Fledgling Award – Dad’s Slideshow Highly Commended

Stonewood is delighted to announce that Dad’s Slideshow by Di Slaney was shortlisted and then Highly Commended in the Fledgling Award (2014/15) judged by Martin Figura.

The brand new Fledgling Award celebrates debut pamphlets and collections by poets over the age of 40, the shortlist was:

Jemma Borg The Illuminated World (Eyewear Publishing)
Meg Cox Looking at Sodom Over My Shoulder (Hen Run)
Barbara Cumbers A Gap in the Rain (Indigo Dreams Publishing)
Leslie Ingrams Scumbled (Cinnamon Press)
Camilla Lambert Grapes in the Crater (Indigo Dreams Publishing)
Di Slaney Dad’s Slideshow (Stonewood Press)
Frances Spurrier The Pilgrim’s Trail (Cinnamon Press)
Mark Totterdell This Patter of Traces (Overstep Books)
Matthew West Seagulls and Spitfires (Ravenshead Press)
Ruth Wiggins Myrtle (The Emma Press)

The winners were:

1st Jemma Borg The Illuminated World (Eyewear Publishing)
2nd Ruth Wiggins Myrtle (The Emma Press)

Highly Commended:

Di Slaney Dad’s Slideshow (Stonewood Press)
Leslie Ingram Scumbled (Cinnamon Press)
Barbara Cumbers A Gap in the Rain (Indigo Dreams Publishing)

Here’s an extract from Stare’s Nest of what the judge said about Di’s pamphlet:

…Also Highly Commended is Di Slaney’s Dad’s Slideshow – a beautifully designed small pamphlet from Stonewood Press. Another ekphrastic collection! As a photographer I’m wary of poems that use photography (it’s alright for me to do it, obviously). It’s a bit like when you see your job portrayed in a television drama – it’s nothing like that! you shout at the screen. Fortunately Di Slaney has produced a beautiful and evocative book, which gets photography exactly right. There’s a Roland Barthes quote, that defines this book better than anything I might say: ‘All photographs are momento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.’ This is from his seminal Camera Lucida (a perfect companion to this collection), where his stated aim was to explore photography for sentimental reasons, not as a question, but as a wound. The title Dad’s Slideshow made me worry that the poems might be too sentimental, but they walk that line with great skill. The raw love and emotion of family is unravelled poem by poem like a loose thread: Now you’ve mentioned it, I can see clearly// There’s wool in every frame. Background/and foreground, on bodies, on shelves – nearly everyone is wearing something knitted. ….with just enough stitches keeping us protected. – Martin Figura

Stonewood would like to thank Stare’s Nest Fledgling Award and Martin Figura for their time and congratulate the winners, the Highly Commended and the shortlisted poets.