Creative writing student shortlisted for poetry prize
Tarquin Landseer, a third year BA Creative Writing student, has had a poem (entitled "Who Ate All the Frogs?") shortlisted for the prestigious Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize.
Tarquin Landseer, a third year BA Creative Writing student, has won second place in the prestigious Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize for his poem entitled "Who Ate All the Frogs?"
Tarquin commented on his course: "The tutelage and poetry modules at Birkbeck have provided me with a strong foundation within the craft of poetry writing. The guidance and tuition has proved immensely rewarding, stimulating and insightful, both on a creative and intellectual level. It was a great honour to have my work acknowledged and this will provide a tremendous incentive for the future where I will continue to develop and refine my writing. I hope by winning this award that it will also provide further inspiration for my fellow poets at Birkbeck."
He went on to explain his prize winning poem: "The poem in question was said to give credibility to an unusual subject, with its cyclical imagery. Colin Thubron CBE, President of the Royal Society of Literature, and the judges said they were affected by the mixture of poignancy and playfulness within the piece. It was designed to convey something of the human condition. The poem is a pointedly ironic 'cri de coeur' with an underlying seriousness and also a lyrical meditation on the doomed (human) animal. I wanted to touch on the mystic and the supernatural, which, in keeping with the Surrealist tradition, is in opposition to the rational, but at the same time maintain a level of empathy."
Who Ate all the Frogs?
The Golden Toad of Monteverde
once bejewelled the cloud forest floor -
a rare dayglo fleshy nugget that
enriched the land of the Aztecs
is no more.
In the Vosges
The Vittel Brotherhood of Frog Thigh Tasters
nibble greasily on grenouille,
licking fingers as they pick
at the Thighs of the Dawn Nymphs.
'Our tribute to the noble frog', the frog-fanciers
say with relish while spitting out the bones.
In the Malay Archipelago and Indochine
the harvesting goes on unabaited,
sating the voracious appetites of Rayne,
Frog Capital of the World,
while scientists search in vain.
Meanwhile a golden frog in Panama
waves its gilded foreleg.
Crafted like a talisman,
it is unable to guard the underworld.
Damp and enamelled,
no hope reflected in the globe of its eye,
it stares up as if to say:
'You've lost your sense of wonder'.
A tiny semaphore signals a last goodbye
before it turns to gold.