The Geoffrey Dearmer Prize 2002

David Gravender

The winner of the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize 2002 was David Gravender, for his poem "Uht-Sang", which was published in Poetry Review 92:3 (Autumn 2002).

The judge for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize was the poet Stephen Knight, who said: "I wanted to be affronted, to admonish the poets for taking liberties; to feel superannuated, in other words. It was a strong shortlist, with all but one of the names new to me.

Simon Carnell has been around for a while. His 'Red Earth Dreaming' is a characteristically curious aggregation. It's good to hear he has a book forthcoming. I was also taken by the odd angles of Anthony Caleshu's three poems: 'I had to be rescued by a pretty lifeguard who later told me / about the prescription protection her dermatologist prescribed'. Veronica Gaylie's 'Prayers' is a gem. Who'd have thought a poem that ropes in the Rolling Stones's drummer could be not only amusing but affecting. Evan Rail's 'And Counting' announces, with bracing confidence, 'No one can stop me today, not tonight'. His poem's sweeping assertions and abnormal confidence certainly made me feel old. In the end, I went for David Gravender because I'm a sucker for good American free-verse. He has an easy manner, youthful poise, daring. The noirish moments of 'Uht-Sang' are entirely beguiling – 'Dead slumber after three days driving' is a terrific opener – and its atmospheres are vivid: the finger of chill, the fogs of blood and skin, and the fragrant breeze. How does he get away with 'the spirits of the lost – slain or ignored'? Or the final image of an iceberg 'real as spirit, fathomless'? I don't know, but I'm very glad that he does."

David Gravender said: "Attention and recognition that an award like the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize brings are, if not essential to a poet's work, very welcome attendants. They are like an amplification system for the small voice crying in the wilderness that a new poet's work is. They give the poems a momentarily louder voice, and let the poet know in turn that the poems are being registered. I'm therefore very grateful and excited for this opportunity of recognition, to be heard, and hope it brings my manuscript Field of Vision to a few more ears and eyes."

Uht-Sang

Dead slumber after three days driving
sullen midsummer interstates
Toronto to Bellingham; a makeshift bed
of sofa cushions, balled jacket for a pillow.
Too tired to be nervous, facing change
and a new horizon.
Four a.m. A finger
of chill like the cold off bare iron
slipping beneath blanket and damp T-shirt;
my gut yawning sickly.
Imperceptibly
through fogs of blood and skin, cotton-
mouthed, webby-headed, I begin
to waken: unsteady focus, gray light,
the room disjointed, unsettled.
I can almost see
the spirits of the lost – slain or ignored – thought
to roam this hour of in-betweenness,
disturbing the dew on thorn and broom,
drawn always to one spot, one time,
ever anxious, unquiet. What can I do,
who will I be?
Slowly light blooms outdoors, in,
prints the white carpet. The walls settle back,
the ceiling rises.
A breeze, warm and damp, fragrant
with sea-salt, pine, and lilac,
breathes through the half-closed pane;
mind floating, my body lies limp, like one released,
who might begin to suspect himself
unfamiliar, possible,
a presence
still waiting to be discovered, to be welcomed in:
as when, that June morning on Cape Spear,
dense Atlantic fog holding the sun at bay,
a fox, gaunt and ragged-brushed, ventured
from the tall, wind-beat scrub, so close
an outstretched hand could feel the warm
quick exhalation of his breath, before
he fled into the grass and mist,
toward the cliffs
where we came suddenly, brought up short,
as wrapped in haze and silence, pink and yellow
in the sun now breaking though, an iceberg
real as spirit, fathomless, hovered offshore
and the day seemed at last itself, ready again
for beginning.