![]() |
||
The Inaugural Manning's PitPoetry Competition -
Final Report
|
||
Mark Totterdell
|
We are very pleased to announce that Mark Totterdell was the winner of the First Prize in our Inaugural Poetry Competition. Mark's poem "Form" perfectly captured the spirit of place that inspired the competition, and we were also thrilled with the standard of poems entered overall. Frances Corkey Thompson gained Second Prize for her acrostic poem, "Save Manning's Pit" and Mark Haworth-Booth received the third prize for his interesting take on the subject, "#savemanningspit-pleasefollowlinks". List of Prize Winners (link) Report on the Presentation Evening: The Presentations took place on the evening of Saturday January 12th and prizes were given out by David Weeks, Executive Director of The Week Magazine. David works in London but comes home to Devon at weekends and has been spotted at times running though Manning's Pit with his collie dog Storm. The evening began with organiser Bev Snowden saying a few words about Manning's Pit itself, before introducing the Judge, the well known poet Julia Bird. Julia had come from London for the occasion, and she spoke about the entries and the aims of the competition, which were to raise further awareness of Manning's Pit and its cultural heritage. She then read one of her own poems, “White Horse” from her book "Hannah and the Monk." |
|
Julia gave us this quote
'I was really impressed by the standard of poems which were submitted to the competition - the theme obviously struck a chord with people who wanted to talk about their relationships with beloved natural beauty spots both in Devon and further afield. The poems I chose for the winners and highly commended awards were those which combined a sincere personal feeling for place with an outward-looking creative sensibility - but everyone who entered the competition helped support the Save Mannings Pit campaign, so I'd like to cheer all the participating poets, especially the children.” |
||
The house in Pilton Street where
Benjamin Manning
lived in 1850 (photo from mid 1900s) |
It was then time to announce the winners, beginning in reverse order with the names of those whose poems were Highly Commended. As the judging had been done anonymously, Julia herself had no idea who had won until we announced the names of the winners. It was a complete coincidence, then, that among the Highly Commended was Sheena Ferguson who lives in the house that was once owned by Benjamin Manning, the nineteenth century entrepeneur whose name lives on in Manning's Pit. |
|
An even greater coincidence is the fact that
the Prize winners in the 11 and Under Category happen
to be two boys (Toby and Theo Lawrence) who live in
the house where writer Hector
Hugh Munro (Saki) lived. Manning's Pit is the
last part left of what was “the countryside Hector
loved.” Toby and Theo were unfortunately ill and
unable to be presented with their prizes on the day,
but were filmed later reciting their poem (see link to
videos below.) |
||
Ryan Vowles |
One of the stars of the evening was Ryan Vowles, aged 14 when he wrote his poem, who won the 12 to 18 age group Category and read his poem with tremendous feeling. He told us that he had visited Manning's Pit many times with his grandfather and he hoped that it would be preserved for future generations too. Finally we came to the most important presentation, as mentioned at the beginning, which was to Mark Totterdell from Exeter who won First Prize in the Adult section. Mark is a free lance copywriter, and he has won a number of prizes as well as having had two collecitons published: "This Patter of Traces" (Overstep Books 2014) and "Mapping" (Indigo Dreams publishing (2018.) Mark was brought up in rural Somerset and
his poem was inspired by memories of a field near his
childhood home that is now built over. We were very
pleased to welcome him to Barnstaple, and he told us
that earlier in the day he had made his own visit to
Manning's Pit.
As Julia said earlier, we would like to thank
all those who entered poems because they were the one
who made this competition a success. While we are
fighting to preserve this one special place, we wanted
to open the Competition up to everyone, everywhere,
who might have have feelings for a much loved piece of
countryside close to the town or village where they
live. We also wanted our competition to attract
serious poets and it certainly did that, since all the
first, second and third prizes in the Adult Category
all went to poets who were already well known in the
poetry world.
While the competition was open to anyone and
entries came from as far afield as Lancashire.
Scotland, Poland and India,
we were also pleased that two locals from Pilton were
among those whose poems were Highly Commended (along
with Anne Beer, now of Hele but formerly from Pilton
too)
Our thanks also go to Sharon Dixon of The
Plough@St.Anne's. Although the building is small
(which was why - unfortunately - we couldn't invite as
many community supporters or group members as we would
have liked to have done) it was a wonderful venue, and
we really appreciated the help and support that they
gave us. YouTube Playlist of videos from the
evening. |