The 2025 Brilliant Poetry Competition Shortlisted Poems: Gary Hugh Day
Brilliant Poetry is an international competition that invites participants from around the world every year to explore scientific discoveries and curiosity through poetic expression.
Aligned with the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ), marking a century since the formulation of quantum mechanics, Brilliant Poetry aims this year to highlight the power of artistic expression, making the complexities of science accessible, beautiful, and profoundly inspiring.
During the call for participants, poets were encouraged to engage with the principles and paradoxes of quantum science, exploring their intellectual and human significance.
After closing the submissions on July 30, the jury started the selection process. In September, ten outstanding poems were selected for a shortlist that was announced early this month.
We are thrilled to publish each of them on the official blog of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. Winners of the first, second, and third places will be announced on November 10.
Spooky Action at a Distance
by Gary Hugh Day
They had the same print
In their living rooms, Lowry:
Coming Home from the Mill, 1928.
And whenever they glanced
At this lost world,
They felt the familiarity
Of that other place
Which was also home,
Suffusing them with a sense
Of being in two places at once,
Unsure where each began
And the other ended.
She said they were the couple
On the bottom right, moving away
From the patchy crowd
With its comedy hats and boots,
Solo dances, simple mimes,
And pavement melodramas.
All gone, like the factories
The coloured wagon and
The open doors of terraced houses.
Once more his eye is drawn
To the couple heading out of
The frame; arms linked, in step,
And he wonders if she still
Feels this ghostly closeness,
The nearest they come to touching now.
Gary Day is a retired literature lecturer. He is the author of several books, including Class, Literary Criticism: A New History, and The Story of Drama. He was a reviewer and TV critic for the Times Higher has had poems published in Acumen, The Dawn Treader, The High Window, and various others. He is still actively involved in amateur dramatics.
For general questions about IYQ, please contact info@quantum2025.org. For press inquiries, contact iyq2025@hkamarcom.com.