The Geoffrey Dearmer Prize 1998

Paul Farley

Judge Wendy Cope writes: "Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide", wrote Auden in one of his essays, "but it is the least fallible". As I read and re-read nine sets of poems, I noticed that I was looking forward to Paul Farley's entry coming round again. Each time it did, I grew more convinced that this was the prizewinner. There were some interesting and enjoyable poems among the other entries, but there were more of them in Farley's.

I was especially taken with a monologue spoken by a light bulb left burning in a deserted house. And I liked the poet's nostalgic reflections on treacle, potatoes, hot-metal printing, the names of paper-sizes. There is street-cred too, for those who require it, in poems on a rave, a late-night city, the silence at the beginning of a football match. Farley handles all these subjects with confidence. His skilled  in his use of form and of rhyme and half-rhyme. He knows when and how to stop.

Keith Chegwin as Fleance

Keith Chegwin as Fleance
The next rung up from extra and dogsbody
and all the clichés are true – days waiting for
enough light, learning card games, penny-ante,
while fog rolls off the sea, a camera
gets moisture in its gate, and Roman Polanski
curses the day he chose Snowdonia.
 
He picked you for your hair to play this role:
a look had reached Bootle from Altamont
that year. You wouldn't say you sold your soul
but learned your line inside a beating tent
by candlelight, the shingle dark as coal
behind each wave, and its slight restatement.
 
"A tale told by an idiot . . ." "Not your turn,
but perhaps, with time and practice . . .", the Pole starts.
Who's to say, behind the accent and that grin,
what designs you had on playing a greater part?
The crew get ready while the stars go in.
You speak the words you'd written on your heart.