Image credit: (from left to right): Alan Baker, Sue Shepherd, Francis Wait, Michael Racher, Michael Fleming, Danielle Norris, John Ellick, Beryl Tesco and Heather Flood.
Local resident wins poetry competition
Success came to Pevensey Bay resident Michael Racher at the Anderida Writer’s annual short story and poetry competition. The Eastbourne based group, whose patrons are actor Brian Capron (who played murderous Richard Hillman in Coronation Street) and author Tamara McKinley, gathered at the Cavendish Hotel to hear professional actors Alan Baker and Sue Shephard read out the members’ entries.
From a total of eighteen, based on the theme ‘Wrong Direction’, Michael’s poem ‘Red on the Green – A life gone wrong’ won first prize.
Michael was inspired to compose his entry after watching author Stuart MacBride’s appearance on Celebrity Mastermind when he answered questions about his favourite author A A Milne. Because MacBride writes macabre crime novels Michael decided to use that genre as a basis for his poem.
Michael has been a member of Anderida Writers for four years and has had some previous success in a short story competition. He is currently writing a follow-up novel ‘Playing Them’, which is a sequel to his previous book ‘Deception’.
Red on the Green – A life gone wrong
Michael Racher
Winner, Anderida Writer’s annual short story and poetry competition
Little boy kneels at the foot of the bed
Having a chat with a severed head
Turns out he likes to play with fire
Changed the forest to a funeral pyre
100 acres withered to ash
The grownup boy, pockets the cash
Major development covers the plot
Hides all the bones, of which there’s a lot
A bouncing friend, poor old Tigger
Lays underground, put there by a trigger
Heffalumps, Woozles and Jugulars
All run over by very large cars
Strangely not now depressed, poor Eeyore
Chopped in neat slices by a shiny saw
Our little Piglet was born to go far
That’s why he got sent to the abattoir
As for Kanga and her offspring Roo
Sad to say they are now in a stew
The species Lepus, old Rabbit who
Also boiled in the pot with those two
Winnie was easy, with poisonous honey
The horrid fiend walked off with more money
Supposedly wise, dear old Owl
Was laid to rest in something quite foul
Mister Milne’s spirit must suffer in pain
The boy he created not really sane
Hush, hush give a mad laff
Christopher Robin’s a psychopath
Red on the Green – A life gone wrong by Michael A Racher
