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    <title>The Westmorland Gazette | Readers Choice Vote 09</title>
    <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/</link>
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    <pubDate>Sat, 25 May 2013 00:06:55 +0100</pubDate>
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        <title>The Westmorland Gazette | Readers Choice Vote 09</title>
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           <title>The Last Gift by Alex Appleby</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4141842.The_Last_Gift_by_Alex_Appleby/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  Gift–noun: ‘1. Something given voluntarily without payment in return, to honour an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
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           <title>The Festive Spike by Timothy Cottingham</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4141860.The_Festive_Spike_by_Timothy_Cottingham/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  His homeboy Dav, or Jam, or some other
  Likely scumbag, has made him a shank.
  A dull blade, six inches, serrated –
  It's a Christmas present of sorts.
  He is feeling quite the big man. Quarrel over drugs, or turf, or girls.
  Someone has pissed off someone else,
  I suppose. And now from this time forth,
  His thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.
  Same story. And in some far-off neon corner,
  Or sordid alleyway comes another
  Scream of anguish, snuffing the glowing
  Warmth of sulphur lit streets. It lies
  Sprawled, like something from an abattoir Slaughter floor, on the sanguine pavement.
  By tomorrow it will already
  Be gone; replaced by familiar
  Pallid outline and plastic tape,
  Festive spike now gift wrapped in polythene. &lt;/&gt; And another skeleton goes to fill
  The ranks on that marble orchard
  hill.
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           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
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           <title>THE GIFT by David Cowling</title>
           
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           <description><![CDATA[  As I walked through the village, the churches, the memorials, the terraces, the streets, the trees, the fields, the bogs, through the great gloaming, as I often did, I felt sure I happened upon
  vague, indistinct spectacles. They must have been unremarkable, for I forgot them immediately afterwards. Had I seen a dog, near that bog? Too cold to reason. A fantasy of the mind. Though I had
  seen a little chap, I was sure of it. Small? Yes. With hat? Yes. But still baked blue by the chill, as is the way. He was tremulous with shivers. His eyes didn’t smile, at any rate. We passed.
  Briefly.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
           <title>I will receive a present by Gabriel Fliman Delano</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4147962.I_will_receive_a_present_by_Gabriel_Fliman_Delano/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  I am going to receive a present. It will be my birthday tomorrow. You are not invited to come. You can not come, even if you want.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
           <title>Felicity by Naomi Rose Gerarghty</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142247.Felicity_by_Naomi_Rose_Gerarghty/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  The most disconcerting morning of my life was the day I woke up to find that God was speaking to me through my knickers.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
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           <title>The Gift by Katie Hale</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142644.The_Gift_by_Katie_Hale/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  “Speech is the small change of silence.” (The Ordeal of Richard Feverell, George Meredith)
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
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           <title>Wordplay by Lois Lane</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142667.Wordplay_by_Lois_Lane/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  I remember the last time I saw you. The final glimpse, snatched over my shoulder, of your shock of dark hair disappearing into the crowd of people. Was it your laughter that I heard as I stepped
  outside into darkness? I like to think that it was. I cried myself to sleep that night, forming continents on the fabric of my pillowcase which grew and changed and gradually merged to form one
  pangean landscape of cotton and salty sea. I cried on the way home as I sat with my head pressed against the cold glass of the window, my silent tears mirroring the quickening raindrops which
  chased each other down the outside of the pane.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:50:00 +0000</pubDate>
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           <title>The City of Adonai by Ringo Lung</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142743.The_City_of_Adonai_by_Ringo_Lung/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  The City of Adonai – where dreams are reality. The city of fanatical mysteries, the city of madmen. Where the good are damned for eternity, where the bad are blessed by the divinities. Adonai –
  where the impossible is the possible.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
           <title>The 11th of the 11th by Victoria Marchment</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142783.The_11th_of_the_11th_by_Victoria_Marchment/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  The drizzling rain had stopped perhaps on hour ago for which Private Bellamy was thankful. Rain didn’t help conditions in the trenches. The mud was already swallowing up his boot-encased feet
  without its assistance.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
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           <title>Watching the Plough by John North</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142789.Watching_the_Plough_by_John_North/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  To lean against a gate and watch a man plough
  Is to a see a man think, each furrow a thought.
  See the back twisted like twine, the neck craned
  Like a gull’s, the eyes bent on straight lines
  Amidst the funnel of bird, mud and stone.
  Looking behind and round, the man in that cloud
  Sees only new land, as if in the steady push forwards
  Horizons speed backwards. Acres of bruised land,
  Crow-circled, crossed and re-crossed, are turned
  Into new life, as if no step had ever trod them down
  Or compacted them like first memories
  Into a sunken frosty lump. Sod becomes soil
  Ploughed carefully, cleared of rocks and clumps.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
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           <title>Mama Tongue by Felicity Powell</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142812.Mama_Tongue_by_Felicity_Powell/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  Each voice from da wide wide world
  Speak with da same tongue
  Read da same word
  Da notes dancing upon da page
  A festival for all ears
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
           <title>The Gift? by Ned Sharpe</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142851.The_Gift__by_Ned_Sharpe/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  Day after day your life is losing taste
  A white line cut by a razor blade,
  And though conscience cries it isn’t safe,
  Could conjure up a perfect escape.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
           <title>Christmas Presents by Fee Simpson</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142862.Christmas_Presents_by_Fee_Simpson/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  Mrs Carbuncle is sitting at a dining table barefoot; she’s putting pastry lids on a mass of mince pies and working her way through ladles of mulled wine as she speaks.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
           <title>The Gift of Life by Francesca Stephens</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142881.The_Gift_of_Life_by_Francesca_Stephens/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  Isolated. Alone and terrified. I will never forgive them for what they did to him. I’m glad they’re dead. I know how disgusting it may seem to be happy about two people’s lives being cut short, but
  if it was up to me they would have had the most painful deaths imaginable.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
           <title>Fired by Madeline Williams</title>
           
           <link>http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/leisure/literature/writers_annpiersonaward/apreaderschoice09/4142915.Fired_by_Madeline_Williams/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[  I still maintain you brought this on yourself.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
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