Ivan Prodanov, Switzerland's National Honour, September 2026
Ivan Prodanov wrote the highest-scoring poem from Switzerland in the Writory International Poetry Contest, September 2026: Life full of teachers, scored 62 out of 100 by the blind judging panel across five published criteria. The poem was read in English (Latin script).
Life full of teachers
I am abundant in experiences which have taught me to see in the dark. Through dusk I’ve wandered, looking over my shoulder each step of the beaten track. Although many have walked it before me it still meant nothing to me. Until my steps also beat upon it, until each step was mine to take and another mile to seize. They were calling from each bush, brush and tree and I knew only what my ears were accustomed to hear. The calls turned into shouts and yet I refused to let them near. Perhaps they were directions, perhaps they were misleading or both. I refused and I fought back, because in the end, who knows? Only if I’d listened, only if I’d stop and see. Not looking for danger in this magical forest, heed the call of every tree. Only if I hadn’t wasted every waking moment of these years now gone by, only if, but so it must be, for I would have borrowed them instead, but now they’re mine. A pointy pinecone fell down from a tree. It slowed my stride to a stop and I fell on one knee. There was no reason to stop when some tree was shouting to do so, but now a pinecone has made me rethink my ways with all the intricacies of its perfect form. I hesitated to take it in my hands for it would cease to be where it was a second ago. It would cease to be of the forest and just another thing I was bound to carry along. It would stop meaning anything other than something I found. I would risk robbing it of its potential to grow into what it was bound to become. And yet I took this gift and cherished it for some time, feeling the forest grow still in a moment now, no more whispers nor hints but the stars and their shine. I failed to use this light as a guide through the dark so long I could barely tell it apart. But now I used every bit of it to look at the cone and its form, letting it teach me its song. It was like music frozen in a shape that could never be repeated, not in this forest or any other for that matter. It was a sonnet and an opus at the same time and I strained my inner ear to listen, while this forest gem sung its lullaby. It spoke of its potential, it told me of its dream to grow. It begged me not to take it home for it would feel alone. It ushered me to throw it back into the snow or simply let it go. It wanted to become a tree and learn the language of the oaks, it told me many of its dreams and hopes. I listened all the while I let the snow fall, letting my foot dig a hole. When the last wish was told and when there were no more plans for this pinecone which I dared to hold, I planted it into the hole I dug and stuck my hands back in my coat. I no longer frowned when i was looking where I cast my next step, I was smiling at the thought provoking encounter instead, no longer waiting for the road to end, no longer fighting back the voices of my forest friends. I listened to what they had to say.
Every country's leading poet each month is named on the September 2026 National Honours. The contest is open to poets in Switzerland and everywhere else: enter the current round, and every poem receives a score out of 100 and a certificate.