Lucy Vickery

Olfactory

issue 01 June 2013

In Competition No. 2799 you were invited to submit a poem about smells.

Edward Thomas’s wonderfully evocative poem ‘Digging’ inspired this challenge:  ‘Today I think/ Only with scents, — scents dead leaves yield,/ And bracken, and wild carrot’s seed,/ And the square mustard field…’

Thanks to Brian Allgar, who submitted an entry that missed the deadline but brightened the judge’s day. Other star performers were Brian Murdoch, Martin Parker — ‘time to turn fetid, malodorous armpits/ to temptingly sensual, sweet-smelling charmpits’ — Robert Schechter, John MacRitchie and D.A. Prince.

The six entries printed below earn their authors £25 each. The extra fiver goes to W.J. Webster.

It’s like a button pressed, the ping
Of pong that brings up from some store
An image of a scene or thing
Too sharply present to ignore.


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