THE JUDGING PANEL 2020
MARK TREDINNICK (OAM)
Australian Poet Mark Tredinnick’s books include The Blue Plateau, A Gathered Distance, Fire Diary, and the Little Red Writing Book. His fourth collection of poems, Walking Underwater, appears in November 2020. He is the winner of the Montreal Poetry Prize, two Premier’s Literary Awards, and the recipient of an OAM for services to literature and education. He teaches poetry and creative writing at the University of Sydney, and an online poetry masterclass, ‘What the Light Tells’ at marktredinnick.com
MARK SAYS OF LIGHT FALLING:
Light Falling is remarkable for the kindness and wholesome wealth of its images, beginning with the fresh lemons on which, in the bathroom window of all our childhoods, the title’s light falls. Katherine Healy’s poem then has us see the mother “young and supple” in her “waisted floral dress” leaning over the bath to tend her three girls. The poem is both coy and exuberant in its tenderness of remembering. In its making, Light Falling is trim and shapely; in its language, clear as falling light and rainwater and lemon juice. The poet has the sure hands of the mother the poem remembers. “No ideas but in things,” William Carlos Williams advised, knowing that the best poetry does its best work in images unexplained. So this lovely poem does, making, in robust lines, the case for divinity of small domestic moments and how dearly we need each other.
GILL CANNING
MiNDFOOD Chief Sub-Editor Gill Canning has worked in publishing for over 25 years as a writer and editor in the UK and Australia. She has a B.A. in English & European Languages from the University of Sydney; and a B.Ed. in English, Italian & French from Charles Sturt University. She had her first poem published at the age of 10 and still lives in hope of writing a novel one day.
GILL SAYS OF LIGHT FALLING:
Light Falling is deceptively simple, conjuring up a vivid domestic tableau that conveys purity, love and caregiving in 85 well-chosen words. The artistic expression of this poem is so adept, it appeared as a painting to me when I first read it. Based on a childhood memory, Healy utilises the poetic term “orbs” and includes the “heirloom Doulton platter”, “deep claw footed bath” and “old enamel jug” to place this narrative firmly in the past. And yet, due to the poet’s undoubted skill, this snapshot of a long-ago moment comes alive to the reader. This is exacerbated by the fact that the trio of girls “all giggles and pulling soapy long hair up into funny tall points” are doing exactly what little girls still do today, again intensifying the clarity of our visual image. The poem’s overriding feeling is of lightness manifested by words such as “lemon”, “golden” and “fair”, which create an overall impression of light, echoing the poem’s title and first line. And, by her deft use of just two words, “sure hands”, the author imbues the poem with a feeling of familial love and nurture.