Poet's Corner
The Arvon International Poetry Competition 2008

The competition is being held since 1980 and is considered to be one of the UK's most prestigious poetry competitions. Past winners of the competition's First Prize have included Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, Don Paterson, Selima Hill, Paul Farley, Mario Petrucci and many more. This year the competition offers £11,000 worth of prizes – including some rare copies of Ted Hughes publications. The deadline for entries is 15th August 2008. Entries can be submitted online.

For details, please visit: www.arvonfoundation.org/poetry

Muntazir Ankhain

By M. Awais Aftab

  Sometimes

When I gaze into your eyes

They remind me

Of the parched sand

Looking up at the dark clouds

The inky, swirling currents

Full of the promise of moisture

The rain...

When will it fall?

The droplets...

When will they caress the grains?

The dunes look up

Hopeful, waiting, expecting

Just like your eyes

So this is Love…!

By Sana Khan

So this is what love is,

A mere calling of the words,

A few tender caresses,

Some sweet kisses,

And gentle expressions.

So this is what love does,

Makes you float without wings,

High above the ground,

Into the realm of indulging fantasy,

Till you fall back down.

So this is what love means,

To grow and become,

Something you never thought you could be,

Believing in the impossible probabilities,

Trying to become.

So this is what love makes you,

Wisher, dreamer, worshipper, believer,

Of what isn't and could never be,

A mere illusion of the haunting

From which you had broken free.

So this is what love takes from you,

Your faith, belief, yourself, deceit,

And like a fool at a king's court,

You act, pretend, perish, achieve,

Till you become the essence of a mere belief.

So this is what love binds you to,

Naked, raw force of trust,

Of striving to attain nothingness

And thinking you have received,

The gift of a lifetime.

So this is what love makes you think,

That you can be yourself,

True and whole and pure,

Like you were always before,

Till you fall down into oblivion and curse.

So this is where love leaves you,

In the realm of purgatory,

Making you feel things

You never thought you would feel,

And then leaving you empty and drained.

Ah! So this is Love!

An illusion, a deceit,

An approach far from truth,

A death wish, a consumer,

To which you naively cease to be.

The white flower!

By Mehreen Tahir

The white flower,

Single and pure,

Swaying, as if laughing,

Fresh and shining,

From the morning dew,

Dancing in the breeze,

Gaiety at its peak,

Like a baby in his cradle,

Innocent, unknown to vice,

The pureness of his soul,

Is blossomed like the flower's,

But both will stop swaying,

When the breeze turns to dust,

Of betrayal, of vice,

Of the unkind society,

And its torments,

The cruelties,

The lies and the deceit;

The soul that was pure,

Honest and unstained;

The white flower is no more,

Pure, but yellowed,

Withered by the unkind wind,

Tarnished by the evils,

It sways no more,

But droops slowly,

And the petals wear away,

With each gust of intolerance,

Until the delicacy is worn out,

And just the stalk is left,

Rough and naked,

Its beauty and purity gone,

And head bowed in shame,

Willing to break away from the branch,

That still connects it to life,

To a mere sorry existence,

So when the next gust comes,

It blows away silently,

Gladly, to get rid of the misery,

Of standing alone; pure,

In the midst of such impurity!

Woe of a Girl

By Aaishah Abu Bakr

I aspire to have been

Below this six feet ground

Away from quandaries and tortures

For a one-time demise

Is preferable

To dying every other day

I wish I had been

One of those daughters of Arabia

Who were given to death

The very day they were born

Who suffered pain but once

Who were slain but once

Death of infancy

Father's discrepancy

Society's malignancy

All but once …

But today I subsist

Though I am dead within

Every night I am made to wade

Through a teary tide

I am sorrow's bride

And in my womb I hide

Conceptions of tomorrow

Children of torture, repression and sorrow

Compiled by N.A.

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