'No Simple Book'

Poem Wins Competition for National Poetry Day 2011

This poem was awarded first place in the Page & Blackmore Poetry Competition to celebrate National Poetry Day 2011. Entrants were asked to write a poem using only words from a prescribed word list drawn from the finalist titles in the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards. You can read the judge's comments on the Poetry Day Competition page at www.pageandblackmore.co.nz  

No Simple Book

BY GREG O’CONNELL

  We were the world, you and I. We were the world, and ours were the nights; we had that. We were night-music, builders of poetry. We were no annihilated sleepers, no contemporary passing souls, no simple book. We had the shining lens of night mirrored in our faces; everything sweet oratory. In the still dawn: no art in the fretful room, no life in the radio, the mirror, dressed in blue; and me, lost in the smoke of poetry. No music. And no you.