And the winner is…
Becca Fang
Becca Fang is a Belfast-born, Brighton-reborn writer with a flare for magenta-drenched melancholy. In her time away from being a poet and novelist, she can be found faffing about in the kind of outfits that make old ladies say, ‘Oh, that’s a bit different.’
Her winning poem, Ode to Chet Weems,
‘is a very direct response to the theme Invitation to Love, inspired by one of the spoof soap’s leading men, mixing comedy with melodrama in a mimicry of Invitation to Love’s over the top style. My poem aims to parody classical ballads as Invitation to Love parodies classical soap operas.’
Becca tells me that the6ress is the first to publish one of her poems (and in fact, we enjoyed her work so immensely that we’re publishing both her submissions!) My jaw dropped into my creamed corn. I couldn’t believe that her talent for the craft and mastery of structure had gone unclocked until now. Her succinct and sophisticated playful style has us reeling and re-reading. Becca is one to watch, quite literally as she reads her winning poem in our Instagram Reel.
Order your copy of Invitation to Love to read Becca Fang’s masterpiece, Ode to Chet Weems.
Runners-up
Simon Bowie
Simon Bowie is a culture writer and film critic based in the UK. His writing on Twin Peaks includes conference papers, a Masters dissertation, and his recent book from Beir Bua Press.
‘My poem is an auto-generated poem from a small PHP web application I wrote to generate poems. By taking every line of dialogue from the Invitation to Love scenes in Twin Peaks, this site produces a randomised arrangement of those lines every time the page is refreshed. The page is available at [https://invitationtolove.simonxix.com](<> https://invitationtolove.simonxix.com>)’
We love how Simon’s app continually recontextualises Invitation to Love. Randomising the order of the dialogue gives new meaning to each poem generated and encourages the reader to keep reviewing and re-examining their own personal interpretation. The judges felt that this process is akin to Lynch’s own creative intentions as director and artist.
Luke Z. Fisher
Luke Z. Fisher has been published by Amnesty International and Bandit Fiction. Most of the time he teaches in a school in East London.
‘I started off writing pastiches of Twin Peaks scripts, which I then deleted. I replaced those with a London landscape and a booty call but I kept this character who maybe thinks they are a Montana/Emerald but wants to be a Jade/Chet, and a structure based around lines from Invitation to Love – the title, the ‘hours’, the ‘kind’, ‘loving’, green. I wanted the soap to play in the background in the same way it does in Twin Peaks and to affect my character in a similar way to the way in which the characters in Twin Peaks are affected by it.’
Luke’s piece spoke to us as an experience parallel to Invitation to Love, taking the atmosphere and aura of the show and re-imagining it in a lonely London landscape. The ache and crushing beauty of lines like, ‘the distance between us becomes a third person between us / So that when we part the void voices our worst thoughts’, and ‘other people / Who weigh one another in their clasped palms’. Just stunning.
Rachel Hepburn
Rachel Hepburn lives in London and writes sad gal poetry in her spare time. She has previously had work featured in 1998 and Honeyfire Literature Magazine.
“My poem could seem quite romantic, but it is brutal underneath – it isn’t love at all. It gets faster and more dramatic as it goes on, like a soap opera’s storyline.”
Rachel’s poem gives us chills. Just like the town of Twin Peaks, its seemingly docile domesticity has a dangerous underbelly, ‘as brutal as the beast’. We loved the imagery of rebirthing and familial love, reminiscent of Leeland’s own transition through the middle of the second season.
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Highly commended:
Rachel Burns for her poem, I roll the dead body of our marriage into the Persian rug
RJ Danvers for their poem, Roughhouse
James McDermott for their poem, TOPLESS
Maggie McLamb for her poem, AN ODE TO LONGING
Victoria Punch for her poem, An Ode to the Unexpected Find on One’s Fingertip/Bus Seat/Earlobe
Anna Saunders for her poem, A Dream Of Fire
We’d like to thank everyone for submitting to this issue. As Major Briggs says, ‘Achievement is its own reward’. I’m so grateful to have been able to make this special edition with you all.
If you’d like to order Invitation to Love, please pop over to the6ress.com/Invitation.