Sarah James
Ten Lines or More Than Just Love Notes
Judges
Dr Kerry Featherstone and Nellie Cole
Judges comments
Nellie’s comments: “There are poems in constant motion. Through experiments in form and striking imagery, the poet captures enough for us to experience them. But she also invites us to follow them, beyond their ten lines, to wherever they lead – a Chinese lantern ‘floating stringer, higher, freer’; a climber reaching for the next hold; a rabbit darting across and off the page”.
Kerry’s comments: The formal restriction of ten-line poems, prose poems or stanzas is a fruitful one here. Sarh James is also adept at knowing when to experiment: concrete poetry, lists and visual puns follow conventional stanzas. The range of subject matter and imagery flourishes in the imagination that James brings to the work. There is a sense of narrative here: of love, of motherhood, of aging; but it’s precise, telling details that speak to me: friction marks on the palm of the hand, the musical notes on a frozen windscreen. Each poem speaks of the wonder of the mundane in the face of the infinite.