Wednesday 14 November 2012

Just what I needed!

Me with the lovely Levi Tafari
I mentioned my fine plans of submitting vast numbers of poems and stories for publication in Out There). inevitably this has lead to an unprecedented number of rejections. I know it's all about the law of averages / diminishing returns / Sod but it still requires broad shoulders.
My prize was presented by David Lonsdale from 'Heartbeat'

So I am delighted that, after more than 90 rejections and failures this year, I can report a few successes: and chief amongst them is that I just scooped first prize in the Sefton Celebrates Writing Festival's Adult* Poetry Competition.

The poem's about the death of a (fictional) librarian. I was horrified to learn that Sefton Council (a near neighbour north of Liverpool)  is threatening to close most of its libraries and I think some of the fears for libraries generally leaks into the poem - which will be on Sefton Arts website but isn't yet.  I'm not sure how I'll get round the subject matter at work, but I won more than a week's wages so I don't care if I get some flack for seeming to kill off a colleague.

What was groovy about the award ceremony was that I got to meet the inspirational Levi Tafari. An 'urban Griot' of Jamaican and Liverpool heritage, he performs a lot in schools and has powerful, accessible messages about the beauty of diversity and the importance of being yourself: knowing who you are and what you stand for. I'll have to think more about this, but it was a timely encounter for me. It reminded me that I used to believe what you need comes to you if you are open to it.




* By adult I don't mean filth... It's just called that to distinguish it from the Children's Poetry Competition. But I will be coming back to filthy poetry in a future post.

6 comments:

  1. Nice one, Clare! Well deserved.

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  2. Hey, that's brilliant! Congratulations, and hope you have a great time spending the money. So much nicer when you've won it for writing and not grafted for it in the usual way.

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  3. Thanks for all your comments. Yes, Fran, I had a great time spending the money ... on my £392 MOT bill.. *shakes fist*

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  4. Congratulations on a prize well-earned, and especially on your tenacity and not giving up after all those rejections! Must make the prize even sweeter still...looking forward to reading it when it's up!

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