The winners of the Farnham Poetry Competition were revealed at a special awards evening on Saturday, 15 March, at St Mark’s Church. Part of the Farnham Literary Festival, the event featured an open mic session for local poets. This year’s theme, ‘unity’, inspired entries from poets aged five to over 90. The competition was judged by Coral Rumble and Linda Daruvala.
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00:00Unity is the kintsugi we need in these current days, and we have to strive for it. It does
00:12not come naturally. Sometimes we have to grapple with it, sometimes we have to fight for unity.
00:21We have to find it, despite obvious differences, to kindle it, protect it, and defend it.
00:34She's a goer, old Margaret. I want to be her when I grow up, announcing my 80s with sex appeal and
00:41slow gin. Her younger man lives at a distance, too far to just drop in. No such audacity,
00:48make an appointment. I covet her striped skirt, flaring blush to wine, to maroon, to black grape,
00:56peach scarf tied at her throat like a debutante. Her vibrant ensemble's the right side of taste,
01:03unlike her jokes, which are joyful and wild and true. She'll say it, and make sure you hear,
01:10leaning in to catch your eye, playing your attention. That is not my style,
01:16but perhaps I can practice, little by little, one wink at a time. If I start now and don't give up
01:23drinking or dancing or sex or bright colours, if I don't lose interest in my changing self.
01:31What springs of delight we are, we women. How our bliss bubbles up,
01:35percolating, getting better and richer with time. We know our own deliciousness.
01:46I don't think I can do this anymore, as my body convulses and contorts and contracts,
01:52and I let out what can only be described as a primal roar. I know this is in my design,
01:57but I don't know what to do. I can't find the strength, I'm exhausted, I keep thinking I'll
02:02get there, I'll pull through. But at this moment I'm not sure how. I'm trying to move with the
02:08ripples of her, but deep below I hold such self-doubt. I think of those who have come
02:12I think of those who have come before me on this path, with friends, my sister, my mother,
02:17and I wonder if I have that resilience too, to last. Somehow I find myself grasping a
02:22connective energy that joins us all, one that pulses through motherhood and captures us when
02:27we stumble, when we fall. I come back to my breath in the room that I'm in. Inhale, exhale,
02:33let the power of pain flow. I can't wait to meet you now. Let's begin.
02:43Old Thomas treads carefully, senses the land with his toes, his eyes are set with white.
02:56He's swathed in the crimson cloak of a Samburu tribe, once a warrior, now he holds my hand.
03:06I feel the warmth of a culture, unafraid of touch. We pray, and our worlds are briefly one.
03:19The words of brothers whispered to our king. We talk of last year's drought that turned his goats
03:30but turned his goats from flesh and milk to bone and dust.
03:38Such droughts were once in an elder's life, and now every 20 years, then 10, then 5.
03:50Have we caused this? Is God punishing us for fighting with the Rwandi?
03:56We cut down the Mangwati cedars for charcoal to cook. They can no longer trap the clouds.
04:07Old Thomas will never see the buzzing neon of Beijing, or muffle himself against the air con
04:15ice of Miami's massive airport. He will never travel in a plane, sleep with light.
04:26What kind of brother am I if I am part of this?
04:33Old Thomas waves me into his hut, a dome of arched sticks and stretched food bags
04:42with English words in UN blue. My eyes stream from the smoke in the dark.
04:50We drink sharp tea till I need to leave, and he spits a blessing into my hand.