Good, Prize-Winning Poetry

What is good, prize-winning poetry? Some of you might write poetry, and might be curious to know how a poem is judged worthy of a prize. 

It is possible that we want to know how to write good poetry,  but that art is learned mostly through reading and practice. And when we know the values by which good, prize-winning poetry is judged, it helps. We come to know how poetry is evaluated.

Here is a poem, and notes by one of the judges who awarded the prize.

THE POEM:

The TS Eliot prize  for poetry has been  awarded to Jen Hadfield, a 30-year-old new poet in the published world.

This poem, taken from her book "Nigh-No-Place", is her response to working in a fish factory.

Ten-minute break haiku

Just the blades prattling

on cartilage - cut here, here -

a good, fat fillet.

My friend the Cuckoo

Wrasse, hauled from his dark holler,

wilting on ice. Alas.

Breading haddock, I

bury in the coarse, bright dunes

the pale, wet children.

I finger the curious, quilted sphincter, being

like this, inside, too.

Gut-worms, christ! Still I

pluck them from the membranes,

one by one.

THE COMMENTS:

In Guardian,   Jen Hadfield, one of the judges, makes the following notes about the poem: 

Ten Minute Haiku: Bishop might have liked this. Lowell too. Courage, again, in the ridiculing of haiku convention in the fourth poem's broken word. 4th haiku maybe Hadfield at her best - a hungry animalistic curiosity & more. There is an understanding of the world here - and the conviction to give voice to that understanding. The same star as Alice Oswald, Clare, Rumi.

Overall:

(1) sheer joy of poetry

(2) raw, fresh; nothing overcooked

(3) wit; wry and emphasized by the delight of the beauty

(4) she knows when to stop.

(5) courage

(6) 21st century in her language, syntax, diction, without any loss of historical reference

(7) deep understanding of words and musicality

This would be one hell of a winner.

This is what good writing and good reading is about- something that inspires appreciation, and a good guide to take us through the poem into its core.