We have now received the results of the 2023 Nature and Place Poetry Competition back from Ian McMillan and are delighted to announce that the winners are:
1st Prize of £1000 – ‘Kharkiv Zoo’ – Anastasia Taylor-Lind
2nd Prize of £500 – ‘Spoons’ – Jo Bratten
3rd Prize of £250 – ‘I wanted to show you a donkey in the field or I want to show you the donkey in a field’ – Lisa Kelly
The three prize winning poems will be published in issue 101 of The Rialto.
Ian also selected five highly commended poems:
‘What the Dragonfly Told Me’ – Rosie Hadden
‘Synecdoche’ – David Nash
‘How to Make an Elephant’ – Robert Seatter
‘The Knowledge’ – Sam Phipps
‘At Cart Gap’ – Jane Wilkinson
The link to the Long List below is not a list of all the poems submitted to the competition, it lists those poems that were still in the running right to up to the late stages of the judging. Please don’t be disheartened if your work doesn’t appear on this list! Once again, we had a huge response to the competition, receiving around 2600 poems from 1250 poets.
The quality of the writing submitted and the deep engagement with our theme is always astonishing and indeed heartening. Every poem entered makes a difference to nature and poetry.
Many thanks to Ian for his generosity in working with us and indeed to all of you who entered.
We will shortly be announcing details of an event that will feature a reading by Ian McMillan and our winners. This is planned for Monday 3rd July. Further details will be announced in due course.
Long list
Please be aware the long list is only representative of a part of the process of selection and does not include all entrants. The judging is a difficult process of elimination, from the thousands of poems received one hundred or so poems go on to the long list, a short list is then compiled and from that a list of winners and highly commended poems.
We are grateful for all submissions, the standard this year was exceptional.
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Winter Plumage, 31 |
Aidan Tulloch |
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Kharkiv Zoo |
Anastasia Taylor-Lind |
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Natures |
Angela Beese |
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Quest |
Angela Beese |
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Tutae Kehua (Ghost Dung) |
Anna Hansell |
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The geese are heading home again |
Anna Kibbey |
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Warden |
Anna Milan |
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Adonis Blue at the Gasometer |
Annie Kerr |
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Trinco Triptych |
Bel Wallace |
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Prayer to the Octopus |
Bel Wallace |
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Values |
Ben Verinder |
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Hornet |
Caleb Parkin |
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Twitcher |
Carole Bromley |
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Disorientation |
Caroline Smith |
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To Frank, Our Gallant Goldfish Dead These Thirty Years |
Carolyn Oliver |
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Bearings |
Claire Cox |
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Astrop Healing Well – Genius Loci |
Claire Cox |
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Andrew the Financial Adviser going naked into the woods |
Cy Forrest |
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Crow-speak |
Daniela Cregan |
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storms over Kansas |
Daniela Cregan |
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Turlough |
David Nash |
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Synecdoche |
David Nash |
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Imaginary Farmer |
David Nash |
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The Opposite of a Cow |
David Nash |
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slip face |
Eliza O’Toole |
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Feral Parakeet |
Elspeth McLean |
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Bank Holiday |
Erica Jane Morris |
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Howlet’s House |
Giles Goodland |
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Today |
Gill Connors |
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Night Meditation |
Harry Man |
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Let me tell you a story |
Helen Scadding |
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Making Tea |
Iain Whiteley |
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Noah’s Imaginary Pett |
Ioannis Kalkounos |
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Blackbird (or Merle in French) |
Jade Brooke-Langham |
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The Adoration |
James Caruth |
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Coracle |
Jane Clarke |
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Sometimes they recover |
Jane Routh |
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At Cart Gap |
Jane Wilkinson |
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Dinner time at Aberdaron beach |
Jane Wilkinson |
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Salt-cured dogfish found on shingle beach |
Jane Wilkinson |
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Zoomorphs at Quiriguá |
Jeffrey Gray |
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Hearsay |
Jenny Lewis |
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Ensō |
Jill Abram |
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Spoons |
Jo Bratten |
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On Going to See the Bears at The Wild Place Project, Bristol, and Not Seeing Them |
Jonathan Edwards |
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The Strange Ones |
Jonathan Rulton |
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Sometime Before Dawn, Oliver Price Swings By in His Turquoise and White Pickup |
Justin Hunt |
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Saturday at the Canal |
Kathleen Winter |
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Kin |
Kathryn Pallant |
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Looking for a cure in parks and gardens |
Kathy Pimlott |
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Returning to Riverside |
Keith Chandler |
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Please cut open my chest! |
Kinslee Sikes |
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Bestiary |
Lesley Saunders |
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Fuck Nature |
Lianne O’Hara |
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The Heart Bird |
Lindsey Holland |
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I wanted to show you a donkey in the field or I want to show you the donkey in a field |
Lisa Kelly |
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Smoking earth’s opium |
Lucy Watt |
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Thornley |
Mark Corcoran |
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Smokehouse Garden |
Mark Totterdell |
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Little Egret |
Mark Wilmot |
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waste |
Mary Mulholland |
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Dowager |
Matthew Salyer |
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Carrier |
Matthew Salyer |
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In an experiment with rabbits buried at 35cm depth |
Melanie Banim |
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Cuttle |
Meredi Ortega |
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Under a Bridge |
Meredi Ortega |
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Hedge |
Mick Wood |
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The idea is to watch the sunset |
Nadine El-Enany |
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The Aquamarine, the Ambergris |
Nichola Deane |
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Home Time |
Nicola Healey |
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Deep-sea Fish |
Nicola Healey |
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Palmyra 2010 |
Nigel Pantling |
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Silver Birches |
Paul Stephenson |
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Elvis Worms |
Peter Viggers |
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Vacant Plot |
Peter Wallis |
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The Poetry Shed |
Philip Burton |
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The dream garden |
Ramona Herdman |
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we saw deer |
Rebecca Goss |
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Home Alone |
Rhona Stephens |
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Google Street View |
Richard Strickland |
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Where There’s a Way |
Robert Maslen |
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How to Make an Elephant |
Robert Seatter |
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Greenland Shark |
Rosamund Taylor |
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What the Dragonfly told me |
Rosie Hadden |
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Sparrowhawk, The Tells the World He Doesn’t Work Alone |
Rupert Smith |
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The Knowledge |
Sam Phipps |
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Gannets |
Sarah Gibbons |
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The Afterthought |
Sarah Gibbons |
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The Swimming Champion Is At Sea |
Tania Hershman |
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Maybugs |
Terry O’Brien |
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Crossing |
Tim Relf |
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At night, the ‘giant Irish elk’ is wandering in the National Museum of Scotland |
Wendelin Law |
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A Small Compass Where the Wild Birds Fly |
Winifred McNulty |