Final Flight

By Margaret Bending

My Sister’s Wig

By Kathryn Castle

Hands

By Libby Jones

Granny’s Camel

By Pamela McInally

Cancer Flower

By Denise Rivers

Close To The Edge

By Chris White

Fig Tree

By Martyn Barlow

Just The Same

By Heather Cook

Dorothy’s Ode

By Terry Dammery

The Vortex

By Judith Drazin

The Cutting Room

By Peter Lindley

Between Worlds

By Richard Williams (writing as Will Ingrams)

Margaret Bending

Tell us a bit about where you live?

I live at Fewston, near Harrogate in North Yorkshire.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I only started writing in the last couple of years, and, whilst enjoying it enormously, I find it hard to write without some impetus. Entering King Lear Prizes gave me the motivation to try and produce a suitable poem or piece of prose.

What inspired your work?

Over the last year of lockdowns and restrictions, I have longed for the freedom to go to the sea again, and yet the devastating effects of the pandemic brought the uneasy thought that it may never happen. This was the inspiration for 'Final Flight'.

Kathryn Castle

Libby Jones

Tell us a bit about where you live?

I live in Twickenham and have lived in the Richmond/Twickenham area since 1984 previously spending 24 years in Lebanon and Cyprus. I went to Lebanon to teach, and got married and gave birth to 3 daughters there. Back in England I took a BA and MA in Fine Art and Printmaking and now I am an artist and printmaker and, until recently, taught printmaking.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I have always written poetry and in my secondary school days often had work in the school magazine. However I had never thought of getting my work published. When I saw the King Lear Prize notification on Instagram I thought it would be interesting to apply for something other than Art opportunities.

What inspired your work?

The Pandemic made me realise that, in my generation, I am the only surviving immediate family member facing this situation. Thinking about my parents, siblings and husband I pondered about a good way to remember them. In bed one morning I looked at my hands and the inspiration came.

Pamela McInally

Tell us a bit about where you live?

I live in Bonsall, a village near Matlock in the Peak District.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

It popped up on Facebook and I'd just written Granny's Camel so I thought, why not! The main appeal was the age group.

What inspired your work?

I wrote a few poems for my children when they were little and my grandson wanted me to write some for him. He suggested Camel as a subject, and, having been to Kazakhstan and seen Bactrian camels in the steppe, this became the theme!

Denise Rivers

Tell us a bit about where you live?

I live in a town called Forres, in the North East of Scotland. I am very near the Moray Firth and I take great pleasure in walking on the dunes, listening to the mournful cries of the seals.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I entered the King Lear Prizes to try to invest myself with more confidence in my writing! I am starting a Creative Writing Course in October and I feel it is now or never.

What inspired your work?

I have now had cancer four times over the last twenty years. I admire the tenacity of these cancers to keep growing within me and my body's tenacity in holding its ground. I wanted to explore this complicated relationship. The cancer as a flower or errant growth seemed a good metaphor.

Chris White

Tell us a bit about where you live?

I live in Lichfield, a cathedral city in Staffordshire.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I entered the King Lear Prizes Competition because as an occasional writer of poetry (although unpublished) the prospect of a competition focuses the mind and imagination with a tangible goal in sight and it gives me the opportunity to submit my work to the judgment of others.

What inspired your work?

My work was triggered by the strange and unforeseen circumstances we are all living through and the feelings of melancholia and memory that this situation stirred in my mind. I have always been deeply inspired by Eliot’s 'Waste Land’ and metaphors of struggle, love and resistance. Poetry seems to be the fine art of saying the unsayable.

Martyn Barlow

Heather Cook

Tell us a bit about where you live?

I have lived in Woking, Surrey for over 40 years, but grew up in south-east London. Woking suits me. It's convenient and undemanding and leaves plenty of room for me to think my thoughts while walking on the surrounding commonland.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I've always written poetry and have been a member of Woking Writers' Circle for several years. I was delighted to hear about a competition for older people; I'm very supportive of young writers, but those of us who have been around for a while still have things to say.

What inspired your work?

The realisation as I embarked on a new relationship that although the face in the mirror was definitely not that of a 21-year old, the emotional turmoil was no different from that I'd experienced in my youth. I might be old, but don't anybody accuse me of being sensible!

Terry Dammery

Tell us a bit about where you live?

I live in the English Peak District in a house that’s in the clouds and where the winters are long and the snow deep – a good place for writing poetry, a good place anyway and I am lucky. My family, particularly my dog YoYo, think so too.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I’m eighty years old and have, at a guess, around eight hundred or more poems doing nothing on my hard drive – it’s the long winters. So, it was good to have the opportunity to put a recent ‘lockdown’ one out there. Also, given that the King Lear Prizes are for the seniors, it was an opportunity to show that many of us oldies are sufficiently blessed and willing to show what we could all do, given the chance. Thank you for that. Besides, by the time we are eighty there is a lot to write about.

What inspired your work?

I spent my early years in a wartime orphanage and the ‘Dorothy’ of the poem gave me a home in the years after peace was declared. It was a house by the sea which she shared with her brother. She was sixty and she, quite literally, showed me the poetry there is in life. One of her own favourite poems, she had many, was the Intimations Ode and so it seemed apposite that I should write one for her – something positive when the death count was rising from Covid.

Judith Drazin

Peter Lindley

Richard Williams

Tell us a bit about where you live?

I live in Suffolk, not far from the Norfolk border, near the small town of Eye, where I try to keep local wildlife from ravaging the fruit and vegetables. Our three grandchildren live next door, so we also help with the school run.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

A competition for those of advancing years seemed too good to ignore; at sixty-nine I am suitably qualified. I entered several of my poems and a ‘real story’ for the King Lear Prizes, hoping for a wider readership, and to put my work to the test.

What inspired your work?

Everyday incidents and serendipitous phrases often inspire my poems. ‘Between Worlds’ sprang from headlines of space exploration and a reflection on the gulf between the worlds of work and home.