Anatomy of a prize-winning poem: how Abigail Parry won the Troubadour
What does it take to win a £5,000 international poetry competition? Judges Glyn Maxwell and Jane Yeh have offered up a few clues in their comments on Abigail Parry’s poem ‘Pasodoble With Lizards’, which won the Troubadour prize earlier this year. Parry, runner-up Dennis Lewis, from Qatar, and third-placed Kateri Lanthier, from Toronto, read their poems at the Troubadour on Monday night, along with many of the 20 winners of £25 each.
Abigail Parry’s winning poem begins: “In every house, this room. The two of us, / the two of them, and two eyes looking, looking back / at two eyes looking – double locked. A hall of mirrors.”
Maxwell, author of the highly regarded On Poetry, said: “What I savour most in a fine poem is that every line seems to dine on the one before, the same proteins seem to flower, the thing twists and repeats and alters and doesn’t, like DNA strands. In ‘Pasodoble With Lizards’ the word ‘two’ grows two more ‘two’s, ‘gilt mirror’ grows ‘gila monster’, ‘dumped’ begets ‘dozens’ begets ‘doubled’ and so on and on, and still the poem expands outward, the story tells itself – goes itself, since we’re talking about a Hopkinsy effect – well this is like that, and I like it immensely.”
Yeh, pictured right, said: “The first-place winner … was a clear standout with its linguistic energy, exuberant rhythm, surreal imagery, and intricate craftpersonship. I was dazzled by the poem’s momentum down the page and the artfulness with which words and phrases were repeated with variations; the strangeness of the narrative, the sheer imagination of the descriptions and metaphors and similes; and the sense of mystery, that no matter how many times you re-read the poem, you can’t be entirely sure you know what’s going on.”
The international flavour of the Troubadour competition was very much in evidence on Monday night. As well as Dennis Lewis, pictured below, from Qatar, and Kateri Lanthier, pictured left, who had flown in from Toronto with the aid of a Canadian arts travel grant, there was Noreen Ellis from Chicago, who had chosen the Troubadour to read her first poem in public for 20 years. Plus Scott Elder, from nearby France, who arrived late after getting off at the wrong tube stop – Knightsbridge - and had run all the way there. He apologised for being “winded” before reading his short poem. Another poet, Giles Goodland, felt apologetic for only living in Ealing: “I’m actually going to cycle back.”
The poets were only there to read a poem each, so most avoided a long introduction, but generally did not rush their deliveries, which were all the more effective for it. Particularly striking in this respect were the readings of Kirsten Irving, whose ‘Shogo Says’ won a £100 Troubadour restaurant gift voucher as one of two London-South-east winners, and Ruth Waterman’s ominous ‘Plague’. Some of the poems had unusual layouts, impossible to convey at a live reading but which you can see and enjoy, along with all the other winning poems, at the Coffee-House Poetry website.
The two judges each read a brief selection of their own poems towards the end of the evening. Jane Yeh’s poems included the titles ‘A Short History of Migration’ and A Short History of Violence’, and another about a young panda forced to depart a zoo in the US for China as part of an exchange deal. Maxwell, who has just published a comic novel, Drinks With Dead Poets, which he described as a sequel to On Poetry, read poems which he said related to “whiteness … I’ve been dwelling on the whiteness of the page a lot”, and a final, more personal poem, ‘The Light You Saw’.
Abigail Parry was presented with her cheque by Richard Douglas Pennant of Cegin Productions, sponsors of the main Troubadour prize. With the economics of poetry a talking point at the moment, Coffee-House Poetry’s organiser Anne-Marie Fyfe, who with husband and fellow poet CL Dallat is celberating 20 years of running the reading series, reminded the packed – and I do mean packed - audience at the Troubadour that the competition entry fees “enable us to put on readings and pay poets”. She also mentioned that the same basement venue had been graced by the new Nobel literature laureate “only 54 years ago”. All part of the London literature legend that is the Troubadour. It was a treat, as ever, to be there.
Greg Freeman
