PSTC 2015: No way out in winner's poem

  Tonight, I give you the results of the first heat. Every member of the jury has rated the poems, from five (highest) down to one point. The poem with the highest total score became the winner of the heat, and the team was awarded 8 teampoints. The judges were rather unanimous in their judgement of the first heat. Their favourite was the poem "Wars" by Sinan Antoon, competing for Team Iraq. In second place came "Mist on the Daugava" by Andris Akmentis, Team Latvia. To my surprise the famous Bei Dao ended up in sixth place with his "Black Map", a small upset for Team China Blue.

Wars, by Sinan Antoon

When I was torn by war

I took a brush

immersed in death

and drew a window

on war’s wall

I opened it

searching for

something

But

I saw another war

and a mother

weaving a shroud

for the dead man

still in her womb

Quote from Agnes Gerner (jury member) regarding "Wars":

It is the simple, expressive images of the poem that makes it captivating. The writer embraces the sentimentality, and speaks with a sincere voice. With a pure, natural phrase and with metaphors which at the same time are restrained and forceful, a dramatic situation is depicted.

***

Standings after Heat 1

Team	Score Heat 1
Iraq	8
Latvia	6
Canada	5
Ireland	4
Chicago	3
China Blue	2
Poland	1

***

Poems of the second heat

Lunatic / written by John Montague, Team Ireland

Screwy, or Nuts, they called me,

Because of my hawk, or handsaw, stance.

I would treat nothing seriously

Where all was harsh, boorish, ignorant.

Sated with small cruelties, I soon learnt

To sing dumb, or pull a loony face;

An antic disposition, my best defence.

My best advance, to leap exams like hurdles

Towards the fabled world of films and girls.

Once I doffed my jester’s cap and bells

To front a hunger-strike, a mute rebellion.

To see the Dean flinch was brief recompense,

The soon palling pleasure of the dark accomplice:

Good pupils, grown just as mean as them.

**

Miracle Maker / written by Fadhil al-Azzawi, Team Iraq

I am the magician, agent of lost souls,

the flock and the shepherd,

the dead and the funeral.

I cross the sky to reach earth.

I spoon embers in my palms from the god’s inferno.

And I steal the temple’s pearl

from under the pillow of the dying priest

with the fingers of an expert thief.

I am the miracle maker.

I always drink my toast alone

and I go on my way.

That’s me.

**

The almost island / written by Mark Abley, Team Canada

                                     Rising

and rising as the planet's crust

buckles and two continents shuffle closer,

inching up like a secret Ararat from

a ridge on the ocean's turbulent floor

through miles of lightening water, each crag

within view of the surface explored by dolphins

and sharks, reconnoitered by petrels:

immune to the force of rain and fog:

all prepared for some radiant Thursday morning

when the sea recedes with grudging compliance

from a peak that has become dry land.

**

It's late / written by Amanda Aizpuriete, Team Latvia

It’s late. War lies at the roadside, and as a pillow

has a sack of lives.

So late, that the poets are waking up.

And the cart, calmly drawn by the wind,

pulls up here. Gypsies leap from the cart

and leap directly into dance. War

sleeps, sack under head, doesn’t wake

and becomes covered with the dust of dancing.

The gypsy children’s finger cymbals clatter

like cheap echoes, for which poets

pay so dearly. War under dust,

but not buried, still can wake.

Those poets and gypsy children – they,

as always, sense it. Late.

**

Family music / written by Teresa Scollon, Team Chicago

Banging on holidays like a piano tuner -

this tone, tone, tone, then the octave, then

the triad, then another note – we work

around the calendar of keys, muscling

swollen pegs and frayed wires into tune.

We forget how all this internal weather,

this spitting turbulence, warps the fine grain

of wood, how wood is a living material,

breathing and absorbing even after it’s cut

and fashioned into a living room shape.

If we chopped it up and lit a fire, we’d hear

water hiss and wail as it heats and escapes

each cellulose room – each ring another year

of growing in concentric direction – all of it

finally released. That would be music.

**

In the forest / written by Zhang Zao, Team China Blue

A few default matters of yours,

like thunderclouds, they call you to the hilltop.

Gliders of falling leaves,

a few small distant parachuting question marks wriggle and gently fall into the bottleneck of scenery. It seems somebody in the weather is performing a mathematical calculation.

You burn with anxiety.

Rings of the bell, rings of the bell throw headless golden armour

into the depths of the forest. There, mist

is operating in the corner of the Autumn wind, starting up

a discarded picture,

a warm generator room shaped like the insides of an alarm clock.

There, you walk about.

**

Aesthetics of the word / written by Adam Wiedemann, Team Poland

This poem joins the one before. The sun has no face,

especially today. Before, it would go on leave

and we could leave work, look straight into darkness.

Work wasn’t so bad. Nothing to do,

so we gave ourselves to the spoken

word. It’s so simple: you open

your mouth and something leaves it, by no means the tongue

in its pure state. To think that so many lovely

creatures do without a word, as this gentleman

putting key chains on tables to pick them up again.

Embodiment of hopes for a pleasant afternoon

with a glass of spirits.