Kissing God's Feet
by Victor Obukata
Poetry
Twenty lines on a mother praying from kilometres away, and what her phone calls do to the madness in her child's head.
Where it scored
- Originality
- Highest-scoring voice on the shortlist.
- Relevance to Theme
- Prayer and a parent's calls as the words that work.
- Emotional Impact
- Mourning yourself while still alive.
The performance
What the piece does
Kissing God's Feet is the shortest work on the shortlist — twenty lines, one sentence's worth of breath — and it holds two rooms at once. In the first, a second-person "you" is coming apart: a demon splitting an existence in two, a madness so insistent it makes the mortuary sound like shelter. In the second, kilometres away, a mother is on her knees with her child's name coiled around her lips.
Between those rooms runs a phone line. The mother calls, repeatedly, to re-dip her child in the blood of Jesus — and something in the calling works, though the poem is careful never to claim it knows how: You do not know how you keep translating, / But you do know about the calmness.
Why it placed third
The panel admired how much this poem does with how little. It is the only entry on the shortlist that treats faith as mental health infrastructure rather than as a theme to be argued with — and it does so without apology and without making any claim about theology. What survives is simply the observed fact that someone kept calling, and that the calls landed.
That is also its reading of this year's theme. The words doing the work here are a prayer with a name in it, and a repeated phone call from a parent who does not fully understand what is happening and rings anyway. The poem knows that the content of those calls may matter less than their frequency.
Its final image is the one that stayed with the judges: you've mourned yourself / Too repeatedly than a dying man would. The grammar strains, and the strain is the point — it is the sound of grieving a person who is still alive, and who is you.
What readers should take from it
You do not have to have the right words. The mother in this poem almost certainly does not. She calls anyway, by name, over and over, and the poem records what that persistence did to a raging head. Being called and being named are not small things.
How it impressed the judges
Entries are judged blind against four weighted criteria. Judges receive only the title and the text — never the author's identity.
Relevance to Theme — 40%
The only entry to locate the power of words in prayer and in a parent's repeated phone call. Judges noted that it stays with the observed effect of those words rather than making any claim on their behalf.
Originality — 30%
Scored highest of the shortlist for voice. The second-person address implicates the reader from the first line, and the closing couplet on mourning yourself was singled out as the most striking phrase in the whole field.
Clarity and Structure — 20%
One unbroken sentence that pivots cleanly at "But kilometres far away is your mother." The two-room structure is legible in twenty lines, with no wasted motion.
Emotional Impact — 10%
Deep rather than wide — the panel described the closing couplet as the single hardest line to read aloud.
How judging works · Maximum score 100 across Relevance to Theme, Originality, Clarity and Structure, Emotional Impact.
Excerpts
The passages that do the work.
Quoted from Kissing God's Feet with the author's permission. The commentary beneath each passage is the Society's, not the author's.
You're learning new ways to talk to God, As the demon in your head splits your existence into two,
Why this passageThe opening names dissociation without ever using the word — and makes prayer something you have to relearn under pressure, not a reflex. Which drives you so desperately To want to shelter in the mortuary,
Why this passageDeath imagined as shelter rather than as an end. This is how the wish to die often actually presents — not as wanting to be gone, but as wanting somewhere safe. But kilometres far away is your mother, Kissing God's feet, With your name coiled around her lips,
Why this passageThe hinge of the poem. Distance does not stop a parent from doing the only thing available to her, and the poem insists that it counted. So each time she calls, To continually re-dip you in the blood of Jesus, You do not know how you keep translating, But you do know about the calmness Of the raging madness in your head,
Why this passageShe keeps calling. He cannot explain why it helps. He only knows that it does — which is the most honest thing anyone can say about being held on to. Because you've mourned yourself Too repeatedly than a dying man would.
Why this passageThe line the judges kept returning to. Living through a long depressive illness can feel like attending your own funeral on a schedule.
The excerpts above are a fraction of the piece. The complete entry is published here exactly as Victor Obukata submitted it.
Download DOCX · 1 pageCopyright remains with the author. Free to quote with attribution and to use in educational and advocacy settings.
Published 4 October 2026 · JMHS National Writing Competition 2026 · Using the Power of Words to Promote Mental Health and Prevent Suicide
