There is always, after any competition, much discussion and many opinions upon this idea of there being a ‘competition poem’ – a specific type of poem capable of winning any competition anywhere. A generic formula to guarantee success. Discussions are great, valid and what make us individuals, and we are all entitled to our feelings and views – it is part of what makes this old poetry world so engaging and interesting, but I don’t believe this mythological ‘competition poem’ exists. If it did, then every placed poem I have ever read would not have been so diverse, so different in theme and style. There are only poems – and sometimes, the complex alchemy that is a poem combines all its elements in a way that appeals most strongly to the competition’s judge. A judge will like what they like, and will place what comes closest to that.
You may personally like / admire the poem that wins, or you may not. You might prefer the 3rd placed one, or a commended one to the winner. You might not like any of them, or like half of them, or whatever. That is your right – it would be a dull old world if there was a formula – this one magical formula – that some believe dictates what makes a competition poem.
If I think back to each poem of mine that has done well over the years in a competition, I can honestly say that there has been such diversity in them, that it would be impossible to identify any one ‘trick’ or theme that made them win, or place – there have been poems about dandelions; Camargue horses; Joan of Arc; sea life; bears; rabbits; the death of a freind’s pet; a suicide; whales; a pansexual crush; an owl pellet; the Romanovs; Bagpuss; bees; gated communities; Eynhallow; one of the characters from George Mackay Brown’s Greenvoe; living a buckshee life; a wandering bard; Blackpool rock and heaven knows what others – I certainly can’t spot any kind of pattern there.
The poems have manifested as sonnets, free verse, dense, spaced out, short, mid-length, long. Thick or sparse. The only things any of them have in common are that I wrote each one in the throes of fascination, of research, of passion. I wrote each one to the very best of my ability at the time. I edited like the clappers. I wrote them becasue I wanted to write them and was never sure at the advent of each if they would be any good or end up in the ‘what was I thinking?’ file, or the recycle bin. I wrote them for the joy and pleasure of writing them. I wrote them and tried my very, very best. I guess what comes closest to being a ‘competition poem’ is a work into which you put the best of your effort, knowledge and self.
Jane Burn Poet & Artist 