Changing Minds: Memories Lost and Found
Posted: Friday Sep 20, 2019
The Winner of the Poetry Competition
The Changing minds: Memories Lost and Found poetry competition was sponsored by Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day, and presented by Dunedin Public Libraries in partnership with the New Zealand Neurological Foundation, with the support of Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature, Alzheimer’s Otago, poet Sue Wootton and Dr Yoram Barak, Associate Professor of the Department of Psychological Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago.
We are proud to announce the winning poem is "Harsh Light" by Elizabeth Brooke-Carr, Dunedin.
Harsh light - Elizabeth Brooke-Carr (10 July 1940 - 3 September 2019)
The officer who
drove her home
(no siren, no
flashing lights)
walks around the
police car to open
the passenger door.
He offers his arm,
escorts her along the
bewildering pathway. At
the porch steps she stops,
slides her arm from his,
turns, sweetly confused,
leans her wrinkled cheek
against his uniformed chest.
He steadies her, a gentle
touch of elbow. She
wobbles up on tip-toe,
bestows a goodnight kiss
below his ear.
The officer knows there’s
nothing much there, the old
dear’s all musty lavender,
faced lace and stained seams.
Empty space.
She’s lost it.
He bears the intimacy with gallant grace.
The man weeping
in the open doorway
at the top of the steps
knows she hasn’t
forgotten everything.
She’s remembering
long ago when it was he
who brought her home from the local
dance and, eager for a last kiss
before her father opened wide
the villa door
and spilled harsh light
on their shy goodnight, she’d
stood on tip-toe, face aglow,
uplifted, waiting for his
touch.
Here is the full list of winners:
First Place: Elizabeth Brooke-Carr, Dunedin “Harsh Light”
Finalist: Victor Billot, Dunedin “Snow”
Finalist: Audrey Lappin, Auckland “We Played Cards Last Night, My Friend and I”
Finalist: Tom Pemham, Dunedin “Of the Moment, Of the Mind”
Finalist: Kaye Gilhooley, Opawa “Swiss Cheese”