Cricket Poetry Award 2012 opens

The following press release was emailed to me about the Cricket Poetry Award 2012. You can download entry forms for the Cricket Poetry Award at their website. I'll post here the information on entering it, feel free to circulate the press release:

CRICKET POETRY AWARD – value $2000

Entries will be accepted in 2012 from any poet, writer or author who completes their poem in the 12 months leading up to the closing date – 31st August 2012.

The organisers invite poets to write and submit a poem that depicts life in and around the game and sport of cricket, in settings of backyard, street, beach, park, village green or social-cricket. The genre may be narrative, epic, dramatic, satirical, lyrical, elegy or verse fable.

The Cricket Poetry Award will be run in conjunction with the Cricket Art Prize, and the winner will be announced at the Cricket Art Prize opening event – Members Pavilion - Sydney Cricket Ground, 4th Oct 2012.

Please check the particulars supplied on the entry form and ensure that your entry is in accordance with the conditions below.

CONDITIONS

(1) Each competitor may enter ONE work only. The entry must be the original work of the competitor;

(2) Entries should be posted and e-mailed together with a completed entry form and a non-refundable $20.00 (including GST) handling fee to the Publishers’ Cup Inc by 2012.

Any work not accompanied by payment of $20.00 will not be eligible for the competition. Payment may be made by cheque, money order, postal note to the Publishers’ Cup Inc or Electronic Funds Transfer details: ANZ Bank BSB 012235 A/C 1105 99931 or can be paid using PayPal to the email address: derekz [at] cricketartprize [dot] org

(3) The statutory declaration on the entry form must be completed by the competitor;

(4) The size of the poem must NOT EXCEED 150 words;

(5) Entries must be clearly marked with the artist’s name and address and the title of the work;

(6) Entries will not be accepted unless free of charges. No payment will be made by the organisers for couriers, bank transfer fees or other charges incurred in the delivery of any entry;

(7) Competitors hereby consent to their work being reproduced by the Exhibition Venues and the media in all advertising and publicity inclusive of all electronic / digital or print media for the future promotion of the Cricket Poetry Award;

(8) Sponsors and charities associated with the Publishers’ Cup Inc reserve the right to reproduce the winning entry and all finalists in all Publishers’ Cup Inc publications and publicity inclusive of all electronic/digital or print media;

(9) The Judges’ decision is final and no correspondence shall be entered into.

A $20.00 (incl. GST) fee is payable for the poem entered.

POST & EMAILYOUR ENTRY TO:

Cricket Poetry Award

Suite 23/53 O’Brien Street

Bondi Beach NSW 2026Australia

To contact us:

E-mail: derekz [at] cricketartprize [dot] org

Phone inside Australia: 0411 572 100

Overseas callers dial: +61 411 572 100 

Cricket Poetry Award 2011 announced

I just received the following media release about the Cricket Poetry Award 2011. Congratulations to the winner Cecilia White, her poem is included below:

Media Release Friday, 7 October 2010

Over one hundred entries were received from the UK, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia for the Cricket Poetry Award competition in 2011.

The last four poems were selected and publicly read at the Cricket Art Prize opening event - Members Pavilion, Sydney Cricket Ground on October 6th.

The judges, Louise Wakeling and Amanda Shalala felt that a majority of the poems were of a very high standard and as such, they had a challenging time refining the collection down to twenty for the first public reading; then at the live readings night, the general public voted for the last four to be re-read at the Cricket Art Prize opening.

Louise and Amanda affirmed “…we chose our top twenty in terms of what worked for us as poetry; based on a skilled fusion of technical skills and conventions, including phonics, insights and emotion.”

‘Boxing Day Test’ by Cecilia White won the Cricket Poetry award for 2011.

Her poem powerfully describes the retrospective, compassionate thoughts and feelings we feel when watching a test match on television on a hot summers day…

CECILIA WHITE

Boxing Day Test

twelfth man leaves the field, we tumble back to our places

sitting cross-legged below a semi-circle of lanky shinned uncles.

men, exhausted by another year’s hard labour

and christmas day.

our skin sticks to itself on boxing day in new south wales.

the geography of each body is irrigated by sweat

it is impossible to imagine standing outside

for each over, and over again.

the cork and willow clap in the dry summer heat 

of another state.

our uncles lean into the room,

lean forward towards the box, as if they were next bat.

tensing muscles deep in bare redbrowned arms

they are in the memory position,

revisiting lives they dreamed as boys when

they could imagine up a roaring crowd

that would lift them high above the drudgery

of normal men.

© Cecilia White 2011

Cricket Poetry Award 2011

A reminder that the annual Cricket Poetry Award deadline in Australia looms: 31 August 2011. Get your entries in now along with your entry fee of $A20.00. Check out the official website for full details and conditions of entry: http://www.cricketartprize.org/cricket-poetry-award/

This year’s theme is social cricket, beach cricket and club cricket.

Here’s an extract from last year’s winner, ‘Gentleman Jim’, by Matt Young:

He brings a certain dignity
Exudes a certain charm
He works with an integrity
No fuss and no alarm
A vestige of the golden age
He has those austere looks
Like timeless art and Shakespeare’s plays
Or well thumbed fav’rite books
His essence is humanity

…

And every summer Sat’day sees
Old Jim out at the ground
Impartial as the summer breeze
And judgment always sound
And every player loves old Jim
Respecting his good name
And for his passion they thank him
This doyen of the game

See also my blog post from last year: Cricket Poetry Award.

Cricket Poetry Award

This week I received a pamphlet copy of the inaugural Australian-based Cricket Poetry Award: Top 20 Poems of ’09. It’s definitely of interest to anyone who follows cricket poetry. The 2010 awards closed in September, so you will have missed out if you were thinking of entering. The official web page is http://www.cricketartprize.org/cricket-poetry-award/ Arts benefactor Kevin Maloney underwrites the prize-money of Australian $2,000.00.

The winning poem in ’09 was by Andy Kissane. Kissane’s poem is a formal sonnet consisting of 14 lines. It’s about the thoughts racing through your head as you stand in the deep waiting for a high up-and-under catch (‘a rainmaker’) to come in. Entertaining and so true if you’ve ever been in that predicament of spilling a catch in the deep:

ANDY KISSANE

The Catch

Standing under a rainmaker that is falling towards

your waiting hands. It’s surprising how much crosses

your mind – how you’d like to pash with Cathy McBride

behind the grandstand after the game, how the coach said

Mental Toughness was the key to Success, how catches

win matches and Doug Walters served in Vietnam

because he loved his country. How if your marks

don’t improve you won’t be allowed to play cricket again

for the rest of the summer, how the Kookaburra hangs

in the air like a baggy green you hope to wear

and then spinning closer, looks like all the mistakes

you’ll ever make in life and slips through your cupped

fingers in slow motion, before rolling to rest,

right there, at your feet on the sunburnt grass.

© Andy Kissane, 2009

One of the positives about this competition is that we now have a further 20 good cricket poems to read and consider. With cricket poetry, there seldom seems to be too much of a good thing unless it’s really handled badly. Most cricket doggerel is of interest as it names players, matches, and often makes historical remarks on the game at a certain point in time.

I look forward to reading the 20 best from this year’s competition.