I don't read very many poetry magazines these days and also don't think awards and prizes mean much beyond creating a discussion and some publicity so perhaps my award for Best Poem of 2010 actually transcends itself by being the Most Redundant Literary Award of 2010 above and beyond whichever poems it nominates. But I did say earlier in the year that Lachlan Mackinnon's book Small Hours would deserve to win a share of this year's prizes and even though it's been taken on by books from Derek Mahon, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Simon Armitage and other somewhat major names, I think it has held on to its position as my favourite book of this year.
Much of the power of Small Hours, however, depends on the long prose poem sequence, The Book of Emma, and it is not a straight contest to put that moving and subtly powerful work up against the general fashion these days for poems that don't expect us to turn over many pages before we get to the end. There are several excellent other poems in the book but none that have made it onto my shortlist.
Last year, in an effort to try to give this award some history, I probably liked Don Paterson's poem The Day best without making Rain the best book of the year. So I'd like the best poem not to have appeared in the best book.
2010 was a year that several celebrity names added new titles to their bibliographies but, Mackinnon apart, few of those new books achieved tremendously much that their authors hadn't showed us already but that isn't to say it wasn't a good year.
I've had a relaxed look through the books I've bought and reviewed here this year, and tried to recall what I've seen and liked in magazines and on the internet and made a shortlist, which has been reduced to these, with no poet allowed more than one poem on it as the sort of arbitrary rule that these sort of shortlists sometimes give themselves.
So,
Derek Mahon, An Aspriring Spirit, from An Autumn Wind
James Sheard, The Strandperle Notebooks, from Dammtor
Paul Muldoon, The Fish Ladder from Maggot
Seamus Heaney, 'The door was open and the house was dark' from Human Chain
Jane Yeh, The Body in the Library,
Kelly Grovier, The Ratio, both from PN Review 195.
I'm honestly not sure which way it's going yet and none would be shortlisted if they didn't have a chance. Having left out some excellent poems to get this far, I'll have to give it some more thought before selecting the winner. I'm sure the poetry world will be on hot bricks in anticipation of my decision.
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