Martian poetry

In Competition No. 2923 you were invited to describe an everyday object, in verse, from the point of view of a Martian.

James Fenton coined the term Martian to describe the work of poets such as Craig Raine and Christopher Reid, whose poems cast familiar objects in an unfamiliar light. In his 1979 poem ‘A Martian Sends a Postcard Home’ Raine describes books, or ‘caxtons’ as he calls them, as ‘mechanical birds with many wings/ and some are treasured for their markings —/ they cause the eyes to melt/ or the body to shriek without pain…’

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Brendan O’Neill

The moment in the ‘grooming gangs’ debate that shamed Jess Phillips

This was a challenging comp. Children are well suited to writing Martian but it’s trickier for adults with their more fully formed view of the world. Though Michael Seese, Mark Shelton and Michael Spencer did well and deserve honourable mentions, the entries printed below came closest to what I was looking for. They earn their authors £25 each. Bill Greenwell takes the bonus fiver.

Lately, it has been forced
to fit in. It hides in plain view,

shameless, bright on the outside.
After a meal, it eats itself

in spasms, helped by its congregants,
who drum silver tattoos

on dirtied porcelain, filling its maw.
When no one is looking,

it passes coded messages
over the airwaves to the dog, who sniffs

at its pretension, wrestling it down.
Sometimes it hoards junk:

it takes in what no one has franked,
and keeps it, unopened,

before its dark and sleazy uterus
is skinned and evicted.
Bill Greenwell

They are ubiquitous, concealed
In every home and office block;
An object, when one stands revealed,
Whose substance is like polished rock.
A snail’s shell is its shape, turned up,
Much magnified in bulk and size;
And in its sloping, hollowed cup
A level pool of water lies.
This font, it seems, they venerate,
And worship often in its shrine,
Alone and in a secret state
Within the small and locked confine.