THE JUDGING PANEL 2022
Australian Poet
Dr Mark Tredinnick has published many works of poetry and prose including Almost Everything I Know and The Little Red Writing Book. For 25 years, he’s taught poetry and expressive writing at the University of Sydney. His latest collection is A Beginner’s Guide (Birdfish, 2022). His many honours include two Premier’s Book Awards and in 2021, he won the first-ever Miluo River International Poetry Prize. His online poetry masterclass series, What the Light Tells, draws participants from around the world. marktredinnick.com
MARK SAYS OF THE CHAIR IN THE LONG GRASS:
This poem reads like a short surrealist film, set on and off a bus traversing memory and time. Its strangeness, its play with reality, is made pleasing and rich with snippets of specifics, lyrically turned out in easygoing free verse: “your reflection on the window made a tiring threesome”; “the radio played Georgy Girl, Vincent, and The Rivers of Babylon”; “you in an astronaut’s capsule / talking inaudibly to the twilight as if probing and begging for a short ride”. At the end, there is another bus journey, as the two men who met in the first stanza, now “sit mute” in some kind of flashback to the future, having grown tenderly accustomed to one another. A poem like a dream – a dream like a memory or a somewhat mystifying imagining. What makes it work in its uncertainties is its loveliness and humanity of phrasing.
GILL CANNING MiNDFOOD Chief Sub-Editor/Writer
Gill Canning has worked in publishing for over 30 years as a writer and editor in the UK and Australia. She has been judging the MiNDFOOD Poetry Competition since its inception and is continually awed by the volume and standard of the entries. She has a B.A in English & Modern Languages; and a B.Ed in English, Italian & French. Gill had her first poem published at the age of 10 and lives in hope of writing a novel one day.
GILL SAYS OF THE CHAIR IN THE LONG GRASS:
The best poems conjure up vivid tableaux and make you feel something through their skilful choice of words, which this piece does in spades. It conveys both a nostalgia for the relative peace and simple pleasures of 1960s and ’70s Australia, as well as a concern for the future, expressed through intertwined images of life – both simple and enigmatic . Simon’s poem is a miniature work of art and was a stand-out amongst our entries this year. Congratulations to a worthy winner.