{"id":6512,"date":"2026-03-11T13:23:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T02:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=6512"},"modified":"2026-03-11T13:23:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T02:53:33","slug":"announcement-robert-dawson-wins-the-february-wwwc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2026\/03\/announcement-robert-dawson-wins-the-february-wwwc\/","title":{"rendered":"ANNOUNCEMENT: Robert Dawson wins the February WWWC!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We’re pleased to announce the winner of the February WWWC: Robert Dawson. Responding to the prompt ‘sweet world’, Robert’s poem ‘Bo\u00f6tes’, a meditation on the stars, gives way to questions about nature, youth and what is lost when we disconnect from nature.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Read his winning entry below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Bo\u00f6tes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n


The ploughman\u2019s workboots tromp the dark.
This night three stars have lit the beam,
two on the frog, the third dirt down
on the mouldboard, squinting at the matutinal
glow that winkles through the clouds.
Yourself, you stand on the steps
still with the strange night\u2019s sightmare
on your lips: How you sat
atop a swaying lookout tower
counting the cones of each conifer
tree by tree \u2026
\u2026 standing there on the steps
where the three-star boots stomped,
envisioning a grizzly on parade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Redskin once more, twelve years old,
Kemosabe <\/em>of the range, Hiawatha
of the foaming rapids, trusty scout,
compadre of cactuses and junipers,
twelve years old, without a wristwatch
but equipped with an anthill compass,
moss on tree trunks, sun above
between the crowns of fir and hemlock \u2026
and there was only this day, only this forest,
the fragrant resins and the tangled roots,
the boulder shadow, the paper skin
of a rattler sloughed on the trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the stars of Old Boots\u2028
give way to the wills of day,\u2028
when the feathers of your war-bonnet fade,\u2028
when the forest has been compassed\u2028
and the plough horse has his lag,\u2028
and when this sweet world transmutates\u2028
into a stock exchange quotation,\u2028
when the branch we sit on\u2028
is no longer part of the fallen tree,\u2028
we need to ask:\u2028
Was it really us holding the saw?\u2028\u2028
We who\u00a0once promised
never to be older than twelve.\u2028<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re pleased to announce the winner of the February WWWC: Robert Dawson. Responding to the prompt ‘sweet world’, Robert’s poem ‘Bo\u00f6tes’, a meditation on the stars, gives way to questions about nature, youth and what is lost when we disconnect … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[315,942],"tags":[856,46,946],"class_list":["post-6512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-2","category-wwwc","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-wwwc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-1H2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6514,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512\/revisions\/6514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}