Ware Poets Competition
2024 Competition Results
We are delighted to announce the results of the Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2024 judged by Paul Stephenson.
Paul is himself a regular prizewinner in competitions. He has published three pamphlets: Those People (Smith/Doorstop, 2015), which won the Poetry Business pamphlet competition; The Days that Followed Paris (HappenStance, 2016), written after the November 2015 terrorist attacks; and Selfie with Waterlilies (Paper Swans Press, 2017). His debut full collection Hard Drive was published by Carcanet in June 2023. In 2013/14 he took part in the Jerwood/Arvon mentoring scheme and the Aldeburgh Eight, before completing an MA in Creative Writing with the Manchester Writing School.
He currently helps curate Poetry in Aldeburgh. He is a university teacher and researcher, and lives between Cambridge and Brussels.
Competition winners
1st prize - The Stigmata of Apple Mac - Damen O'Brien
2nd prize - The illusion of being a separate individual - Andy Craven-Griffiths
3rd prize - Stereotypical Teenage Gathering - Ellana Leonie Hoare
Sonnet prize - Retrograde Sonnet - Hetty Cliss
Commended poems
In no particular order:
Disparate friendship - Emily Barker
Then the sky - Vanessa Lampert
My father's dead name - Michael Henry
The last thylacine - Diana Newson
Freeways - Craig Martin Getz
Now they've converted the office block in the city centre into a Mercure hotel - Jonathan Edwards
Curlew - Tom McLaughlin
Best Not To Bring It Up - Hetty Cliss
Plovers are Shore Birds - Adam Clifford
Whitton - Christian Ward
Masculinity - Julian Bishop
The Language of Rabbits - A glossary of familiar terms - Charlotte Old
We took the car to where the line ends - Carolyn Whitnall
Letting things lie - Hetty Cliss
Dandelion timebomb - Jill Sharp
A History of the Twentieth Century - Terry Jones
Dedicated to Sara - Terry Jones
Hiding in Naples - Julian Bishop
The Plant - Aidan Casey
Our hearty congratulations to all of the above! And a big thank you to our judge, Paul Stephenson, and to all the poets who submitted their poems. The prizewinning poems will be published on this website after our prizegiving event on the evening of Friday, 13 September 2024, at Ware Arts Centre, Kibes Lane, Ware, Herts., SG12 7BS, to which all are welcome. The evening will begin at 8pm and will end at 10pm. Entry is free. All prizewinning and commended poems will be read at the event, and all will be published in our competition anthology, which will be available at a cover price of £5. If you are unable to attend the event but wish to receive a copy of the anthology, please email your order to the Competition Secretary at warepoetscomp@gmail.com.
Posted on 29 August 2024
Ware Poets Competition
Ware Poets have run a competition for each of the past 25 years, offering poets the hope of success, hope that their way with words will resonate with the judge and reach a wider public in the anthology, maybe even win a cash prize. It offers the judge an opportunity to perform a critical assessment and offer advice.
The competition has become well known and well regarded. It has attracted judges with a high profile in the poetry world, and poems from poets both established and previously unknown have been included in the anthologies. Entries are received from throughout the United Kingdom and abroad. Winning poems are entered for the Forward Prize.
Some copies of previous competition anthologies are still available: please contact the competition secretary for details.
Previous judges
Sophie Hannah
Ken Smith
Anne-Marie Fyfe
Michael Laskey
Mimi Khalvati
Martyn Crucefix
Judi Benson
George Szirtes
Tamar Yoseloff
John Mole
Pat Borthwick
Robert Seatter
Carole Satyamurti
Dean Parkin
Susan Utting
Roddy Lumsden
Carrie Etter
Philip Gross
Hannah Lowe
John Greening
Maggie Butt
Glyn Maxwell
Kim Moore
Jonathan Edwards
Greta Stoddart