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In 2016 the Cookham Festival teamed up with The Stanley Spencer Gallery, The University of Reading and Two Rivers Press to organise an international poetry competition on the theme of Stanley Spencer; his work, his life, his themes, influences or beliefs. Over 200 poems were submitted which were short listed  to some 76 poems, which have been published in a Stanley Spencer Poetry Anthology (price £9.99). The anthology was launched at a special Cookham Festival Poetry Evening at Cookham Dean Village Hall on Friday 12 May, when poems selected from the book were read. The judges announced a final shortlist from which the three competition prize winners were chosen (a winner and two runners up). The winners were announced and the prizes presented at the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, on Friday 19 May 2017. 

Rosie Jackson was announced the winner for her poem "The Heaven That Runs Through Everything" (scroll down to see a copy of the poem) and was presented with the Don and Jill Cawthorne prize of £2,500. The Stationers’ Company Award, with a cash prize of £500 was Ross Cogan – “Zacharias and Elizabeth” and The Maidenhead Advertiser Award, with a cash prize of £500 was Richard Robbins – “Christ Carrying the Cross”

Winner Rosie Jackson (right) with Carolyn Leder - one of the judges

Anthology .... now on sale in the Stanley Spencer Gallery .... £9.99

The Heaven That Runs Through Everything 

by Rosie Jackson

 Here’s to the small everyday miracles –

Mrs Baggett with her knitting and pearls,

the lovely daughters of Jerusalem

in their gardens of lilies, laburnum,

gospels and gossip at the regatta,

Sarah Tubb and her heavenly visitor,

courting and baptism along the Thames,

a dustman leaping into his wife’s arms.

Here’s to tulip, rock rose, gypsophila 

flowering together, to vases of prayer,

​

Saint Francis in slippers and dressing gown

up on the roof with hens to catch the sun,

chores doing themselves down in the kitchen 

at a wedding where water’s turned to wine,

everything married to everything else –

yearning to show itself as happiness,

as Love. Neighbours who rejoice with tin cans  

and cabbage leaves, the ripe summer commons, 

skies which open over bulrush, goose-run,

the fresh light making everything new-born,

shot through with flame, each shrub a burning bush

by the tow path. All detail the flourish  

of nature to show itself exactly –

not ‘bird’ but swan, cockerel, grebe, quail, turkey. 

Blessings on Ricket’s Farm, Rowborough, Pound Field,

the very word ‘Eden’ changed, now this world 

is all we need to know of paradise.

Consider the gardens at Cookham Rise  

where Adam’s walking backwards to a tree

laden with unpicked apples – the first day 

and the last become one, as if heaven was

wanting to reveal its eternal Yes –

earthly desire become beatitude,

everything known to be equally god.

Suffering a page to be folded over,

tenderness up sleeves in the tents of war, 

balm poured from seraphs in the guise of men. 

Nothing that is not transfiguration – 

the dying girl next door raised up, restored

to life, then the quickening of a horde 

of spirits, hungry for what death waylaid – 

the lost embrace, words not said, love not made.

Here’s to grief unlearnt, grateful breath redrawn, 

the rapture of rolling away the stone.

And let’s not forget the man most at home 

in sunlight, newly arrived in Cookham,

who walks with disciples up Cockmarsh Hill,

everyone in the crowd a plump angel. 

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