A poem

expresses emotions,

touches the heart,

speaks to the soul,

and inspires the imagination.

Poetry is not easy to write. It takes talent and skill to create specific images, or word pictures, and to express emotions about a particular theme. It is very unlike prose, where one can say what one means in direct language, without the reader having to “read between the lines” or search for hidden meaning.

Many of the poems that were submitted made this serious mistake of writing in prose instead of poetry form. You expressed your ideas in long sentences or wrote a “poem” that was, in essence, an essay.

Many of you also forgot that your poem would be judged on four criteria: relevance, structure, expression and originality. The poems that did not make it on the longlist did not meet the structure and expression criteria. In addition, these poems had serious grammatical errors, but this was overlooked as the content was more important. However, those of you whose poems did not succeed either did not adhere fully to the theme, or the style was simply not poetic.

That having been said, I want to congratulate each and every one of you who submitted a poem. You were brave to share your work on such a platform, and you were passionate and confident enough about your poem to enter it in a competition. Please don’t be disheartened if your poem is not on the longlist; take this as a learning opportunity for you to hone your skill.

There were far more poems on the theme of GROWING UP, thus the longlist of poems unavoidably has more of those poems than on the theme of NURTURE NATURE. Here are the longlisted poems in alphabetical order:

“A child never ages”, Jarrod Bosch (Growing Up)

“A seed I am”, Zethu Mqikela (Growing Up)

“Dark-skinned”, Zikhona Ngamlana (Growing Up)

“Growth”, Songezo (Growing Up)

“Her Mother Earth”, Zetu Mqikela (Nurture Nature)

“Hovering above the summer sand”, Fatima Sadan (Nurture Nature)

“Mistakes”, Todd Scholtz (Growing Up)

“My upbringing”, Liyema Sigidi (Growing Up)

“Repeat”, Prescilla Ghall (Growing Up)

“Someone once told me, Jarrod Bosch (Growing Up)

“Teenagers”, Asakhe Ndlela (Growing Up)

“There existed a dream”, Jarrod Bosch (Nurture Nature)

“To us”, Ludumo Mdingi (Growing Up)

The shortlisted poems will be announced on this site on Sunday, 28 May 2023. The shortlist will provide us with the two winners and the six runners-up, which will be announced at the Prizegiving Ceremony.

I wish all of you only the very best, and congratulations to those of you whose poem made it on the longlist!

Image: Thought Catalog (www.unsplash.com)