"A Bright Future" - Waltham Forest Poetry Competition
We're well into this competition with entry flooding in. Well to be honest poetry competitions are a bit like the Tour de France - nothing really happens until the last couple of kilometres - in our case a couple of weeks before the competition close on 7 September. So don't dispair if you haven't yet entered.
One way of generating interest is by asking people to chose a favourite poem, telling us why they like it and a little about themselves.
You don't have to enter this extremely exciting poetry competition to let us know about you poetry choice so please go ahead. If you do decide to enter all the details are below: just click through.
Thanks to Stow Bros who are sponsoring one of the prize catagories and to Forest Poets who have organised all the admin.
One way of generating interest is by asking people to chose a favourite poem, telling us why they like it and a little about themselves.
You don't have to enter this extremely exciting poetry competition to let us know about you poetry choice so please go ahead. If you do decide to enter all the details are below: just click through.
Thanks to Stow Bros who are sponsoring one of the prize catagories and to Forest Poets who have organised all the admin.
My favourite poem, by Danny Marsh
Do you have a favourite poem? If you would like to tell us about it in about 100-200 words we’ll feature it here. Email poetrycompetition@yahoo.com with a brief biog (couple of sentences).
ENTER THE WALTHAM FOREST POETRY COMPETITION
Love, the most written about subject through out history, can be a strange, complicated, and wonderful thing. For me personally, it is something I have struggled with from an early age to understand, give and receive (particularly to receive). I rediscovered this poem at a point in which I was truly beginning to give myself to somebody else for the first time; showing more of the real, inner me. It made everything seem to make sense.
Shakespeare talks of the strength of love (“it is an ever-fixed mark”) and how it cannot be altered even if it finds flaws (“Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.”) Love cannot be moved or destroyed by events and not even time can destroy it (“Love’s not Time’s fool”).
The most strikingly simple image is the idea of the lighthouse or the beacon and love being “a star to every wand’ring bark”. That’s it, Shakespeare, I thought, that’s exactly it. Here I am in the middle of this sea amongst these waves not knowing whether I can make it and scared of drowning and there in the distance is my love, guiding the way offering support and direction. Providing a reason to keep going. But, crucially, realising that the reverse was also true and that I was prepared to be a beacon for somebody else.
When people choose this to be read at their wedding or at a similar occasion, it is because it creates a beautiful image of love. It reminds us to remember the positives of love. Sure, things can and will be difficult at times but love conquers all (“bears it out even to the edge of doom”) is the ultimate message here and what better message is there than that?
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ENTER THE WALTHAM FOREST POETRY COMPETITION
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds by William Shakespeare
116 is perhaps, after 18, quite an obvious choice to pick from Shakespeare’s canon. There is a reason for that though.Love, the most written about subject through out history, can be a strange, complicated, and wonderful thing. For me personally, it is something I have struggled with from an early age to understand, give and receive (particularly to receive). I rediscovered this poem at a point in which I was truly beginning to give myself to somebody else for the first time; showing more of the real, inner me. It made everything seem to make sense.
Shakespeare talks of the strength of love (“it is an ever-fixed mark”) and how it cannot be altered even if it finds flaws (“Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.”) Love cannot be moved or destroyed by events and not even time can destroy it (“Love’s not Time’s fool”).
The most strikingly simple image is the idea of the lighthouse or the beacon and love being “a star to every wand’ring bark”. That’s it, Shakespeare, I thought, that’s exactly it. Here I am in the middle of this sea amongst these waves not knowing whether I can make it and scared of drowning and there in the distance is my love, guiding the way offering support and direction. Providing a reason to keep going. But, crucially, realising that the reverse was also true and that I was prepared to be a beacon for somebody else.
When people choose this to be read at their wedding or at a similar occasion, it is because it creates a beautiful image of love. It reminds us to remember the positives of love. Sure, things can and will be difficult at times but love conquers all (“bears it out even to the edge of doom”) is the ultimate message here and what better message is there than that?
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
- Danny Marsh is a trainee dramatherapist who works with children on adaptations of Shakespeare; he recently wrote and recorded a song based on Sonnet 116. He writes poetry and comedy and performs to audiences that sometimes listens. @SIANdrama
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