Charm Poetry Competition - Judge's report 2026
Introduction to Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Billy Collins
Reading the entries to this year’s prize, I am reminded of the delight poetry can bring when it embraces playfulness. While ropes and torture were not involved in my selection process, I did beat myself with a hose when I had to say goodbye to a few wonderful poems that didn’t quite meet the competition’s criteria of warmth and whimsy. The poems that I returned to as I gradually narrowed my choices down approached language with curiosity, linguistic dexterity and a willingness to interrogate the absurd. By so doing they were able to illuminate something unexpectedly true.
In no order of merit, I have chosen five Highly Commended poems:
The Stick: An object personified. This poem is disarmingly simple. Its rhythmical tightness in abab rhyme and innocent conversational tone are both child-like and alluring.
Escapade: A delightfully athletic display of end-rhymes foregrounds light verse but also embeds deeper emotional resonance in the form of a reflective meditation upon regret and courage.
Grandmother’s Parlour: This poem escalates absurdity in a childlike voice. Its sustained rhythm and balance on the page create comic energy to ease the punchline into its smooth landing.
Feather or Leather: Written in rhyming couplets, adolescent identity crisis meets the supernatural as a metaphor for growing up. Quick-witted and deeply imaginative, with a vivid and delightful final image of the owl’s rotating neck.
Customer Service: In its 5 stanzas, this poem offers 5 windows through which to view the modern shopping experience. Its characters are fully realised and relatable. Its humour seems effortless. The speaker’s intimate disclosure in the final stanza is especially funny.
3rd Place: 21st Century Cruise Fever: This satirical parody of John Masefield’s famous poem ‘Sea-Fever’ subverts its themes of a romantic yearning for the sea to describe the commercial realities of a modern cruise holiday. It fully exploits the cartoonish and chaotic imagery of the seaside. The poet’s use of hyperbole communicates the stifling and cluttered atmosphere of such a holiday, while some hilarious end-rhymes (bright upon it/Wallace and Gromit) counterbalance that by suggesting that the reader shouldn’t take it too seriously. Touchingly, in the final stanza the speaker confesses ‘I never get enough’ (of such holidays), which further softens the edge of the poem’s slightly cynical tone.
2nd Place: Moreton Bourton Stow: Gloriously nostalgic and written in mostly anapestic meter, every line in this poem has the same ‘o’ end-rhyme. This is tricky to sustain without the reader’s mind racing towards the end word once the pattern is set, thus lending it a banal sing-song nursery-rhyme quality. Here, unstressed syllables are used to start some of the lines, which has the effect of sharply breaking and redirecting the poem’s rhythmical flow. A beautifully executed and atmospheric poem with a charming polite ‘Englishness’ that reminded me of the songs of Flanders and Swann.
1st Place: Don’t Be An Idiom: This poem reads as a masterclass in malapropisms. I counted 30 in only 24 lines. Whilst seeming to be rather pompously policing common linguistic errors, the words of the speaker are comprised of error upon error to brilliantly ironic comic effect. Whilst the poem’s rhythmic structure is playful and reads as a kind of free-flowing rant, this trope is subverted by the fact that the poem appears on the page as highly organised (into quatrains), with its end-rhymes becoming tighter as one travels through the poem. One of this poem’s greatest charms is how seamlessly the self-conscious linguistic imperfections are woven into the narrative. I smiled at every line and read the poem over and over again. I knew it would be a prize-winner immediately. There isn’t a wasted word or a missed opportunity to push the joke further. Pure delight.
Thanks to Martin McGovern for giving me the opportunity to judge the competition this year, and for all his hard work behind the scenes in promoting it.
Vanessa Lampert – May 2026 – Wallingford
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