August Challenge – ‘A Collision of Dreams’

The August Cult Members-only Challenge The COLLISION OF DREAMS

We will be publishing a wee anthology of these, the shortlisted poems, from:
      1. John Gosnell
      2. Fiona Halliday
      3. Manning Goodwin
      4. Val Ormrod
      5. Dominique Hecq
      6. Phil Santus
      7. John White
      8. Simon Tindale
      9. Kate Young
      10. Marilyn Timms
      11. Marion Ashton
      12. Julie Stevens
      13. Miranda Day
      14. Manning Goodwin
      15. Oz Hardwick
 
THE CHALLENGE: When I was a child, we would often go to my aunt’s house, which she always said was ‘As far from the sea as it is possible to get in England.’ * This always confused me, as her next door neighbour permanently had an unused speedboat in his front garden, overgrown with nettles and ‘cat piss plant’ as my aunt also helpfully described it – based on its scent, I’m guessing, rather than any great botanical knowledge – and generally over the years falling to bits. But why would he have a speedboat so far from the sea? I mean, he didn’t own a car or a trailer so even if he dug it out it wasn’t going anywhere, it was all quite perplexing. Anyway, I found out years later that her neighbour had famously (down their street, at least) appeared on Sale of the Century and had won the speedboat and as it had always been his ‘dream’ he had turned down the offer of a ‘cash alternative.’ So whenever anybody says ‘be careful what you wish for’ or suggests that dreams coming true aren’t always a blessing, I think of that speedboat left to fall apart in a stinky garden – in  a place where dreams and reality collided. As for the challenge – I’d love you to write a wee poem that tells the tale of a dream that wasn’t all that when it became real, a gift that wasn’t quite what you hoped or some other tale of disappointment or woe. Yes, I really am that cheerfilled right now :) Sorry about that. * She was wrong as it happened – Coton in the Elms is apparently the furthest from the sea, while she lived in West Bromwich, which might have felt like it was, but isn’t.
The Challenge:
  1. Write a Poem that tells the tale of a disappointment in Poem form
  2. There are no limits on length or poetic form.
  3. Email your poem in a single document to entry to: COMPETITION@HEDGEHOGPRESS.CO.UK
  4. Obviously this is only open to members of the Cult of the Spiny Hog
  5. Deadline: 30th September 2021
The Prize:
  1. We will publish a little anthology of disappointment ‘The Collision of Dreams’
  2. All those included will of course receive oodles of copies
  3. Cult members will obviously receive copies too
Have fun!      

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