WILD TIMES, GREAT TIMES FOR ANDYJ!
We had a plethora of entries for our rebellious moments poetry contest, but in spite of some tough opposition, AndyJ claimed the top spot with his tightly written verse, Egg. Also finding favour were, Shine by JamesDoggett and the Sister Joseph series written by Chausiku.
Maggie Ball was our judge and she has kindly donated electronic copies of her soon to be released poetry book Repulsion Thrust published by UK publisher BeWrite Books. http://www.magdalenaball.com/

Maggie’s report follows, but don’t forget our next Arena competition is open and looking for children’s stories. All details here:
New Site: http://www.writelink.co.uk/community/viewPage.php?ID=Arena%20Challenge%20Instructions

Old Site:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_kidlit

Adjudicator’s report by Maggie Ball
Even a limerick
Ought to be something a man of
honour, awaiting death from cancer or a firing squad,
could read without contempt (W H Auden, “The Cave of Making”)

No matter what the occasion, there’s almost always something from Auden to perfectly elucidate it (think of the marvellous reading of "Funeral Blues" in Four Weddings and a Funeral). I find myself reaching for him more and more often, and adjudication of this month’s Wild Times Arena Contest was no exception. Though I’m not at all against a good rhyme–Auden himself made wonderful and judicious use of the rhyme in his work--many of the poems submitted in this contest relied on rhyme over meaning, and even, at times, rhythm.

Poetry should always be about creating powerful, novel meaning. When you’ve only got 12 lines and some 110 or so words to create a complete story, image or concept, then each word is absolutely critical, and needs to be chosen with utmost care. A single cliché or facile rhyme will destroy the entire integrity of a work, rendering it silly rather than lasting.

Creating good rhyming poetry is actually harder than creating good non-rhyming poetry, as the rhythm, scans and rhymes all have to meld with the meaning seamlessly. Poets like Shakespeare, Dickenson, Yeats and Auden mastered the rhyming poem brilliantly. Few modern poets handle it well. As nearly all of the poetry submitted to this competition rhymed, this set a very challenging goal for the entrants.

Some of the poems had images and metaphors which were more discordant or meaningless than an Oasis lyric (I won’t provide examples from the entries, lest I embarrass anyone, but think of “walking slowly down the hall/faster than a cannonball”), while others used archaic expressions and structures, lengthy ways of saying something simple (to keep the rhythm) and cliché upon cliché. Other poems were cute and even a little funny, but simply didn’t have any power in them. What I looked for in this contest, and it’s what I always look for as a reader, is the overall impact of the poem.

When poetry really works, it becomes memorable. You reach for it again and again because there’s no better way to say what needs to be said. Sadly, few poems submitted for this contest had that quality. One that did was honourable mention winner “Shine”. Although in a sonnet format, this one didn’t actually rhyme consistently and did have a few stylistic issues, but these were made up for by its haunting quality and rich use of alliteration and assonance that strongly conveyed the sense of wildness – the difference between this wild moment, and the mundane quality of everyday life ("long red hair frames my face that is not my own.").

I’d also like to give an honourable mention to the author of the Sister Joseph series. Though not really what I was looking for here (the poems worked better as a quirky progressive group than as standalone pieces fitting the 12 line limit), they would, together, make a nice chapbook set around this rather risqué nun who pretends to have toothache so she can bellydance, gets a dolphin tattoo on her breast, dyes her hair green for St Patrick’s day, steals an i-pod from one of the younger sisters, sells her habit on e-bay to buy a thong, and finally hitchhikes to Rio.

The winner “Egg” was so clever and well done; that it transcended the cuteness of its subject and rhymes. This tightly wrought poem managed perfectly the balance between the triviality of its subject and the sophistication of its description. The inclusion of Mrs T(hatcher) as Minister for Education added a neat hint of politics, and time bound veracity - I really believed this happened and felt that almost delicious frisson of naughtiness along with the poet. This one really did have me laughing rather than rolling my eyes, and I liked the way it captured that wild moment (egg throwing audacity, in this case). Congratulations to the author of "Egg," and to the two runners up as well.

BIKERS BOASTS – Maureen has plenty for Og to brag about!
We had a big entry for the monthly Arena Challenge which called for a piece of flash fiction featuring a boasting biker! The winning entry came from Maureen whose story took a different slant to most of the entries to find favour with our judge, Sylvie Nickels. (Pick up on the one folks, don’t go for the obvious!).

Due to being late with this report, our latest competition has been up and running for several days, but you’ve still plenty of time to enter. We’re looking for a poem hinting at a moment of rebellion!

Wild Times closes on the 10th September. As usual you can enter as many times as you like, but post directly to either the old site or the new.
http://www.writelink.co.uk/community/viewPage.php?ID=Arena%20Challenge%20Instructions

http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_wildtimes

Adjudicators report by Sylvie Nickels
This theme triggered a small deluge of black humour and gangster-like dialogue, some of it gratuitously gory and much of it associated with the joy of speed. My main reaction is that blood and guts do not make for good writing unless the humour is wry as well as black, or makes some salutary point. For this reason I chose two of them for my short list.

The thrill of speed appeared both to glorify speed and blood-and-guts until the end revealed that the speeders had ended their own existence as well as that of some unsuspecting unfortunate. The other, The Final Delivery, has a holy sting in the tale as an over-confident biker boasts of beating a trucker through traffic lights. “…you were wrong, weren’t you?” St Peter sighs as the lad arrives at the pearly gates,. “And you’ve come to the wrong place.”

There was no twist but nice writing in BMX Angel. Two competitive biking maniacs hurtle off a ramp into the sky. The writer loses the contest with good grace and a flash of evocative prose.

Wheelies, Bunny Hops and Sherbert Dabs was great fun, though I personally I hope texting language does not become a new literary genre. I liked the gentler voice of Permission to Ride whose seemingly macho owner of new wheels and shiny chrome had the ‘old girl’ under his thumb until he confesses he’s not allowed off the drive until ‘mum says’. There was a nice feel, too, to Team Work. Three flatmates plan a week-end’s biking. One of them can’t ride but, after weeks of tumbles, suddenly hacks it. The shared joy was refreshing after so much violence.

But my top vote goes to the imaginative Moving with the times, the only one completely to shed the constrictions of the thrill of speed and winning at all costs. Og, indeed, invented the neolithic bike from a woolly rhino, an antler and a couple of roundy things.. I, too, hope he managed to outride that sabre-tooth tiger.

Rhyme Thyme Holds No Regrets for Wordmate!
Our rather unusual rhyming herb poetry competition certainly brought out the best in our members which saw over 30 submissions of a very high standard submitted. Hitting the top spot with Regrets was Wordmate who saw off some stiff opposition with just four lines of very telling verse! Before you rush off to read it, take a look at what our judge has to say about the rest of the entries.

Adjudicator's Report by Jenny Moore
The task of writing a rhyming ‘herb’ poem in just 12 lines was not an easy one by any stretch of the imagination. It was clear from the range of entries received, however, that imaginations had been well and truly stretched. Alongside cookery poems and explorations of traditional herbal remedies (to cure everything from a poor memory to a partner’s smelly feet) there were scorned lovers, overgrown gardens, love affairs between the herbs themselves, a dash of witchcraft and even a spot of murder. The unusual subject matter was one which was tackled with impressive inventiveness.

Length was clearly no problem either, with some fantastically big tales and themes squeezed into just 12 lines. However the rhyming side of things proved a little trickier – occasionally I wanted to see more of an obvious rhyme scheme (given the remit of the competition) and at other times felt that sense and syntax had been compromised for the sake of the rhyme. A rhyme is nothing without a sound metre to support it and there were also occasions when a faltering rhythm let an otherwise promising line down.

There were many poems here with much to commend them - some memorably evocative images and some wonderful humour too. Those poems that made it onto my shortlist, however, were those that best ticked all the boxes from start to finish: I enjoyed the lilting lyrical feel of ‘To my parsley…’ by Ozhm (which contrasts beautifully with the humorous ending), while the confident use of rhyme and metre in Shaw’s ‘Love Fever’ made it a joy to read out loud.

Second place went to Ingrid Collins’ almost drum-like ‘Inca Maca’ for its original use of the vernacular mixed with a powerful chant-like rhythm. The overall effect was very striking and again made it a great piece to read aloud.
Scooping first place, however, was Wordmate’s ‘Regrets’. At just four lines long this was the shortest of all the entries but those four lines accomplish a great deal - an entire love affair blossoming and dying before our eyes, to be replaced by bitterness and, as the title says, regrets. For me this had the concise, deceptively simple quality of a Wendy Cope poem and the effortless rhyming of ‘you’ and ‘rue’ works perfectly, delivering the final blow in the final word with an understated brilliance.

Our next contest is RiverShivers! We’re looking for flash fiction of 250 words or less. Details here:
http://writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_rivershivers

NEVER LET GO WINS TERRIBLE TWINS
The March Arena competition called for a piece of flash fiction featuring a set of twins. The entries covered a whole range of imaginative entries, but in spite of this, the clear winner was gregmcqueen with Never Let Go. This snapshot featuring a pair of twins separated at birth was an exemplary lesson in tight writing, vital considering the tight word count.

Adjudicator’s Report: Dai Blatchford
The competition yielded yet another batch of well written and thoughtful short pieces ensuring that the judging process remains as difficult as ever. This time writers were asked to occupy an area where emotions frequently run high. The range of treatments was impressively wide, and there were some nicely judged twists with Birth and Rebirth from Wordmate and tesslin’s Our Boys Are Coming Home Today.

One is More Than Enough by mpira was well written and made a chillingly sobering point with controlled efficiency. I really enjoyed Fandango’s, The Foundlings right down to the lovely detail of Rome’s founders trotting down one of the seven hills. And hide and seek from jer364 had a real ring of truthful desperation to it. And all the time there was there was the powerful presence of Never Let Go.

Never Let Go from gregmcqueen was a small masterpiece and for me never relinquished its position as the winning entry. The piece managed to wring every ounce of emotion from a special relationship that had been torn asunder. The parenting role that should have subsequently been taken up by the state was shamefully neglected ruining several lives, as in reality it has done many times. And with consummate control the reader was led, a step at a time, through to a heart wrenching denouement. Not a word was wasted, and the overall effect was electric. Never Let Go is a worthy winner of this most difficult of competitions.

I should like to add my congratulations to all the entrants for their sterling efforts.
Read all entries here:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_twins

NEXT ARENA COMPETITION
Our next Arena contest is Rhyme Thyme, calling for poems featuring a herb. All details here:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_rhymethyme

HAUNTED SUCCESS FOR MPIRA IN PITS & CRYPTS
As is becoming usual, we had another huge entry for our monthly Arena competition with over 60 entries posted to the site. Plenty of hair curling entries, but the eventual winner was the subtle spinetingler, Haunted by mpira. Runner up was SomeMixedSuccess with a A Slander Posthumous who wins a copy of David Robinson’s suitably scary book, The Haunting of Memberly Manor. http://www.amazon.com/Haunting-Memberly-Manor-David-Robinson/dp/0980150663

Adjudicator's Report - Magdalena Ball

Certainly these are haunting poems. Set in their chilling, death ridden, crypts and underworld, they cast a cold fear through the reader in a way that is appropriate for a “Pits & Crypts” contest.

Many of the poems here do take their cue from Poe’s work, and that’s fine: Poe is a wonderful source of inspiration. But Poe was also a strong critic of the cliché and the obvious, famously stating that that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface.

Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art. So too, do works where rhyme, even clever rhyme, becomes an end in itself, overwhelming the meaning of the work. The rhyme and rhythm needs to support and drive the overall purpose of the poem and not the other way around.

Many of the poems were too overt, with the horror explicit, or where both meaning and originality were sacrificed in order to get the rhyme. Instead of focusing on the singsong line ending, the poetry would have done better to focus on strong imagery, original metaphor, and the intensity of the emotion and the meaningful twist of the denouement.

Where subtlety, horror, and skill combined however, the poems became universal, tapping into the deepest fears of the human psyche and creating a breath-holding moment. Unfortunately that was rare, which isn’t surprising, as creating good horror in verse is no easy task.

One poem that succeeded wonderfully in doing this was mpira’s “Haunted”, which featured an internal haunting: the pain of a guilty conscience. Imagery here was strong, as the reader follows footsteps along the beach past dead birds and fish skeletons. The shock of an unrhymed and inexplicit ending works well, and allows the reader the freedom of imagining a conclusion far scarier than any spelled out one could be.

Of course there’s always room for humour and pastiche in horror, and SomeMixedSuccess’ “A Slander Posthumous”, though tongue-in-cheek for the most part, was very clever in the way in which it followed the contours and linguistic heaviness of Poe’s “The Raven,” while simultaneously incorporating the real life horror of Poe’s posthumous slanders. Now that's a crypt one can really believe in.

Special mention goes to Sarah James’ “Shiver” and m sylvester’s "The Sacrifice," both of which made the shortlist for the way they moved beyond the simplicity of the rhyme towards crisp images of death and devil worship respectively.

What could be more frightening than simply disappearing? Who isn't afraid of the anonymity of death? Although the setting of "The Sacrifice" is a little farfetched, the imagery here was particularly strong, and both poems managed that delicate and difficult balance between rhyme and power. Both were shortlisted and came close to being winners.

Winner: mpira’s “Haunted”
Runner up: SomeMixedSuccess’ “A Slander Posthumous”

You can read the winners, along with all the other entries here:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_pitscrypts

Our next Arena competition is Lit Trips which calls for a literary journey. All details here:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_littrips