The winner of the inaugural Theresa Matheson Bequest Award was Martha Kamara. You can read more about the winner announcement here. In the words of 2025 judge Claire Gaskin:
‘I finally picked as the winner the poem I felt was most resolved, which for me means the poem that wields technique and craft to take risks to incorporate the indeterminable. Risk engages connection through vulnerable generosity. It is a ruin of convention to achieve something fresh and alive through being experimental or a baring of self. Martha Kamara’s, winning poem, ‘He Brings Me Flowers, I Bring Him Distance’, has a strong clear voice. The line breaking and pacing is masterful. It keeps developing with a distillation that has the effect of a gathering of force.’
‘The Theresa Matheson Bequest Award, with a prize of $1,000 for the successful poet, was created in memory of my sister, Theresa, whose love of poetry helped her navigate life’s challenges with curiosity and insight. This award honours her spirit and encourages others to find their own voice through poetry. Reading the winning poem was deeply moving — it captured the same honesty and vulnerability that Theresa valued. As the founding benefactor, it means so much to see Theresa’s legacy live on, inspiring new poets to share their truth with the world.’
– Julie Matheson, sister of Theresa Matheson and Theresa Matheson Bequest Award Founding Benefactor.
He Brings Me Flowers I Bring Him Distance
This time,
I pull away
and lose him.
Not all at once—
just enough to notice,
the vase that once represented hope
is now empty.
It’s too hard.
Not just the love,
but the weight beneath it.
The way faith stands between us,
like a door locked with doubt.
The way Sunday feels different
in his house
than it does in mine.
The way we pray
to the same sky
but in different tongues,
with different fears.
It’s not just the prayers.
It’s the way eyes follow us
when we walk side by side.
The stares that ask questions
we no longer have the energy to answer.
The weight of being
a question mark
in a world that demands certainty.
He’s white,
and I’m Black.
He walks through life
with wind at his back.
I walk with history
pulling at my feet.
He’s whole,
and I’m broken.
Not because I want to be,
but because healing
takes longer
when the wounds came young.
He tells me I’m not too much,
but I still feel like I weigh him down.
He says he understands,
but how could he,
when the weight I carry
is invisible to him?
He brings me flowers,
and I leave them
on the table,
untouched,
because even beauty
feels like pressure
when I don’t know what to do with it.
I thought love would be enough.
Thought softness could win.
But there are things
he can’t fix,
can’t carry,
can’t pray away.
And so,
I pull away,
slowly,
like closing a door
I wish could stay open.
He doesn’t chase me.
He watches,
quietly,
like he knows
this goodbye isn’t about him.
I want to tell him
I’m trying,
that the distance
isn’t punishment,
it’s protection.
But the words
never make it out.
I am silence.
He is waiting.
And between us,
a world neither of us
knows how to hold.
Still, he brought me flowers.
And I’ll remember that.
Not as a promise,
but as proof—
that for a moment,
I was loved
gently.