Third prize in our 2024 Open Poetry Competition, chosen by judge Kathryn Gray, was ‘Pantoum at Sixteen’ by Mary Paulson.
Kathryn said of this poem:
“Which comes first in the genesis of a poem? Form or subject matter? A chicken-or-the-egg conundrum. Whichever might be true in this instance, form and subject matter successfully fuse to reinforce mood and meaning: obsession and the persistence of memory. This is grand writing – which is not to suggest ‘mannered’. What I mean is the courage to embrace high register and the ability to pull it off: even the deployment of ‘transoceanic’ seems inevitable. Register contrasts brilliantly with youthful recollection, with the ‘cigarette’, ‘a hole in someone’s bed’; on second thought, perhaps it is entirely apt. There are moments of lovely phrase-making: ‘[b]reaks happen when the heart of a bud becomes a bloom’. Indeed. ‘Pantoum at Sixteen’ is also a poem of troubling, mixed feelings: the sexy and sinister, the appetite and advantage, the active and the passive. An excellent poem to experience and will continue to provoke interpretations with each re-reading.”
Pantoum at Sixteen
There must’ve been flowers everywhere—
paper whites, peonies in double blossoms, dogwood, moonflowers, day
lilies folding towards the remaining sunlight and apples
too, fleshy, abundant with promises I was hungry to reap.
Paper whites, peonies in double blossoms, dogwood, moonflowers, day
breaks and the heart of a bud becomes a bloom. My dizzy head
too, fleshy, abundant with promises I was hungry to reap.
Plunging headlong, a rapid descent into red, red-violet, cerise, watermelon.
Breaks happen when the heart of a bud becomes a bloom. My dizzy head
drunk on the look he gave me by the lockers,
sent me plunging, a rapid descent through red, red-violet, cerise, watermelon—
when, after school, I let him find me, tell me, stay still, turn this way, do this.
Drunk on the look he gave me by the lockers,
I lay in the weeds of a black locust tree, before me a sea as vast as I imagined God to be.
After school, I let him find me, tell me, stay still, turn this way, do this.
I saw it all through a transparent glaze, his hands, my skin.
I lay in the weeds of a black locust tree, before me a sea as vast as I imagined God to be.
There, I was seen as I had never been seen before.
I saw it all through a transparent glaze, his hands, my skin,
the angular jut of my minor hip.
Seen as I had never been seen before,
what was once my body now distended, extraneous, mailed off, transoceanic—
the angular jut of my minor hip.
I remember the story of a fire, a cigarette, a hole in someone’s bed.
There was once my body. Distended, extraneous, mailed off, transoceanic—
I remember fire, cigarettes, a hole in a bright, burning bed.
Plunging, wingless through red, red-violet, cerise, watermelon.
I remember there were flowers everywhere.
The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society 