Poetry Competition 2023

School Years 11 – 13 Category Winner

“The Girl from Judea” by Eva De Vincenzi

The river's tide was out.
she walked along the flat seabed,
Feeling the sand as it hugged
The soft curve of her feet.
her eyes met the horizon,
The edge of the universe
That was already trapped within her,
And she closed them,
As the sun rose in the orange of her eyelids
And the wind breathed its hymn
through a flutter of wings.

You, girl from Judea,
You have been chosen as the immaculate.
Do not be afraid.

For an eternity she carried the Messiah within herself,
Afraid despite the words of Gabriel,
Wondering why this distant father
Could not even give her His name.

You, girl from Judea,
Can you really be what you say?

But she was, and from her womb He slid,
Covered in glistening red and unshaken by His arrival.

Yeshua.

But the agony of birth was not all.
Then came motherhood.

she cared for her boy, that God who suckled,
Until He became a man and grew a carpenter's hands.

It was for those hands that she wept
As the nails burst through them,
And the water dripped from the heart that had grown within her,
The third thief from Golgotha

You, girl from Judea,
Is it true you must now live forever?
Must you lose your children always?
Must you remain a parent still?

For you are the mother of us all now, Mariam,
And you must remain alone in your sandless valley of heaven,
Frozen in stained glass and alabaster,
Until the hour of your death.

Judge Charlie Durante’s comments:
Eva de Vincenzi with The Girl from Judea. The writing of religious verse can easily degenerate into cliché and sentimentality. What can one say about the teachings of religion which hasn’t already been rehearsed a thousand times?
However, Eva’s The Girl from Judea takes a fresh look at the figure of Mary and creates a truly wonderful picture of a young Judean girl caught up in an impenetrable mystery. She is an unapologetically Jewish Mary, who gives birth to a Jewish baby, Yeshua, and is called Mariam (or Miriam). The poem wears its theological message lightly, avoiding any dogmatic preaching. Paradoxically, Mary is both virgin and mother, intimidated by Gabriel’s enigmatic words, yet confident she has been in some strange way chosen.
The young carefree girl described walking along the sands transforms into the sorrowing mother, weeping for the ‘third thief of Golgotha’-what a phrase to refer to Jesus! She becomes the ‘mater dolorosa’ of the famous hymn.

This poem deserves a very special accolade. The young girl from Judea becomes, tragically, the image unfeelingly reproduced in many churches. Eva has shown exceptional maturity in conceiving and executing this marvellous poem.