Collar bones, by Sue Sinclair
of birds, the spreading of wings?
Only the mind is more in love
with flight. Desire
rises, hinges at the throat:
here is where we glimpse
one another, in the aerodynamics
of bones that skim the neckline, glide
from shoulder to shoulder, two halves
of a single bone healed
separately. Through us
they wish for a lost
amplitude, hint at a symmetry
that might have been.
***
Again the jury surprised me. My absolute favourite poem among the twenty-eight finalists was Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin's tribute to Agnes Bernelle. The kinship in the form of a spider was fantastic. But I chose to have an impartial jury for the final and Sue Sinclair became their rated choice.
This is Annika Meijer's justification:
The poem is straightforward in its contexture. It's about human beings and the absence of what we could have had. The text is a skillful balance between the metaphorical, the poetic and the mundane physical.
The judges decision in fourth round gave us a photo-finish between Team Chicago and Team Canada. Both teams achieved a total of 22 points. But when we count the individual scores of each poet we find that Team Canada got 67 points compared to 62 for Team Chicago.
Therefore we congratulate Mark Abley, David Manicom and Sue Sinclair and remembers Diana Brebner who passed away fourteen years ago.
They were, at least in my expectations, not among the favourites. But I'm happy that i own "The new canon - An anthology of Canadian Poetry. It is a great book.
***
I really appreciated the work of the jury. Without them it would only have been my subjective guidelines, not exciting at all.
My thanks go to:
Karolina Jeppson - she is a freelance journalist and anthropologist whose special expertise is in the culture of West Africa and the Middle East.
Agnes Gerner - she grew up in Stockholm and has studied literature at Uppsala University, where she wrote both bachelor's and master's theses on the British poet Ted Hughes and his interest in the animal world and ecology. She is a trained librarian working at the Royal Library. And she made her poetry debut last year with the collection "Skall" ('Bark').
Annika Meijer - she is a book editor, translator and copywriter. She was responsible for the Swedish release of Ally Condie's Matched trilogy (2010–2012), a science fiction dystopia. She was not only editing, she actually translated the verses from Emily Dickinson that appear in the books.
Jan Karlsson - cultural journalist who writes for several newspapers in Southern Sweden.
Johan Alfredsson - works as a lecturer in comparative literature at the University of Gothenburg. His main research interests revolve around contemporary poetry, children's literature issues and literature didactics.
Final standings of PSTC 2015
| Team | Score Heat 4 | Total Score |
| Canada | 8 | 22 |
| Chicago | 3 | 22 |
| Ireland | 6 | 18 |
| Latvia | 5 | 17 |
| Poland | 2 | 15 |
| Iraq | 4 | 14 |
| China Blue | 1 | 8 |
***
We end the last report with two more poems by Sue Sinclair.
Poem, by Sue Sinclair
(from Mortal arguments. London, Ont. : Brick Books, 2003.)
The poem wants to be an extra bone
in the body. Lonely,
it wants the day to come back for it:
a jacket left at the coat check,
the dance floor deserted.
There is no wisdom in the poem,
but it repeats its small life as many times
as we ask. The poem is everybody's
mother, remembering what can't be found,
remembering who you are, remembering
what hasn't even happened yet.
**
Lilacs, by Sue Sinclair
(from The drunken lovely bird. Fredericton, N.B. : Goose Lane, 2004.)
For those who have lived
where lilacs bloom, who have lost
their immunity
to idleness and wander through
doorway after doorway
when the lilac trees open their infinite
mauve rooms. For those
who give in and glide a little behind
their lives, a hand trailing
in the water
behind a rowboat.
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