Moving On

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Inspiration

Moving On was originally written for Round Nine of the 2009 Whittaker Prize. The prompt used was a video (no idea which one). It was given a score of 66/100 by the judges, who remarked that it felt underdeveloped. They wanted to know why Cynthia (yes, that was her name originally) left, and what it was about the circus that attracted her (and what her act was, which surprised me). They also felt that the list of circus performers was too long and should be trimmed down to just three (which is odd, because the sheer number of them is the main thing that makes it work as a live piece). I usually give advice from judges and editors a lot of attention, but on this occasion I chose to ignore every single aspect of it. The only thing I did was change the girl's name from Cynthia to Sophie.

Placings

Moving On won first prize in the Spring 2010 JBWB Poetry Competition.

Notes

This is still the poem I'm most proud of, mainly because it's proper serious poem with a dash of humour in it that works well both on paper and when performed live.