{"id":31,"date":"2016-09-09T16:12:22","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T16:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/09\/the-elmet-trust\/"},"modified":"2016-09-09T16:12:22","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T16:12:22","slug":"the-elmet-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/09\/the-elmet-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"The Elmet Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u2018Shock-construction\u2019, a poem I wrote which should really have an exclamation mark in the title, has won second prize in The Elmet Trust Poetry Prize, judged by Steve Ely. You can read it, along with the first prize winner and other winners, on The Elmet Trust\u2019s website<\/a>, (I note that there\u2019s an issue with the online formatting which means that the lineation of Penny Boxall\u2019s winning poem hasn\u2019t been faithfully replicated, although my poem is very simply structured and therefore unaffected). (\u201cActually, your poem is very affected, Jon. Ho ho ho.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

As per the rules of the contest, the poem was in part inspired by Ted Hughes\u2019\u00a0\u2018The City\u2019, which begins\u00a0\u201cYour poems are a dark city centre.\u201d The other parts of its inspiration include the historical fact of shock-constructed cities in Soviet Russia, and an idle thought I had about whether there could ever be such a thing as a counterfeit book. But the whole thing is about judgement and the failure, or limitations, of judgement. Of course it is!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fun, though, to read the judge\u2019s remarks<\/a> and discover his differing interpretation:<\/p>\n

\n

The second-placed poem: \u2018Shock-construction\u2019 \u00a0seems to be a self-deprecating commentary on the humiliations and anxieties experienced by the aspiring writer, perhaps addressed to a publisher, editor or competition judge. \u00a0As an entry to the Elmet Poetry Prize, this might be seen as ingratiating.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ha! \u2018Anxieties of an aspiring publisher\u2019 might be closer to the mark when it comes to the contemplation on counterfeit books. You could also read the line about faked love as a dig at the emotional authenticity sought in poems, particularly competition-winning poems. I wonder if Steve Ely saw himself as the\u00a0\u2018you\u2019 at the end of the poem, the film critic realising the screening is a con, realising that the medium itself is a con, and me as the poet-actor behind the silk screen of the paper, gooning for him, a desperately bad performance, daring him to get up and walk out and write a one-star review, so impertinently and gracelessly that he thinks,\u00a0\u201cWell, I won\u2019t then. I\u2019ll tell you what. I\u2019ll give you second prize instead. Second prize, Stone! The one nobody remembers! And you won\u2019t get to pretend to be the drop-out, the ne\u2019er-do-well. You\u2019ll have to make do as the not-quite-first-rate-but-A-for-effort student. Then just see how your little game works out for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eh, probably not.<\/p>\n

This contest also reminded me, by the way, that I really am genuinely very fond of Ted Hughes\u2019 work. Some time after I entered, I found an original copy of River<\/i>, with Peter Keen\u2019s photographs, at Snoopers\u2019 Paradise in Brighton. It\u2019s one of my very favourite books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Shock-construction\u2019, a poem I wrote which should really have an exclamation mark in the title, has won second prize in The Elmet Trust Poetry Prize, judged by Steve Ely. You can read it, along with the first prize winner and other winners, on The Elmet Trust\u2019s website, (I note that there\u2019s an issue with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[184,183,181,182,185],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}