upon the harbour it
has been denied
“north”
it’s purpose in normal times
“north”, filled with songs and beer
some nights it turns slowly upon its anchor
and the breeze brings me
the faint hymns
of the skeleton crew
By John Ellis
Isolation
To an extent
this childless couple
had made children of each other,
filling the felt space – the emptiness –
with small endearments, little courtesies
and, carefully avoiding fruitless blame,
remained together in their disappointment, though alone.
And when, skin chemo-browned,
ill-fitting borrowed wig askew,
she hesitated – mirror – shy –
he gently touched her cheek
and told her she was beautiful
they were together in their suffering, though alone.
And now, stalking the ward,
the dreaded silk-shod dragon
grips his chest with tightening claws
as he, determined to survive,
coughs tired rasping gasps
while she – separated from him by distance only –
draws deep healing breaths on his behalf.
And so, in isolation, they are still together, though alone.
BY PAMELA WILLIAMS
Remembering
I think of you always when I cook courgettes
and not, I’m afraid, when Bach’s Goldberg variations
ripple out in the night; Dvorak and Schubert can’t do it
no, not even Beethoven’s late quartets
Do I think of you looking across False Bay, with regrets,
watching otters in gullies, gannets spearing into the sea
while paintbrush flowers splotch orange along the path
and sky flares apricot as the sun sets?
Do I stroke passing Daschunds, your favourite pets,
and think of you finding in rock pools those Cecil Higgs paintings?
No, but you once told me never to cut them, it spoils the flavour
so I think of you always when cooking courgettes
Now, in a time of Covid, I’m the one who nets
memories of the past, meanders on the mountain
rock pools morphing into paintings, apricot sunsets with you
and most of all, eating buttery unsliced courgettes
By Adré Marshall
Lockdown Bridge
We’re playing bridge now as we did then
before TV or money to dine out
or movies. You taught me Honeymoon Bridge until
we met a couple. They fought Clubs and Spades.
To keep the peace I partnered her, you him.
We studied each other across the bias, Hearts,
Diamonds. You called. I responded. Rubber –
the night you didn’t have one. Contracts and Conventions.
Our baby slept in a carry-cot besides the card table until
our friends packed for Perth. Finessed. Outbid.
Auction. We bought our first house, had more
babies. Cards forgotten, you climbed the
corporate ladder. Sometimes it seemed we lived
in a house of cards. Cards dealt, we held them close,
Bid and Bluffed, counted points.
But now in lockdown, we find
the cards again. Read them. They tell of
Tricks and Triumphs, of bridges
we’ve crossed, water
flowed under.
By Christine Coates
Ek wil
(vir my leerders)
Ek wil jou vashou
en vir jou sê alles
gaan okay wees,
maar ek kan nie.
Jy staan 2 meter van my af,
maar jy voel ver weg en ek
kan jou nie beryk nie.
Ek sien jy is bekommerd.
Ek weet jy is bang.
Ek is ook.
Ek wil jou beskerm
En jou veilig hou,
maar ek weet nie hoe nie.
Jy lyk verlore in al die spasie.
Jou stem kraak wanneer jy
met my praat en my oё traan
terwyl jy wegloop.
Dit voel asof ‘n deel van my wegraak.
My hart breek met elke tree wat jy gee.
Ek wil jou vashou, maar ek mag nie.
By Adré van Lill
When I get out
The sun dips, duties done,
and the twilight urges us to our closing rituals:
drawing te curtains,
checking the windows –
this one open, that one closed –
moving through newly darkened spaces
and switching them one-by-one to light,
while closing the walls in a little tighter
to guard against the night.
But when I get out
I will watch the sun dip at the end of the day
from a spot on the hill where the big blue sky lives.
I will breathe in the quiet, cool air, and breathe out.
I will watch the sun dip at the end of the day,
and as the azure sky turns to tones of fire,
I will breathe in, and hold …
to ignite a fire within to fuel bravery for this strange new world.
I will watch the sun dip at the end of each day
from up on the hill where the sky is vast and most radiant.
By Pamela Vale
This poem has its roots in the first morning of the CV-19 “lockdown”. I woke up to a brilliantly still morning. The surface of the lake in front of my home was like a silk covered pond. However, it was the silence that struck me.
An unfamiliar silence
It was the stillness –
the silence that woke me.
Not the silence of night,
or grief, or the quiet emptiness of the quayside –
for the ship, long gone, was out of sight.
No! This was the silence of a thief
Fingering her way into my sleep.
I stirred –
Was that a breeze?
Or was it the deep Earth – sigh of relief?
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Now awake
I heard the silence of the promise of an unborn child,
felt the stillness of an unruffled lake –
a virgin state
upon which the fate of that child
lay in waiting –
a new world was waiting.
Could this be the silence of the second, or third,
or, perhaps, the final Coming?
By Ian McCallum
The flesh of words
These days we wade through
our routine in silos of silence
that begin or end with digitalized
hellos or goodbyes
Death revels brazenly in data
compiled by diligent strangers
whose woes are sanitized by
imperatives or endurance
We wait endlessly segregated from
Each other’s lives, captives of an
Implacable intruder scornful of
stature or station
Still in this confinement
it is the flesh of words we
desire most, far from promises of
respite or remedy
By Abu Bakr Solomons
the eyes have it
in a surreal space of empty street
boarded up shops and solitary
hurrying figures
we orbit familiar paths in an unfamiliar world
the waters of or lives dry up
with the old bread
our eyes represent us
bespectacled, narrowed, sunken
bewildered
offering covert glances
anonymously in our armour
we are passing ships in a locked down universe
a nod is tentative
too late
lost in concertinaed folds
smile with your eyes
I don’t know how
I practise in front of a mirror
an angry primate, teeth bared
the mask holds firm
outside I select my target
attempt the eye smile
connect, brief but steady
lock on
we have contact
a flash of sunlight
an experience shared
By Sue Woodward
Isolation
To an extent
this childless couple
had made children of each other,
filling the felt space – the emptiness –
with small endearments, little courtesies
and, carefully avoiding fruitless blame,
remained together in their disappointment, though alone.
And when, skin chemo-browned,
ill-fitting borrowed wig askew,
she hesitated – mirror – shy –
he gently touched her cheek
and told her she was beautiful
they were together in their suffering, though alone.
And now, stalking the ward,
the dreaded silk-shod dragon
grips his chest with tightening claws
as he, determined to survive,
coughs tired rasping gasps
while she – separated from him by distance only –
draws deep healing breaths on his behalf.
And so, in isolation, they are still together, though alone.
By Risha Lötter
Ever after
This is new
the way the garden steps
into this body
takes by surprise every sense
The man next door daily now
plays ball with his daughter
filling the drums of these ears
There! she calls and
the ball falls, a flat note, but
Well done! he sings and
her feet chase the ball’s rolling tune
She squeals, delighted
as am I
as I watch the laundry dry
so this is how sunshine can quench a tongue
Now the father stops playing
to build a fire to braai so that
Monday smells like Sunday
I should weed
I could read
but the cats lead me to exhale
to see in every squeal
the earth
cracked
waiting to pour
By Gillian Rennie
Hard Lockdown
The dogs are dreaming more,
since lockdown started
and walks ended.
Before, they slept silently, deeply,
an occasional twitch of a paw
or an eyelid.
Now they are taking their missed walks
in their sleep;
paws flexing, muscles twitching,
barks issuing from deep
in their dream-tight throats.
Tails wag, ears twitch in greeting
in these dream runnings;
freedom, long grasses,
hadedahs berating from overhead
and a clear dirt road disappearing
towards the sunset.
By Jeanne McKean
POEMS OF THE FINALISTS
YOUTH CATEGORY:
ASBLIKKINNERS
Deur die strate van laatnag sondes
en vroeë-oggend skofte
hoor ek kleutervoete klap
oor die gebroke teer.
Hoewel die magies leeg is,
is die hartjies vol;
gevul met ‘n onbekende lied
wat die gemeenskap verhelder.
Voor die son oor die koppie kom loer
en met sy goue vingers
oor die egalige riwwe
van my vier blink mure kan streel.
Hier in die strate van vrees en vergetelheid
waar gesinne skaars is
en kinders volop
vind ek my plek
tussen die ander uitgeworpenes.
Nie een van ons hoort hier nie,
maar ons almal hoort saam.
By Zindi van Zyl
The Covid Test
Introduced me to the book of fear
new words ……
A vocabulary so dark
it spins the world another way
Lock up is lockdown,
Pandemic.. is the new demonic
Sanitizing the new sanity
fear … the new hope
hope and fear …fear and hope
as in the dark we grope
for the new anti….
anti this, anti that… antidote
It is now on the anties that we dote
New metaphors of war
A new enemy out there…
Questions looking at answers for:
how to fight
do battle
control,
lock up,
bury and
to hate
But they do not teach
The one thing I wish to learn
Not a whisper…not a word
not a mention
Not one question
on
How to love
in this time of Covid
By Rozadin Fortuin
LOCKDOWN!
… and I’m Stuck in the Shack.
The clocks begin to stick, get stuck, then stop
And 21 days turn to
forever …
Stuck in the shack
Time moves on
and past my window she flies
tossing her kisses and goodbyes
to me, frozen in the frame
forever…
Stuck in the shack
The shack gets smaller and smaller
The people grow taller and taller
Mother, Cikizwe and me
no room to move
tethered together
forever …
Stuck in the Shack
The world stands stiff and still
Too frightened to move forward
Forbidden to go back
I want to jump off
But I’m….
Stuck in the shack
By Achumile Ntabeni
Huh! What’s to love in this time of Covid..?.
Huh! What’s to love in this time of Covid?
I wake up in the morning mourning
Grieving for my stifled youth
For our stifled, repressed, depressed, youth
That has been put on freeze …
And you call us the born frees ..huh!
What’s to welcome each day
I don’t feel welcomed
At school
Lining up
To take the Covid test
I feel like a jew
standing in an Auschwitz queue
Those who pass
go through
those who don’t
off to death row
Wear your mask..where’s your mask? … put yours on properly, tighten it!
tighten it!.. tighten it more. Speak up girl … I can’t hear you, you’re muffling your
words! ……that’s my teacher talking
Keep your distance, don’t socialise at break, don’t breath out, don’t talk, be careful
where you walk……. she’s still talking
Why do you all look so miserable? Martiner! Stop giggling- laughing is infectious.
Shiba stop crying! Watch OOwt your tears are dropping to floor…wipe them up
quick. Quick I say… before they make us all sick!….now she’s shouting.
I loved you once….
In the time of lockdown
So delighted to be locked out of school
And Locked in
for months
just me my family and I
I loved you then……
Not now
By Shiba Phiri
POEMS OF THE FINALISTS
Magdala Awards:
Sonnet
I knew no love in the time of Covid.
The muse would have me not sing of such things.
I said: See the clouds bend to the earth now
and there’s chill wind and nipple above heart
beat and the passionate tone of the bou-
gainvillea, surely we can wrest something…?
Speak to the hand.
There are times, she whispered,
when its wasteful to sing in metaphors.
Let silence speak for itself in the realm
of cause.
So I turned with those around me
into myself and heard the song of God’s
infinite heart beating our footsteps home
as we passed:
All is love and made for love
by love.
See the clouds bend to the earth now.
By Seamus Wilson
Ever after
This is new
the way the garden steps
into this body
takes by surprise every sense
The man next door daily now
plays ball with his daughter
filling the drums of these ears
There! she calls and
the ball falls, a flat note, but
Well done! he sings and
her feet chase the ball’s rolling tune
She squeals, delighted
as am I
as I watch the laundry dry
so this is how sunshine can quench a tongue
Now the father stops playing
to build a fire to braai so that
Monday smells like Sunday
I should weed
I could read
but the cats lead me to exhale
to see in every squeal
the earth
cracked
waiting to pour
By Gillian Rennie
In die Tuin
Ek sien ‘n man
verouderd en grys,
hy vat foto’s van sy vrou.
Haar gryshare kruip met trots
uit onder haar hoed
en haar helder uitrusting
verklap iets oor haar siel,
dis lig.
Hy vat kiekies oor bosse,
struike en deur rankende blare
en sy glimlag krul vriendelik
om die hoeke van sy mond.
Die spelerige fotosesie duur
vir nog so ‘n verdere tien minute voort
en vertolk ‘n hegte vriendskap
wat beskermend nyktinasties toevou
as die donker tye dreig.
Hy wil haar naby alles wat mooi
en kleurvol is hê.
Sy oog flits elke ses sekondes
en hy snap al haar laglyne, plooie
en sy blik gly oor haar goedversorgde gladde vel
wat die klein kussies van kielierige sonstrale waardeer.
Haar ken, wat op hierdie ouderdom bly grond toe kyk,
versterk ‘n skamerige jeugdigheid
wat deur SY lens en sy hart self ook dit van ‘n tiener weerspeël.
Die wip van haar neus lig hoog,
sak laag, swaai links en regs,
soos sy hom met haar statige gees verlei.
Hulle oë bly gevestig op mekaar en blink
met borrellende emosie van eeue op die mou dra.
Tans is 2020 vreemd, maar hulle is nie.
Hulle is tydloos vir mekaar.
By Gaireyah Fredericks
Being Love in the Time of Covid
The Covid – 19 pandemic … honestly,
caused me to fear:
The fear of losing a loved one
Fear of us not making it as a country
The fear of dying,
It caused me to wonder if this life is truly worth living
This pandemic ripped us from our freedoms
It isolated us from each other
Forced us deeper into poverty
And when we could no longer rely on ourselves
It forced divided nations to join hands
It forced us to strengthen family ties
To bring out the best in each other
despite the worst of circumstances
In separating, isolating and bringing us down on our knees
It gave us the assurance that in unity we rise
It has afforded us an opportunity like no other could
To know and value ourselves differently:
In dark times to become the light
In an unknown future to be the path,
the acceptance, the beauty, the wisdom
and
the love
that we seek
By Juanita Marks-Bayman
TEMENOS AWARDS
for poems highly commended by our judges
Love in the time of Corona Virus
Captured in our Covid capsule,
Our horizons mountain ranges,
a hundred million years of rock
Aglow each evening in the sunset skies.
Our sun one hundred and fifty million miles away,
Itself reduced to dust by outer space
which measures all in light-years.
And man on earth—not one thousandth of a light-year even,
Created by accident—destroyed by avarice.
Less than dust.
Is this the end?
Our thoughts now channelled to lock-down space
Contract to view the small, the previously invisible
Each bird, each insect—their lives as intricate as ours,
Their sounds as secret as the sounds from Covid-hidden village life
Is this the end?
But with their secret whispers there comes—again—the WORD
As it was in the beginning.
And with the Word comes life.
And where there’s life there’s hope.
Who else, this very moment, distills from life’s subconscious maze
Forgotten memories,
But She,
My Woman, my life, my love, my all,
Recalls the very words of love and hope
Instilled by German Nuns at mission school.
Themselves a product of their times.
“Wir sind durch not und freude gegangen—
Hand in hand—
Das wir uns nicht verriren—
In dieser einsamkeit”.
“We tread our halting path
Together
Hand in hand.
That we not lose ourselves
In the great loneliness”.
By Mike & Jo Kamstra
Isolation
I think that I shall miss this:
the long faint trellises of gloom
and the spiky tendrils of aloneness
pricking deftly away at my afternoon;
the way I romanticised the hollowness
of where your mouth had been
the way I filled with languor
these echoing days, these
strange nightly harbours
wherein I cradled my own untouched heart.
I shall miss the expanse of this ungainly sorrow,
the vastness of imagining
a world at large.
I shall emerge from my cocoon unmasked
exchanging the imagining for flesh
and in the face of our ineptitude,
our half-said words, our searching hands,
I think that I shall miss
this half-remembered solitude.
BY RISHA LÖTTER
Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Leila Witkin, one of the patrons of our Poetry in McGregor Festival, we are thrilled to announce the theme for this year’s competition.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID
The competition is open to published and non-published poets.
There are two categories OPEN and YOUTH (writers under the age of 18).
Poems may be submitted in English and Afrikaans.
Poems should not exceed 36 lines.
- In the OPEN CATEGORY we will award a first prize of R5 000, a second prize of R2 000, and a third prize of R1 000.
- In the YOUTH CATEGORY there will be a first prize of R2 000, a second prize of R1 000, and a third prize of R500.
Entries are now open and may be sent to mcgpoets@gmail.com with the subject title Competition – Youth or Adult category /Your surname
CLOSING DATE is 30th of September 2020.
Due to current circumstances, we are short staffed, so NO CORRESPONDENCE will be entered into regarding the competition.
The poems will be judged by external well-known poets, and their decision will be final.
Finalists will be announced mid-September and winners at the launch of our 2019 Poetry in McGregor Anthology.
Hopefully, this will take place in October or November, in McGregor, depending on our Lockdown situation. The date for this event will be published on this website as soon as it is finalised.
In Gratitude From Poetry In McGregor
