12 January 2022
Competition Judge James Harpur’s comments on the poem:
Full of striking images, this multi-faceted, elegant poem gains in power and pathos as the voice of Ilaria scatters her thoughts from the beyond, reaching out and drawing us into her Renaissance world, a world circumscribed by status and gender that Ilaria has now escaped from.
11 January 2022
Song over, I feel an aching sadness,
not because I know that fourteen year old me
walked to the bus stop alone and un-kissed,
but because I’ll never again feel the hope I felt
as I pulled that yellow daisy smock over my head.
Continue reading...11 January 2022
I hold out my hand but she cannot see me and I cannot help her;
I am no goddess burst from the clouds…
The journey begins. You are captured there in a moment of time and I am trying to find you.
Continue reading...Copyright © 2022 Sharon Ashton