WRITORYNational Honour · August 2026
🇭🇰
Jalene Van Zyl
🇭🇰 Hong Kong · leading poet of the nation's field
“Hail Openness”
60out of 100
Hail Openness
Darkness surges this morning,
the first warning.
Rain lashes down,
unlike regret.
Thunder rumbles savagely,
the third warning.
Hailstones crack down,
tearing at your confidence.
The storm passes when you dare
open a door—icy little gifts sprawl
across a kept lawn.
From the judges
A competent free-verse lyric with a clever titular pun and a strong closing image, held back by some stock storm diction and stated rather than dramatized emotion.
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Jalene Van Zyl retains all rights · published with the poet's byline as a National Honour