Member's Writing Competition
Spring 2024 – Competition Winners
Thank you to everyone who entered the Spring 2024 Member’s Competition.
Congratulations to Paris Rosemont, Mark Liston and Ellen Shelley whose winning entries are highlighted below.
Paris Rosemont, 'Ultra(un)sound activity detected'
1st prize – $100
Ultra(un)sound activity detected
~ after Sarah Jane’s ‘Silhouette’
Astronaut untethered—the foetus dangles
from its umbilical cord, twisted like ancient banyan
branches, defying gravity — suspension of disbelief.
Sole survivor of Ridleyesque rampage jellied
strips of raw beta-formed tissue strewn like sinewy
pink streamers from the osseous cavity
where incisors are yet to form. A carnival clown
toothlessly grinning mouth agape.
Parasitic twin absorbing in utero
its defective other. Feasting
on malformed tissue; tadpole stumps. Now targeting
the host that calls herself mother.
Gnashing with sharpened bone like a rat through the cord
that binds them. Preparing itself for the world
of eat or be eaten.
Mark Liston, 'Holding Hands'
2nd Prize – $75
holding hands:
(after Anh Do)
sunshine borrows morning light from lea-hills and valleys
and creeps onto his wheelchair commode and bed
he is hoisted to pivot and cede strength in muscles and limbs
when time hangs against morning gravity
he is a ridge balanced by mechanics for blood circulation
legs elevated torso craned I talk again of that sunshine
it spreads on his body in bed and if he holds my hand
he can remember his accident with a car
driver was a local in our street crash and he stares as if down a long tunnel…
my brother’s hands saved me… he died… sixteen
from a random accident of brothers walking then holding hands on the ground
as sun sets faculty and independence fades
behind a closing shower curtain his eyes drift a young-man older
water dribbles his skin of pearl and slides his hands together in his lap
he stares mesmeric as if to begin a prayer at dusk as
the Mountain Tiers tighten the sinking distance Phillip’s sadness narrows
he sits head bowed a shadow
lingers on fringes of winter roads then fades away.
Ellen Shelley, 'Previous Destinations'
3rd Prize – $50
Previous Destinations
Take off is a lonely word,
divided down the middle before joining two worlds
into one. Below,
the river bleeds through its gums—a glimpse at what’s to come.
Perhaps we spill into likeness, a history
of quakes—a stone in rivers mouth.
Like pulling a beetle from the ice
just to receive its claws, you once saved a car from
a wrecking yard for its doors.
Sky wrinkles over a crest of days—
silhouettes like silence
flawless when viewed from afar.
Nothing likens me to dirt,
this blood, stained to stiffen around bones
like those times I de-scaled knees on jetty-hung ladders
turning seas into chowder.
The moon pours itself another view.
Next day, hands heavy with helplessness-
verbs like me, a prelude into
sturdier stuff
that won’t blow away unless I tell them to.
Shortlisted Entries
A special mention also goes to the shortlisted entries:
- Billie Steele, ‘Kitty’
- Magdalena Ball, ‘Learning the Mother Tongue’
- Eri Mitchel, ‘The Birds Have Not Lost Direction’
- Rose Osborne, ‘Morning Coffee’
- Mark Liston, ‘Dissipate as Smoke’
- Billie Steele, ‘Mum’s the Word’
- Ellen Shelley, ‘EGGS’
- Magdalena Ball, ‘Everything Connects’
- Jan Dean, ‘Lazy Day’
Guidelines
- Entries close Friday 8 November 2024, 5pm.
- Submit your entries via the form below
- The contest is for members only. Become a member
- Maximum word count: 500 words (poems max 20 lines)
- Max 2 submissions per member
- Winners announced December
Prizes
First Prize: $100
Second Prize: $75
Third Prize: $50
Winning entries will be published on the Hunter Writers’ Centre website.
Writing Prompts
Write a piece inspired by one of the quotes or images below
I’m not a fan of small talk but if you want to get into the big questions of life—your deepest regrets, you’re greatest joys—then we’re going to have a great chat.
― Anh Do
She was like a sheet anchor sometimes, a steadying influence on him, on everyone around her. Made people laugh, that sensible streak in her, but it also made her someone of substance.
— Tim WintonThe Riders
Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.
— Oprah Winfrey
Like her mother before her, and her mother’s mother before that, Oriane was born with a duty.
― C.A. Wright, Skysong
The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Diary
glum cats go
slink, furtive
perhaps they are our silence?
— Christopher (Kit) Kelen, Dombóvár in ‘2024 Newcastle Poetry Prize’
