18th National Student & Adult Poetry Competition

Closing date: March 31st
Adjudicators: Heather Brett and Noel Monahan

Windows Publications, in association with Cavan Crystal, is pleased to announce the opening of their 18th National Poetry Competition.
In addition to cash prizes in each category the winner will be presented with a beautiful and much coveted Cavan Crystal goblet sponsored by Cavan Crystal Design.
This year, Windows editors Heather Brett and Noel Monahan are incorporating an adult category into the competition, which they do every three years. The first prize for each of the student categories is €100 or equivalent and in the adult category 1st prize is €500.

Rules for Student Competition:

Entry to this competition is free. Entrant details (name, age, school or contact number) must be clearly marked on the BACK of each entry if posting work or at the end of the work if sending by email. Poems should NOT have been published before or won a prize in any other competition, and must be the student’s OWN work.
Competition entries will also be accepted on line as well as by post. Send entries to heatherbrett22@hotmail.com or by post to Cavan Crystal Hotel, Dublin Rd., Co Cavan clearly stating which category you are entering for.

Junior Category-
Open to all students aged 10-13 throughout Ireland in primary or national school education or equivalent.

Senior Category-
Open to all students aged 13-18 throughout Ireland in second level education or equivalent.

Irish language Category-
Open to all students in Ireland between 10 and 18.

Best Overall Schools –
All school entries are automatically entered.

www.windowspublications.com

Rules for Adult Competition:
The competition is open to all persons in Ireland or elsewhere, over the age of 19 on May 20th 2010 and can only be entered by posting entries to Cavan Crystal/Windows Poetry Competition, Adult Category, Cavan Crystal Hotel Dublin Rd.,Cavan. Details (name, address and contact number) must NOT appear on the poems entered, but must be on a separate sheet.
Poems should NOT have been published before or won a prize in any other competition.
The entry fee is €10 for each three poems entered. (Please make cheques or postal orders payable to Windows Publications.) It is a condition of this competition that winning poets make themselves available to come and read their work at the Awards Ceremony in Cavan Crystal Hotel on Thursday May 20th 2010 at 8pm. A shortlist of winners will appear by the beginning of May.

For any enquiries please ring 0860650908.

Click here to open a pdf of the rules

Junior Category

Giving Voice

Haikus

No sky and no earth
At all. Only the snowflakes
Fall incessantly.

Through the town’s centre
A little stream flows, bordered
By weeping willows.

On the temple bell
Something rest’s in quiet sleep
Look – a butterfly.

Snow having melted
The whole village is brimful
Of happy children

Moeed Malik (age 12)
Farnham NS
Ist Place Junior Category

My Daddy The Post-Man

My daddy is a postman
He delivers all the mail
He’s always there to deliver
Whenever its rain, snow or hail

It keeps him very busy
He works from day to night
He used to have a green van
But now its turned to white.

He visits all the elderly
That live all on their own
He says hello to them every day
So they won’t feel all alone

My daddy is a postman
He wears a uniform
He’s a fhearr an phoist go hiontach
An fhearr an phoist from Mullahoran

Aimee Coyle (age 10)
Mullahoran NS
2nd Place Junior Category

Leaking and Seeping

Water drips and water drops
It comes from clouds in great big plops

Water splashes and water clashes
upon the sea shore rocks it lashes

Water pours and water spills
From leaking spouts over window sills.

Water freshens and water soaks
It seeps right through all hats and cloaks

Matthew Mc Kenna (age 10)
Corlurgan NS
Joint 3rd Place Junior Category

Fishing

Fishing is my pastime
A whole afternoon of peace
In the evening sunset
My catch to increase

As night falls my mam calls
And I gather up my bag
Homeward bound my dog at heel
Looking forward to a tasty meal

Pan is on the fire
Trout is my desire
Full and contented
My fishing day is ended

Philip Bogue (age 10)
Corlurgan
Joint 3rd Place Junior Category

Irish Category

Nóinín I Measc ná neantóg,

Is tú mo nóinín, mo nóinín beag álainn,
Ansin I measc na neantóg, ag fás ar son do shaol,
Mo nóinín beag bán ag sileadh solais ó gach spóir,
Do cumhra láidir milis, ag cur daoine ar do thóir.

Ach is mo nóinín atá tú, liomsa atá tú gafa,
Mar tá mo ghrá níos láidre ná nimh na neantóige,
Seasann tú amach i slua, ar nós inis ar an muir,
Mar is mo nóinín thú, go deireadh ár shaol.

Cathal Mac an Fhailigh (age 17)
St Macartans College
Joint Ist Place Irish Category

Mo Chlann

Tá chlann mó agam, tá naonúr daoine ann.
Tá áthas an domhain orm, le mo chlann.
Seo é Dhaidí, is dochtiur é
Ainm mo chlann é ‘Pop, I mo theach is fear mór é!
Seo í Mhamaí, ar fad tá gliondar uirthi
Nuair a tá sí ag scuab an urlar, bíonn ag canadh
Agus ‘Mutti’ is aimi di.
Seo í Danielle, is maith léi díoscó
Is í mo dheirfiúir tiarnasach,isí mo dheirfiúir is mó!
Seo í William, bionn sé ag imirt spórt
Ma bhíonn sé ar irraidh, feicfidh mé é ar an bpáirc.
Seo í Fára, go brách bíonn sí ag canadh,
Uaireanta, tá sí craiceailte agus dána!
Seo í Rebecca, tógann sí a am
Agus is maith léi a lán ‘lip-balm’!
Seo é Louis, níl se éirmiúil
Ach nuair a bhíonn sé ag imirt peil, scórann sé cúl!
Seo é Jonathan, is a leasainn Jon-Jon
Is maith leis Caitlín, beidh mé I mo uachtarán lá amháin
Is maith liom leadóg, agus is maith liom mo chlann!

Caitlín Courtney (age 12)
St Clare’s NS Cavan
Joint 1st Place Irish Category

An Bosca

Is bosca suimiúil beaga é
Ar ndóigh a héachaim air
Ó mhaidin go deireadh an lae.

Tá leisce orm an bosca a fhagáil
Ganaon agó, táim gafa leis,
Na fuimeanna, na h-omhanna atá ar fáil.

Anois is arís,
Is feidir liom a samhlú
An abhar nua scoile – an téilifís.

N’fheadair cad a bhíonn ar súil
Í mbosca beag,
A chuireann fonn orm a stanadh air ach an
Taaitneamh sáiniúil.

Celia Ho (age 16)
Loreto College
2nd Place Irish Category

An Caisleán

I bhfad ar shiúl,
Tá caisleán ann,
Le banríon, príonsa
‘Is daoine eile sa chlann.

Tá dragún mór, feargach
Mar gharda don doras.
Ta giollaí ‘is draoi,
‘Is cócaire darbainm Floras.

Tá crann draíochta
Sa ghairdín ollmhór.
Tá caráiste bándearg
Faoi stiúir ag chauffeur.

Táloch le harrachachtaí,
Doras le sleamhnán ag teacht as.
Droichead le hardaitheoirí
‘Is fear grinn ag imirt cleas.

Blánaid Ní Mhordha Ní Lionaird (age 12)
Gaelscoil Eois, Clones
3rd Place Irish Category

Senior Category

War

Stinging sores,
bloodshot eyes,
bombs booming,
fatal cries.

Crackling fire,
deafened ears.
Faces washed
With salty tears.

Choking gasses,
wheezing for air.
Reapers roaming
it’s hard to bear.

Flooded trenches,
bodies bloodied.
Lost arms and legs,
faces muddied.

Shells falling,
guns firing.
Fingers tangled
in jagged wiring.

A banshee wails
just behind.
Under tanks,
bones grind.

It scares me to think
that I hold guns,
yet, look at the dead,
they’re the lucky ones.

Aodhán McGourty (age 13)
Coláiste Cholmcille, Ballyshannon
1st Place Senior Category

Starlings

It’s evening, late Autumn, when the starlings start their show,
In gathering flocks of whooshing wings, they congregate
Until they seem joined wingtip to wingtip.
Like ariel sardines, evading the cavernous mouth
Of an invisible humpback, they twist and turn
In changing patterns of light.
Then as night falls, they disappear to the lakeshore
To roost in ash, sycamore and oak.
As I’m watching this I wonder how, in this wonderful dance of nature
In their chasing, weaving, climbing, diving, soaring, sweeping flight
They never collide or fall to the ground, injured, stunned or dead.

Cormac O’ Connell (age 12)
Virginia College, Cavan
2nd Place Senior Category

Tears

Like all of the others, she bent her head.
I watched from across the gaping hole
That was between us

Lying open and empty,
Waiting to be filled.

A tear escaped from
Between the barrier of her lashes,
Ran slowly down her nose

And dripped off it,
Onto the ground.

There was a background
Sound of footsteps, dragging
Along the gravel path, heavily.

Then all was quiet,
A muffled thump.

The coffin hit the floor
Of the empty grave,
Empty no more.

I remember it clearly,
Etched forever in my mind.

The girl crying,
The dirt falling,
Tears falling.

Memories being made,
Tears…

Conor Fox (age 15)
St Clare’s College, Ballyjamesduff, Cavan
3rd Place Senior Category

Adult Category

A Tradition

(Three Donegal weaver brothers)

Weft woven across the width of each day.
Shuttle passed through warp yarns
that heave solitude,

as hills change from greenwood to gorse,
to heather hues, brown,
and the valley shadows, deepens
to midnight blue.

The brothers know the curves and hollows
of the land, know about wool twill,
threading sequences, spools and shots
of colour, loom tunes, the signature
of a treadling foot dance, the sound
of silence. They know the smell and feel
of earth and foggy nights,
how soft is the touch
of moss, soft as a mother’s kiss was.
Time sighs with the mountain wind,
unfurling gets caught on the soles
of their boots, in burnt light.

Each sundown rosary beads
going through their fingertips.

Maria Wallace
Dublin
1st Place Adult Category

Dirge for a Clove in Hot Whiskey

Star crossed you die,
aborted babe,
nipped in the bud
of foetal flower

You’re plucked blood-red
from ravished trees
to titillate
taste buds of men.

Hard as iron nails,
your heart, locked tight,
hides latent wrath
of a child defiled.

Well may you burn
the rapping tongues
of buddies, profaning
your hot baptism.

Shame, Myrtaceae!
your tempting spice
dooms your offspring
to callow death

Anna Colhoun
Donegal
Runner-Up, Adult Category

The Haka

Willie Bushell kept cattle
On the high hill most of
The year, all black
Like African babies lined up
In a nursery,
They glistened in the sunshine, invisible at night,
And towered in the distance
Like coal eyes placed on a snowman.
‘You can’t beat being hand-picked’
He said,
‘For the palates of kings and queens’
He said,
‘Sacred cows’
We said.
Young boys stood in the gaps as they
Walked to the abattoir,
The cows did the Haka
As the stun gun exploded.

Paddy Haren
Cavan
Highly Commended, Adult Category

Windows Publications celebrate their 15th Anniversary
click on photos to enlarge

Windows would like to thank their sponsors – a heartfelt thanks for the continuous support and vision from Cavan County Council. Quite frankly – we couldn’t have done it without you. And to the other local business that have shown their generosity over the years, many, many thanks. Especially to Cavan Crystal Hotel & Cavan Crystal Design Ltd. Donal Keoghan of The Imperial Bar, The Meadowview Inn, Glor Breffni, P & M Lynch of Easons Cavan, Elegant Gems, The Anglo Celt, Gem Oils, Crannog Bookshop, The Harvest Restaurant, Paul Connolly: Optician, Cavan Travel, Brendan Bannon Enniskillen, and George Maloney’s.

Winning poems will be posted on this site on 1 June.