Peter Dix Prize for Poetry, 2013

This year's Senior Poetry Prize was won by Sadhbh Sheeran (who also won it last year). The Peter Dix Memorial trophy is pictured.  Here are three of the poems from her portfolio which won the prize:-

Macbeth
The words
That fill the face
Of the damned
Slip out less freely
Than their souls.
Wail for the wicked,
Mask heart for the
Unforgiven.

In the absence
Of innocence
Resolve to call
Upon conscience.


Mummy

Mummy puts Her Love
into reused jars with Homemade jam,
irregularly sized, plastic lunchboxes,
as well as big medium and small, pyrex bowls.
It joins daddy’s apples in the fruit bowl
and fills up the empty biscuit tin.

Mummy scatters Her Love
about the place with care.
It can be found in the wash basket
and folded in Her jumper drawer,
alongside the jumbo pack of tissues in her bag.

Mummy lends Her Love
and tells us to keep It Forever.
to take It with us on our journeys.
Lent things are Always to be returned,
never damaged, brought Home.
She taught us that, Our Mummy did.

By putting Her Love into reused jars
With Homemade jam.


Anniversary

I want to say I threw you a party,
Played your songs and told your stories,
But I didn’t.
I wore pyjamas down to breakfast.
I want to say I put on your jacket,
The one you gave me,
But I didn’t.
I did visit you, for the first time all year.
A muddy oblong without a stone.
I chose a card for you. I’d painted it,
Brimming with colours.
I didn’t know what to write so mummy did it.
Maybe you could read it,
I couldn’t.
I did bring you flowers, boring out of season
Flowers; white, cold, nameless things and
Yellow roses.
I placed them close to your head.
Maybe you could smell them.
I couldn’t.
Somebody had put a rock where your heart should be,
Flat and round and white against the mud.
Maybe you could feel it.
I could,
It hurt.
I wanted to tell you that Spring will come
But I didn’t,
Because I know that you know that,
Can taste it in the earth and rain.
For then the mud shall turn to flowers,
And you shall show the world you came!