Jacob Polley, Ian McMillan and The Poetry Society Director Judith Palmer have announced the winners of the 2017 Proms Poetry competition for poems inspired by this year’s Proms season. Meredith Andrea‘s winning poem ‘Giving Birth to Monteverdi’ was inspired by Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. Meredith’s poem ‘The Lunatic Cure‘ was a winner of the Poetry […]
We were saddened to hear of the recent death of Poetry Society Member Frances Galleymore, who was also a longstanding member of Highgate Poets. Frances was a poet, novelist and screenwriter. Her poems have been widely published in anthologies and magazines. As a screenwriter, she had over thirty drama productions to her name and worked […]
Poetry Society Stanza Rep for Blackpool, Christopher Heyworth (known as Christo James), died suddenly in hospital on 12th August 2017, aged 71. He was respected and admired by many colleagues, friends and those with whom he shared his love of the arts and poetry. His stepson Damian Grady, said: “He was very, very intelligent. He […]
Sinéad Morrissey has chosen Helen Mort‘s poem ‘Vanishing Point’ as the winner of this year’s Women’s Poetry Competition, with Poetry Society Member Carole Coates in second place for ‘Hostilities on a train travelling through Yugoslavia, August 1973’, and Elsa Fischer in third for ‘don’t forget’. The list of finalists included Poetry Society Members Mara Bergman, […]
John Ashbery, one of the most celebrated of all American contemporary poets, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, died aged 90 on 3 September 2017. Michael Schmidt of Carcanet, his UK publisher, said: “When John Ashbery came aboard Carcanet in 1976, I did not anticipate the impact […]
‘The Fig Tree’ by Poetry Society Member Judy O’Kane, from County Antrim, Northern Ireland, has been chosen by Sir Andrew Motion as Best Poem in a national writing competition devoted to the theme of Memory as part of National Memory Day. Poetry Society Members Janet Lees and Sharon Black were Highly Commended. Sir Andrew Motion, […]
Suffolk-based Poetry Society Member Caroline Gill is third in this year’s Write Out Loud Milestones Competition, judged by Brian Patten, for her poem ‘Penwith Finger Stone’. Brian Patten said: “This poem focuses on a literal milestone in Cornwall, its small-scale granite simplicity set against the vastness of the county’s better-known stone landmarks and monoliths (‘Zennor […]
Zaffar Kunial’s poem ‘Prayer’, first published in The Poetry Review 106:4, has been highly commended in the 2017 Forward Prizes for Poetry. The poem will be published this autumn in The Forward Book of Poetry 2018. The list of highly commended poets includes Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2017 judge Kayo Chingonyi, who also co-edited […]
Esther Morgan has chosen her winners for this year’s Crabbe Poetry Prize, organised by the Suffolk Poetry Society and inaugurated in 1954. In third place is Poetry Society Member Derek Adams for his poem ‘A Regular Guy’. Fellow Poetry Society Member David Healey was Highly Commended, and fellow members Nicola Warwick and Pam Job were […]
It’s yet another one-two-three for The Poetry Society Members as Paul Stephenson‘s Selfie with Waterlilies wins this year’s Paper Swan Poetry Pamphlet Prize, Karen Jane Cannon is second for Emergency Mints, and John Wheway is third with What is Lost. Included on the shortlist of ten were Poetry Society Members Olivia Dawson and Sarah Leavesley. […]
‘Skimmers’ by Poetry Society Member Jane Burn has come second in this year’s International Welsh Poetry Competition. Judge Kathy Miles also Highly Commended Poetry Society Members Gareth Writer-Davies, Pat Borthwick, Noel Williams, Zillah Bowes, and Helen May Williams. The Results 1st Prize: Airlings by Rae Howells (Swansea) 2nd Prize: Skimmers by Jane Burn (Consett) 3rd […]
Royal Mail has worked with The Poetry Society to select the quotations from First World War poems which appear on its Special Stamps commemorating the 100th anniversary of the First World War. The latest stamp, featuring a quote from ‘Dead Man’s Dump‘ by Isaac Rosenberg has been launched as part of the fourth commemorative set […]
The top three in the inaugural Wordsworth Trust Single Poem Prize are Poetry Society Members, chosen by the general public from a shortlist of fifteen selected by Mimi Khalvati and Ian Duhig. 1st Prize: ‘End of August’ by Zillah Bowes 2nd Prize: ‘The Waves’ by Chrissy Banks 3rd Prize: ‘Checkpoint’ by Maeve Henry The winners […]
It’s a one-two-three for Poetry Society Members as Richard Scott, Jack Houston, and Katherine Pierpoint take all three places in this year’s Poetry London Competition, judged by Liz Berry. Fellow Poetry Society Member Natalya Anderson is one of four Commended poets. The first, second and third prizewinners will be published in the autumn 2017 issue […]
Well, the Poem-A-Thon is over and we’ve taken a breath. It was a long poetry-filled day, with 61 poets reading non-stop from 12-10pm at the Poetry Café last Saturday. But it was a huge amount of fun and we couldn’t have asked for a better response. With over £1,200 raised on the door, and nearly […]
The Poetry Society is among more than 400 leading cultural, educational and scientific organisations and representatives across Europe who have endorsed Our Shared European Future, a set of recommendations developed with the British Council. The recommendations are being presented to EU and UK leaders in July 2017 as Brexit negotiations get underway. They have been […]
The Poetry Society has been announced as a supporting partner for the Mayor of London’s Borough of Culture Award. A new cultural initiative inspired by the UK City and European Capital of Culture programmes, London Borough of Culture aims to highlight how culture can bring communities together, shining a spotlight on the distinctive character of […]
York poet and long-time Poetry Society Member Helen Cadbury has died following a battle with cancer. There will be a Memorial Meeting in Helen’s memory at Friargate Quaker Meeting House, York, YO1 9RL at 2pm on Saturday 15 July, followed immediately by a celebratory tea and light refreshments at the de Grey Rooms, St Leonards […]
Ramona Herdman has won the 2017 Hamish Canham Prize with her poem ‘My name is Legion: for we are many’. The poem, one of twenty-four Poetry Society Members’ poems published in Poetry News between summer 2016 and spring 2017, was selected by judges Carole Satyamurti (chair) and a Poetry Society team of Sophie Baker, Paul […]
We are delighted to announce that Wayne Holloway-Smith’s poem ‘Short’ is the winner of The Poetry Society’s 2016 Geoffrey Dearmer Prize for the best poem in The Poetry Review during 2016. The Prize, which is awarded annually to a poem by a poet who hadn’t, at the time their work appeared, published a full collection, was […]
Poetry Society Member Mab Jones (Pontypridd) is the winner of the second Aurora Poetry Competition with her poem ‘Valli Takes a Bath’. Fellow Member Peter Wallis (Norwich), commended in the 2016 National Poetry Competition, was second with ‘Croissant’, and Members Kerry Darbishire (Cumbria), and Charlotte Baldwin (London) were Highly Commended. I step through a hatch […]
Denise Riley‘s Say Something Back, published by Picador, is the winner of this year’s Roehampton prize for best poetry collection, judged by Ahren Warner, Elaine Feinstein and Fiona Sampson. Warner described Riley’s winning collection as, “A deserving and formidable winner. It is an outstanding, intellectually rigorous, moving and yet generous book in which Riley frames […]
It’s with great sadness that we report the death, in London, of James Berry OBE, aged 93. Born in Jamaica in 1924, James was one of the first winners of the National Poetry Competition, winning with the poem ‘Fantasy of an African Boy’, in 1981. He had been suffering with Alzheimer’s Disease for some years, and […]
poetrysociety.org.uk/donate Over the past ten months The Poetry Society has been undergoing a much-needed project to transform its work and community spaces. The Poetry Café is back open for events – but now we’re asking for support in reaching the final 10% of our fundraising target and have launched a new campaign to help us reach our […]
The German poet and translator, Jan Wagner, has won Germany’s most prestigious poetry award, the Georg Büchner Prize. The €50,000 literary prize is awarded annually by the German Academy for Language and Literature to authors “writing in the German language whose work is considered especially meritorious and who have made a significant contribution to contemporary […]
Mark Pajak, who was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2014 with his poem ‘Cat on the Tracks‘, has been awarded an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. The other winners, chosen by judges Imtiaz Dharker, Carol Rumens and Ahren Warner, are Rachael Allen, Isabel Galleymore, Daisy Lafarge, Richard O’Brien and Richard Osmond. The […]
The Poetry Society and Young Poets Network are delighted to announce the launch of the fourth annual Timothy Corsellis Prize. Timothy Corsellis was a young poet and pilot killed in 1941. The Prize was set up in his name, with the support of his family, to encourage more people to read the powerful but lesser-known […]
The shortlist for the £5000 Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for second poetry collections, the first of its kind in the UK dedicated to poets’ second collections, has been selected by judges Vahni Capildeo and Tara Bergin. The biennial Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize is a response to poetry’s increasing emphasis on debuts and seeks to shine […]
Malika Booker‘s ‘Nine Nights’, which was originally published in The Poetry Review in autumn 2016, has been shortlisted for Best Single Poem in this year’s Forward Prize. Also in the running are fellow Poetry Society Member Mary Jean Chan, Harmony Holiday, Ishion Hutchinson and Ian Patterson. The winning poet will receive £1,000. From ‘Nine Nights’ […]
Scott Griffin presents the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize winners, Alice Oswald and Jordan Abel Alice Oswald’s Falling Awake, published by Jonathan Cape, and W.W. Norton & Company, is the winner of the International prize, with Jordan Abel’s Injun, published by Talonbooks, winning the Canadian prize. A renowned and award-winning poet, Oswald served on the jury […]
The Poetry Society is very pleased to announce the Peggy Poole Award: a new programme running alongside the National Poetry Competition, helping emerging writers develop their craft by giving them the chance to win a year of mentoring from a leading poet. The Peggy Poole Award has been founded in memory of the poet and […]
It is with great sadness we share the news that poet and novelist Helen Dunmore, who only recently revealed that she had been diagnosed with cancer, has died at the age of 64. Helen won the National Poetry Competition in 2009 with The Malarkey, a poem she described as about “what time takes away and how we take time for granted”. […]
Michael Longley was chosen by this year’s judges: Maureen Freely, Chair of Judges and President of English PEN; Antonia Fraser, historian, biographer and widow of Harold Pinter; Tom Gatti, culture editor of the New Statesman; award-winning poet Don Paterson and playwright Polly Stenham. Judge Don Paterson said: Michael Longley is an ideal recipient of the […]
Four winning poetry pamphlets have been chosen by judge Ian Gregson for the 2017 Cinnamon Press poetry prize, including Poetry Society Members Robin Houghton for All the Relevant Gods, A C Clarke for War Baby, plus David Gilbert and Gavin Goodwin. Among the shortlisted pamphlets by Poetry Society Members are an ache in each welcoming […]
It’s a Poetry Society 1 2 3 in the Ruskin Prize for Poetry this year. Poetry Society Member Mark Fiddes has won for his poem ‘To Maria Cayetana’. Judge Professor Fiona Sampson was greatly impressed by “its stately movement, its resolution of all the technical problems of a period and a persona piece, and the […]
The winner of this year’s Caterpillar Poetry Prize, run by the Caterpillar – an art and literature magazine for children established by the same couple that runs the Moth magazine – is Auntie Aggie by Poetry Society Member Janet Turner. It is a “ticklish poem”, according to the editor Rebecca O’Connor, that “raises a smile, […]
Alisha Kaplan from Toronto is the winner of this year’s Hippocrates Open poetry competition, with Poetry Society Members Claire Collison (London) and Rosie Jackson (Somerset) in second and third. FPM HIPPOCRATES OPEN FIRST PRIZE: ALISHA KAPLAN Alisha Kaplan is a poet from Toronto. She holds an MFA in Poetry from New York University, where she was […]
Poetry Society Member Rosie Jackson has won the £2,500 first prize in the Stanley Spencer Poetry Competition run by the Cookham festival in collaboration with the University of Reading and Two Rivers Press. Poets were invited to find inspiration for their own art in the work of Sir Stanley Spencer (1891–1959), undoubtedly one of the most admired and […]
Ian Duhig & Mimi Khalvati have chosen four Poetry Society Members as winners of the 2016/17 International Book & Pamphlet Competition. Josephine Abbott was born and grew up in Manchester, went to Sheffield University and now lives in Derbyshire. Her poems have appeared in Acumen, Agenda, Stand, Staple and other magazines. She has led poetry […]
The Saboteur Award winners have been announced, representing “literature at its most activist, fierce, and tender”… with wins for Poetry Society Members Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, and Ronnie Goodyer of Indigo Dreams. Elisabeth Sennitt Clough is the winner of Best Poetry pamphlet for Glass (Paper Swans Press) – described by voters as ‘Very accessible poems as well […]
‘Not everyone is going to like your work, and that’s ok’ Thank you to the Evening Standard for this kind profile piece on my journey, we talked poetry, young people, mental health, my recent work with @savechildrenuk & more @thestandardarts @STWevents standard.co.uk/go/london/arts… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
@PoetrySociety 1.) Eliot (and it ain't even close) 2.) MacNeice (for the provocative ambiguity) 3. / 4. Toss up. Frost's poem is just too ubiquitous (I've been in that Vermont house, good trip). Rossetti is too didactic for my tastes. Sadly my choice will lose. ...and so it goes. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
I love them all but Frost’s is the most delightful and magical: “the woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” #WinterPoemWorldCup twitter.com/PoetrySociety/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
It's gotta be Frost, I mean, even the name is Winter-y! The poem's simplicity is magnificent and fills me with such calm silence. Beautiful. ❄️❄️❄️ twitter.com/PoetrySociety/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
@PoetrySociety Oh come on, guys. That MacNeice poem is so beautiful. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Whilst I love the Carol version of 'In The Bleak Midwinter' I demand the traditionalists not win. VOTE MACNEICE! twitter.com/PoetrySociety/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Vote for Rossetti's poem! twitter.com/PoetrySociety/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Vote! #WinterPoemWorldCup THE FINAL!
— The Poetry Society (@PoetrySociety) December 2, 2019
You have ONE vote so choose wisely between Bleak Midwinter, Journey of the Magi, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Snow... winner announced Wednesday-ish...
Each to their own by which I mean to say you have to choose Rossetti or you’re wrong, right. twitter.com/poetrysociety/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Vote! #WinterPoemWorldCup THE FINAL!
— The Poetry Society (@PoetrySociety) December 2, 2019
You have ONE vote so choose wisely between Bleak Midwinter, Journey of the Magi, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Snow... winner announced Wednesday-ish...
For me I really think it's Christina Rossetti's In the Bleak Midwinter. It's just beautiful, & for me Jesus is what Christmas is all about. However it was close with Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, just for the last stanza. #Beautiful #poetry #favepoems twitter.com/PoetrySociety/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Come on, Christina!!! twitter.com/poetrysociety/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Christina Rossetti, T S Eliot, Robert Frost, Louis MacNeice... pic.twitter.com/Rte0Adg0iy
— The Poetry Society (@PoetrySociety) December 3, 2019
@hazeljlee @mrchrisaddison Yes!!❤️Love that last para in the analysis about the word 'Between' being both a wall and a bridge... Retweeted by The Poetry Society
#WinterPoemWorldCup Analysis of Stopping by Woods from sparknotes.com/poetry/frost/s… On the surface this poem is simplicity itself...
@PoetrySociety Bleak Midwinter gives the atmosphere of the topic-she really got it and when made into a carol is superb. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
