{"id":14976,"date":"2017-09-15T16:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T16:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=14976"},"modified":"2020-12-09T15:15:08","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T15:15:08","slug":"and-the-pick-of-the-month-for-august-2017-is-cowardice-by-freya-jackson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/and-the-pick-of-the-month-for-august-2017-is-cowardice-by-freya-jackson\/","title":{"rendered":"And the Pick of the Month for August 2017 is ‘Cowardice’ by Freya Jackson."},"content":{"rendered":"

This was a nicely balanced competition with votes and comments across the board but Freya Jackson’s supporters just tipped the balance at the end and her ‘Cowardice’ is Pick of the Month for August. This ‘raw’, ‘visceral’ poem disturbed and disoriented but you found beauty in it too. A very worthy winner and one for our time.<\/p>\n

Freya is a 21 year old writer from Leeds, Yorkshire (UK). She has been published in, amongst others, Arc Magazine, The Literateur, Hapex <\/em>and the A3 Review.<\/em> She was a finalist for the 2015 Princemere Poetry Prize and Highly Commended for the Binnacle Ultra Short Competition 2016. See here also: http:\/\/www.pothook.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

She will receive a National Book Tokens gift card for \u00a310.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cowardice<\/strong><\/p>\n

& I did not even as she was screaming, 2 policemen between
\nher holding her like the edge of a dam edging into her
\nonto her but that\u2019s not my business makes me think too
\nmuch all the times I was \u2013 the woman on the wall
\nwas either screaming or struggling but not both I can\u2019t remember
\nand my mother said he was probably her boyfriend it
\nwas probably fine don\u2019t panic don\u2019t cry no-one was hurting
\nher but he was the replay in my head was old stereo she
\nwas screaming or she was struggling but not both I remember
\nwhy can\u2019t I remember \u2013 it didn\u2019t happen to me nothing happened
\nthough all the fear in my head made me fizzy-drink shock
\nstuck I either screamed or I didn\u2019t or I didn\u2019t it happened two
\nthree times nothing though he scared me kept following me
\ncouldn\u2019t shake him shake myself in the mirror I knocked on every
\ndoor but only one woman answered and my brother looked
\nafterwards like something awful had happened though the police
\ndidn\u2019t knew it was a waste of their time like they wanted to shake
\nme as I slotted the pound coin into the dip-centre of my palm
\nyou\u2019re a good girl, aren\u2019t you I kept thinking about Mary before the
\nfall all dirty feet I\u2019ll never let a man touch me wash me like that didn\u2019t
\nlet him either and he didn\u2019t force me \u2013 nothing happened sixteen
\nand I\u2019m playing at pain walking around suburban Sunday screaming
\nno-one around but me didn\u2019t know if I was capable of it took too
\nlong like learning to play the flute can\u2019t get a sound out it the breathing\u2019s
\nall wrong then all at once scream scream scream but no-one left their
\nhouse a wasted effort still I should have stopped at least it was like she
\nwas falling in slow motion I thought they were going to hit her but they
\ndidn\u2019t & even if they did I wouldn\u2019t have<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Voters comments include:<\/p>\n

Freya’s mastery of structure gives the poem a great sense of tension by exploiting the cyclical nature of gendered violence. Thoughtful and dynamic, her poem evokes both deep feeling and deep contemplation that relates to issues we must all face. A work made beautiful by its intent. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

This is punchy, raw and very brave.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

A careful & interesting use of words <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The pace and sense of fear it conjures with the hopeless cowardice.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The panic and fear and disjointed thoughts really speak to me – it twists a knife in my gut. That kind of confused impression of something large and horrible and all too real. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The tone is just right – disturbing stuff, and the disturbance resonates in the language used. Lack of punctuation helps sense of disorientation.
\n<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Stunning poem<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

It’s just a beautiful poem <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Awesome poem!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Freya’s poems are so vivid, I feel like I’m living the words she writes<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was a nicely balanced competition with votes and comments across the board but Freya Jackson’s supporters just tipped the balance at the end and her ‘Cowardice’ is Pick of the Month for August. This ‘raw’, ‘visceral’ poem disturbed and disoriented but you found beauty in it too. A very worthy winner and one for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-poetry-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14976"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14983,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14976\/revisions\/14983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}