Poetry Competition Winners

We had a really good meeting on Wednesday evening with our judge, Fiona Theokritoff, and attendees both in person at Newark library and online. As well as announcing the winners we had a great discussion around the motivations and inspiration behind our poems on the theme of Absence, many of which were powerful explorations of the subject.

First Place – Lesley Burt of Christchurch for “Thoughts of O’Hara in Wet Weather“

Second Place – Anne McDonough for “The Death of the Exile“

Third Place – Louise Wilford of Barnsley for “Now You Are Old“

Highly Commended:

• Louise Wilford for “A Funny Turn“
• Terry Jones of Windsor for “Poetry of Departures“
• Julie Bardill of Bingham, Notts, for “The Persistent Presence of Absence“

Commended for excellent use of short form poetry:

• Iain McGrath of Newark for “Cold Comfort“
• Lucy Goodman of Cambridgeshire for “Empty“

Thanks to everyone who submitted their entries, there were some very powerful and emotional poems and Fiona had a tough job picking the winners. We will post the winning entries on our website in the next week or so.