Winner of the Dorothy Porter Poetry Prize 2010
JA
November 18
Meanjin is delighted to announce that the winner of the Dorothy Porter Poetry Prize for 2010 is Peter Coghill for his poem ‘Aubade’ (published in in Vol 69.3). Congratulations Peter!
The $1000 prize was run again this year as a tribute to much-loved Australian poet, Dorothy Porter, and her legacy of work, and is co-sponsored by Porter’s agent, Jenny Darling & Associates. ‘Aubade’ was chosen by judges Andrea Goldsmith and Felicity Plunkett out of all the poems accepted for publication in Meanjin throughout 2010. They said: ‘Many people write about mature love but few manage to do so with both poetics and grace’.
Meanjin would like to thank Felicity and Andrea again for judging this year’s prize, as well as our poetry editor Judith Beveridge. Last year’s winner was Jean Kent for ‘The Polish Guitarist’s First Paris Concert’.
Aubade
In the half-light, before the workday stir,
three strips contour her body, cross the bed
and this dull morning seems a watershed
with me indifferent to the sight of her
as, with her sleeping eyes, she is to me.
Once I had rockclimber’s hands: worn thin,
one layer more naked, they’d sense her skin
aware an inch away, like witchery,
yet over years hands callous with the wear
of touching her, and fierceness seems absurd
as does delusion when the fever’s cured,
and the strong arch our marriage made won’t bear
a tower to our passion, or a child’s home.
Instead there’s empty stairs and controlled climate,
too many books, too much reason for quiet
where something squalling with life might have grown.
I stand in the door, neither there nor gone;
through blinds the sun insinuates its way,
casting a chart of the approaching day
where I should lie, and where her arm is thrown.
-Peter Coghill
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Comments
18 Nov 10 at 10:39
Fantastic choice, Andrea and Felicity. Loved that poem when I read it. And again and again when I reread it.
...18 Nov 10 at 11:41
It’s a great poem, isn’t it? We were delighted by the choice.
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