Thank you to all those who submitted to the Passionfruit Poetry Prize 2023. Our judge, Amlanjyoti Goswami, has made the following selections:
1st prize: ‘A life in yarn’ by Shanna McGoldrick
2nd prize: ‘My Mother, the Protestor’ by Sam Szanto
3rd prize: ‘Touching Leaves’ by Charlotte Murray
The following poems have been highly commended by the judge and will be published alongside the prizewinners in a special issue of The Passionfruit Review:
A field of white – Rachel R Baum
Adoption/Eviction – Mark Hendrickson
After Farida Khanum & Ghalib – Stuti Sinha
August – Gabriela Siry
Balcony door in Benitses – Glen Wilson
County Dublin – Cathie Borrie
Eggplant – Stephanie Pressman
Gift Wrapping – Lahari Mahalanabish
Glass Figurine – Joanne Durham
Healing – Aryani Pallerla
I Want It All – Naoise Gale
Lola – Cathie Borrie
Luxury – Penny Blackburn
Moving Towards a Common Center – Robin Michel
My Hands, Reaching – Claire Lynn
Rehab – Ric Cheyney
Saturation – Eleanor Scorah
Seduction – James Lilliefors
Sweetheart – Chloe Balcomb
Tea – Sam Szanto
A life in yarn – Shanna McGoldrick
Our Grandmother’s teeth click quietly like knitting needles
as she threads strands of stories through themselves
from the yarn she keeps in her pocket.
We settle into the sibilations as she whittles the air
to the shapes of the priests, their nuns, the graft,
the penury, the whisperings, the stirrings and the vigour.
With her needles she unpicks the arcane knots of a story bigger than this,
stitching the wool deftly into the fusses and gossips of a life,
but they spool, re-tangled, at our feet.
Outside the land lies dark and still.
Her words glide and spill
over the backwaters of time.
Which has left its breath marks on the walls of this house
where we sit still as mice,
hoping she won’t notice that we’re not in bed.
When I speak with my Grandmother I feel English
in that rigid, clunky way. My voice thins
over the aching hollow where the song should dwell.
Impossible to believe that we come from this place
My Mother, the Protestor – Sam Szanto
Arms are for linking
When I was a child, my mother chained herself
to a high-wire fence decorated with toys,
ribbons, messages, wool and nappies
to protest against nuclear weapons.
I picture her, younger than I am now,
with hennaed hair, a grubby cardigan
smelling of woodsmoke and lentils
going for the cause and staying for the friendship,
the singing, the dancing and hand-holding.
Fight war, not wars
Did she join in with the mass
ululations? Was she dragged out of her tent
in the dead of night by soldiers?
It’s easier to imagine her chatting
with them through the fence
about their wives and daughters
Whose side are you on?
but she was not me,
with my caution, fear and people-pleasing.
She would have put on
a belt of bolt-cutters, destroyed fences
and stormed watchtowers
before making a nice cup of tea
for everyone.
Touching Leaves – Charlotte Murray
On
our walk
she pauses
to press leaves
softly between her
fingertips, exchanging
prints, a botanical version
of shaking hands. She anoints
them with descriptors, this world
that has allowed us to rest in its folds.
This one is tracing paper. This
is velvet, this a bird’s wing.
And this one, she
says, is like
skin.
About the Judge
Amlanjyoti Goswami’s new book of poetry, Vital Signs (Poetrywala) follows his widely reviewed collection, River Wedding (Poetrywala). Published in journals and anthologies across the world, including Poetry, The Poetry Review, Penguin Vintage, Rattle and Sahitya Akademi, he is also a Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. His work has appeared on street walls of Christchurch, buses in Philadelphia, exhibitions in Johannesburg and an e-gallery in Brighton. He has reviewed poetry for Modern Poetry in Translation and Review 31. He also translates poetry from Assamese into English and has read at various places, including New York, Chandigarh, Bangalore, Boston and Delhi. He grew up in Guwahati, Assam and lives in Delhi.
You can read his poetry here.