National Poetry Competition

Annual British poetry competition

Carol Ann Duffy, the UK poet laureate, winner in 1983

The National Poetry Competition is an annual poetry prize established in 1978 in the United Kingdom.[1] It is run by UK-based The Poetry Society and accepts entries from all over the world, with over 10,000 poems being submitted to the competition each year. Winning has been an important milestone in the careers of many well-known poets.

Carol Ann Duffy, the UK Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019, won in 1983 with "Whoever She Was". Looking back, in 2007 she commented: "in those days, one was still called a 'poetess' – so it meant a lot, as a young woman poet, to begin to try to change that".[2] Christopher James, the 2008 winner, commented "if there is an unspoken Grand Slam circuit for poetry prizes, then the National Poetry Competition is definitely Wimbledon – it's the one everyone dreams of winning".[3] Other prestigious names to have won the competition include Ruth Padel, Jo Shapcott, Sinéad Morrissey, Ian Duhig, Colette Bryce and the poet and novelist Helen Dunmore.[4]

Melanie Drane was the first non-British to win, in 2005.[5][6]

The competition runs annually, opening in the spring and closing at the end of October. A new team of judges (made up of three respected poets) is announced each year. The first prize is £5,000 and the top three winners are published in Britain's leading poetry magazine, The Poetry Review.

Winners

Year Author Title Ref
1978 Michael Hulse "Dole Queue"
1979 Medbh McGuckian "The Flitting"
1980 Tony Harrison "Timer"
1981 James Berry "Fantasy of an African Boy"
1982 Philip Gross "The Ice Factory"
1983 Carol Ann Duffy "Whoever She Was"
1984 Tony Curtis "The Death of Richard Beattie-Seaman in Belgian Grand Prix, 1939"
1985 Jo Shapcott "The Surrealists' Summer Convention Came to Our City"
1986 Carole Satyamurti "Between the Lines"
1987 Ian Duhig "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen"
1988 Martin Reed "The Widow's Dream"
1989 William Scammell "A World Elsewhere"
1990 Nicky Rice "Room Service"
1991 Jo Shapcott "Phrase Book"
John Levett "A Shrunken Head"
1992 Stephen Knight "The Mermaid Tank"
1993 Sam Gardiner "Protestant Windows"
1994 David Hart "The Silkies"
1995 James Harpur "The Frame of Furnace Light"
1996 Ruth Padel "Icicles Round a Tree in Dumfriesshire"
1997 Neil Rollinson "Constellations"
1998 Caroline Carver "horse underwater"
1999 Simon Rae "Believed"
2000 Ian Duhig "The Lammas Hireling"
2001 Beatrice Garland "undressing"
2002 Julia Copus "Breaking the Rule"
2003 Colette Bryce "The Full Indian Rope Trick"
2004 Jon Sait "Homeland"
2005 Melanie Drane "The Year the Rice-Crop Failed" [7][8]
2006 Mike Barlow "The Third Wife"
2007 Sinéad Morrissey "Through the Square Window"
2008 Christopher James "Farewell to the Earth"
2009 Helen Dunmore "The Malarkey"
2010 Paul Adrian "Robin in Flight"
2011 Allison McVety "To the Lighthouse"
2012 Patricia McCarthy "Clothes That Escaped the Great War" [9]
2013 Linda France "Bernard and Cerinthe"
2014 Roger Philip Dennis "Corkscrew Hill Photo"
2015 Eric Berlin "Night Errand"
2016 Stephen Sexton "The Curfew"
2017 Dom Bury "The Opened Field"
2018 Wayne Holloway-Smith "The posh mums are boxing in the square"
2019 Susannah Hart "Reading the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy" [10]
2020 Marvin Thompson "The Fruit of the Spirit Is Love (Galatians 5:22)" [11]
2021 Eric Yip "Fricatives" [12][13]
2022 Lee Stockdale "My Dead Father's General Store in the Middle of a Desert"
2023 Imogen Wade "The Time I Was Mugged in New York City" [14]

References

  1. ^ "National Poetry Competition – The Poetry Society". www.poetrysociety.org.uk. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  2. ^ "The Poetry Society (National Poetry Competition 1983)". Archived from the original on 29 March 2010. Retrieved 31 December 2009.
  3. ^ Flood, Alison (25 March 2009). "Christopher James wins the National Poetry Competition". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  4. ^ Flood, Alison (30 March 2010). "Helen Dunmore wins National Poetry Competition". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  5. ^ "Melanie Drane | HuffPost". www.huffpost.com.
  6. ^ "Melanie Drane – The Poetry Society: Poems". poems.poetrysociety.org.uk.
  7. ^ "Melanie Drane | HuffPost". www.huffpost.com.
  8. ^ "Melanie Drane – The Poetry Society: Poems". poems.poetrysociety.org.uk.
  9. ^ Flood, Alison (27 March 2013). "First world war poem wins National Poetry Competition 2013". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  10. ^ "The winner of the 2019 National Poetry Competition is Susannah Hart". The Poetry Society.
  11. ^ "National Poetry Competition: History". poetrysociety.org.uk. The Poetry Society. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  12. ^ "f與th說離與散 劍橋港生奪英詩冠軍 盼探討港變化離散者內疚情緒". Ming Pao (in Chinese). 2 April 2022.
  13. ^ Shaffi, Sarah (31 March 2022). "National Poetry Competition has its youngest ever winner". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
  14. ^ The Poetry Society. "Imogen Wade Wins the National Poetry Competition".
  • The Poetry Society (National Poetry Competition)