Andrea Wren: Journalist

Poem: Orphaned Elephant by Andrea Wren

Dust-shimmering plains repine
high octave shrills reveal,
the sorrowed plight of pachyderm,
as he echoes his ordeal.

Orphaned baby racked in grief,
mother lies stone-still.
Violation reeks like singeing hair,
too soon, sees how blood spills.

Red-ochre clouds had billowed
where she thundered to the earth.
Grey hide pierced by bullet holes,
puncturing through her girth.

Wild dogs howled in sympathy
while poachers took their prize,
their ivory treasure hacked away,
before death-degraded eyes.

For those proud tusks, life is lost,
bird song is hushed in mourning.
Young elephant weeps blister-tears,
the herd takes heed this warning.

© Andrea Wren 2010 - All rights reserved.

MAG Poetry Prize 2010, the poetry competition judged by its entrants

I've just entered a couple of poems for Poetic Republic's MAG Poetry Prize 2010, for which the entry deadline is the 30th April this year.

I like the sound of this competition, because it is judged by the entrants themselves, which to me seems one of the fairest ways of doing things. Participating in the judging process is a condition of entry, and each entrant will be assigned an anonymous selection of poems to read, and either eliminate or vote towards the next round.

The prize is an accumulation fund depending on number of entries (it is £6 per entry), but a proportion of the money that entrants pay also goes to a good cause - which is MAG, the Mines Advisory Group.

I'm dubious about some of the poetry competitions out there, and assume your chance of winning in many of them will clearly just depend on whether the judging panel is partial to the style of poetry you write. With the MAG competition, I imagine everyone entering a quality poem has an equal opportunity to win.

Anon - the anonymous submissions poetry magazine

I have been browsing online for interesting looking poetry magazines and have discovered Anon, a publication which prides itself on the fact that all the poetry it prints is selected 'blind' - therefore with absolutely no bias related to the name of the poet.

I like this idea. I imagine, like arts journalism, the poetry world can be very cliquey and some names will appeal more than others for publication, just because of the name. Or, some excellent poetry may be disregarded just because the writer isn't known (or a 'big name' happens to have submitted some work at the same time).

On the website, there is a page dedicated to some thought provoking views about Anon and blind entry submissions - enlightening stuff, and I especially like the quote at the top of this page given by Rosemary Goring, who wrote about Anon One in The Herald. Goring says:

"Clearly, those who benefit most from anonymous assessment are nascent writers. Established authors have almost everything to lose by the process."

I haven't read a copy of Anon myself yet, but there are extracts available on the website to give a taste of what the editors like to choose for publication. As poetry and literary magazines tend to cost way more than your average women's weekly, it's quite nice to have a gander before you buy, and a PDF sample of thelatest issue Anon Six can be downloaded.