Guest judge Daisy Johnson hits the open road of your entries... / Hour of Writes

12th November 2017

As somebody who's spent the last few months looking at creative work inspired by roads,The Open Road was always going to be an interesting brief, promising as it does a wide variety of interpretations, and I was excited to see that several of the entries took the theme in an unexpected direction (pun unintended!).

One of the most eye-catching interpretations of the theme was Entry 2830: The Navajo Legacy which touched on some painfully timely themes of choice and political action, whilst also connecting with the culturally laden touchstone of Roswell. I was also drawn to Entry 2823: The Open Road, a story of personal liberation and bravery set in a very contemporary environment. As with Entry 2830, I welcomed the wider resonance of this story, particularly in today's political and cultural environment. The idea of the open road, for me, always has to reach somewhere beyond the apparent limit of the story, and I felt that both Entry 2830 and Entry 2823 did this with success.

The other entry which caught my eye was Entry 2822, a poem which sang into some tight, vivid imagery. Lines like 'cellophaned bunches of flowers' were handled well. I also enjoyed the dense yet acute imagery in the final stanzas of this piece. I returned to this poem several times to let myself fully understand and start to come to terms with the amibiguity and depth to some of the moments; a welcome task!

I was immediately drawn to Entry 2819: Sometimes A Car Crashes and Nothing Else is Near and for me, this was a clear and definite winner. Sometimes when it comes to writing, less is more and the appealing tightness of this poem, with its self-contained stories and imagery, was hard to deny. The characterisation of space within the poem was well done, contrasting the idea of the intimate space inside a car with the wider locations of the service station and the 'tidy hedge'. I particular enjoyed the final stanza: 'The rear light of a small family / car flickering through the gap, / a tiny hedge' and how it engaged both a sense of visual movement but also time.

My congratulations to everyone who submitted work! Reading your entries was a stimulating and interesting experience and I'm pleased to have been able to to do so!

Bio:

Daisy Johnson is a writer, researcher and a librarian and also the current A14 'Writer In Residence', at the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge. Along with writing her own work inspired by the landscape, Daisy is looking for people with their stories to tell about the road, whether they're real, fictional, poetic, or avant-garde performance poetry... You can find her online at http://didyoueverstoptothink.wordpress.com and more about the A14 project at https://www.facebook.com/groups/A14stories