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| NZBOOKAWARDS.NZ/ NATIONAL-POETRY-DAY |
A selection of the entries will be published here at the end of September 2016 and the best poem will be translated into Spanish and receive a copy of the poetry collection Antípodas by Charles Olsen (see below).
– The words can be in any order and verbs can change tense.
– Entry is free and open to all NZ citizens.
– Maximum length 200 words.
– Only one poem per person.
– The poem must include the five words below.
– Participation means you give us permission to reproduce your poem on Palabras Prestadas.
– The deadline for entry is midnight on 26 August 2016.
Submit your poem by email including your full name and town of residence to: librodepalabrasprestadas@gmail.com
Given Words selected by the Australian poet Les Murray.
The five words come from his poem ‘High Speed Trap Space’, which you can read below, and they are:
walled
crane-swing
jaw
blubber
blurts
crane-swing
jaw
blubber
blurts
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| Photo © Gerald Zörner gezett.de |
www.lesmurray.org
High Speed Trap Space
Speeding home from town
in rainy dark. For the narrowness
of main roads then, we were hurtling.
A lorry on our tail, bouncing, lit our mirrors,
twinned strawberries kept our lights down
and our highway lane was walled
in froth-barked trees. Nowhere to swerve –
but out between trunks stepped an animal,
big neck, muzzle and horns, calmly gazing
at the play of speed on counter-speed.
Its front hooves up, planted on the asphalt
and our little room raced on to a beheading
or else to be swallowed by the truck’s high bow.
No dive down off my seat would get me low
enough to escape the crane-swing of that head
and its imminence of butchery and glass.
But it was gone.
The monster jaw must have recoiled
in one gulp to give me my survival.
My brain was still full of the blubber lip,
the dribbling cud. In all but reality
the bomb stroke had still happened.
Ghost glass and blurts of rain still showered
out of my face at the man
whose straining grip had had
to refuse all swerving.
Speeding home from town
in rainy dark. For the narrowness
of main roads then, we were hurtling.
A lorry on our tail, bouncing, lit our mirrors,
twinned strawberries kept our lights down
and our highway lane was walled
in froth-barked trees. Nowhere to swerve –
but out between trunks stepped an animal,
big neck, muzzle and horns, calmly gazing
at the play of speed on counter-speed.
Its front hooves up, planted on the asphalt
and our little room raced on to a beheading
or else to be swallowed by the truck’s high bow.
No dive down off my seat would get me low
enough to escape the crane-swing of that head
and its imminence of butchery and glass.
But it was gone.
The monster jaw must have recoiled
in one gulp to give me my survival.
My brain was still full of the blubber lip,
the dribbling cud. In all but reality
the bomb stroke had still happened.
Ghost glass and blurts of rain still showered
out of my face at the man
whose straining grip had had
to refuse all swerving.
(From the collection by Les Murray Waiting for the Past (Black Inc., 2015).)
The prize for the best poem will be the collection of poetry Antípodas by Charles Olsen published in a bilingual edition by Huerga y Fierro
CHARLES OLSEN (b. Nelson 1969) Artist and poet. He travelled to Spain in 2003 because of his interest in the Spanish painters Velasquez and Goya, and to study flamenco guitar. His painting have been shown in London, Madrid, Barcelona, Oporto, Paris, Wellington, and the Saatchi Gallery, London.
His first short film The dance of the brushes won second prize in the I Festival Flamenco de Cortometrajes, Madrid, 2010. He is director alongside Lilián Pallares of AntenaBlue – the observed word – creating booktrailers, filmpoems and short films in the field of literature. Their two film poems In Silence and Book of Traces were shown at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in 2014.
Charles Olsen has published the bilingual poetry collections Sr. Citizen (Amargord Ediciones, 2011, with foreword by New Zealand poet, Pat White) and Antípodas (Huerga y Fierro, 2016). His poetry has been published in numerous anthologies in Spain, Colombia and in New Zealand’s Blackmailpress (issues bmp 28 and bmp 39). He presented his poetry recital Agita Flamenco with flamenco piano and flamenco dance in the New Zealand pavilion of the Venice Biennale and the SGAE, Madrid, 2012. Since 2011 he runs the online poetry project Palabras Prestadas (Given words) with the participation of poets from throughout the Spanish-speaking world. A number of New Zealand poets have donated words to the project and Charles Olsen has translated their poems into Spanish.
Blog: pensamientoslentos (slow thought)
Website: www.charlesolsen.es
More information about Antípodas in The Big Idea