We have now received the results of the 2022 Nature and Place Poetry Competition back from Gillian Clarke and are delighted to announce that the winners are:
1st Prize of £1000 – ‘Blame the Fox’ by Jane Lovell
2nd Prize of £500 – ‘Whales in the Forth’ by Cecilia Rose
3rd Prize of £250 – ‘Ghosts’ by Lesley Saunders
The three prize winning poems will be published in issue 99 of The Rialto.
Gillian also selected eight highly commended poems:
‘Heeling in at Lower Wood’ by Alison Binney
‘Trapper’ by Nicky Kippax
‘Hymn to Sheep’ by Mary Mulholland
‘Letter from the Moon’ by Christine Macfarlane
‘October’ by Candida Elton
‘The End of Things’ by Anthony Lawrence
‘The Whale Watching’ by Jonathan Greenhause
‘Cae Ysbyty’ by Rachael Davey
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 2800 poems from 1350 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 Gillian for her generosity in working with us and indeed to all of you who entered.
We will shortly be announcing details of the free online event that will feature a reading by Gillian Clarke and our winners. This is planned for Wednesday 6th 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.
| Dutton Meadow | Alison Binney |
| Heeling in at Lower Wood | Alison Binney |
| The End of Things | Anthony Lawrence |
| The Clearing | Bill Dodd |
| bloody excellent canopy | Brent Cantwell |
| Archive | Caleb Parkin |
| October | Candida Elton |
| Piscinas Naturales Los Abrigos | Carmina Masoliver |
| Reinventing the Pig | Catherine Ormell |
| Whales in the Forth | Cecilia Rose |
| Fruit Bat | Charlotte Wetton |
| Lindamar Beach Clean Up | Christina Lloyd |
| Letter from the Moon | Christine Macfarlane |
| The skulls at Brechfa | Christopher Meredith |
| An overall net gain for displaced bird species | Claire Miller |
| The View from Here | Claire Orchard |
| Wild Life | Claire Orchard |
| Wormwood Scrubs | Clare Sandling |
| Wandering Heart | Clive McWilliam |
| The Last Birds | Damen O’Brien |
| Lion’s Mane Mushroom | Dan MacIsaac |
| Storm Petrels | David Healey |
| Bog Butter | David Nash |
| Asinus Minor | Di Slaney |
| Shaconage | Duncan Wu |
| Big Barn Migration | DW Evans |
| Fish at the quarry | Elizabeth Gibson |
| Plastic | Helen Pletts |
| Ollie the Octopus | Hilary Menos |
| The Texas Tattooed Pig as Art Critic | Hilary Menos |
| Sydney Harbour’s Blue-Ringed Octopus | Ian Pettit |
| In the Purple | J Garvey |
| maybe dying is easy | Jamie Hale |
| An Accidental Lexicon | Jane Callan |
| Blame the Fox | Jane Lovell |
| Malus sylvestris, 60-90 cm, January 2022 | Jane Routh |
| Mazed | Jane Wheeler |
| Myxy | Jane Wilkinson |
| As the Gentle Rain | Janet Hatherley |
| In the Spared Heart Kindled of Turf and Clouds | Jennifer Militello |
| Skein | Jill Munro |
| About Ticks | Jim McElroy |
| Oligarchias | Jo Davis |
| Indifference : at the old Oparara Goldfields | John Gallas |
| On Going to See the Bears at The Wild Place Project, Bristol, and Not Seeing Them | Jonathan Edwards |
| The Whale Watching | Jonathan Greenhause |
| Cyprus Well | Judy O’Kane |
| Wet Wipe Reef | Julian Bishop |
| A Drigg glossary | Julian Dobson |
| How Time Works on the Southern Plains | Justin Hunt |
| Amplification | Kali Richmond |
| Woodpecker | Kathy Miles |
| Whale Watching in the Arctic Circle | Kerry Ryan |
| Protection | Kristen Lang |
| After a thin snow | L A Watt |
| there goes the red horse again | Laura McKee |
| A Lush World in Ruins | Leo Boix |
| Ghosts | Lesley Saunders |
| Revolution | Lesley Sharpe |
| Alba | Linda France |
| By the end of June the earth was flat again | Liz Houchin |
| Snow Nights | Luke Allan |
| Sheep at Heathrow | Lydia MacKinnon |
| Withens | Lydia MacKinnon |
| My Son at Cuckmere Haven Canoe Club | Mara Bergman |
| Brood X | Marie-Louise Eyres |
| Hymn to Sheep | Mary Mulholland |
| A Premonition | Michael Greavy |
| Unmooring | Michael Greavy |
| An unsung song | Mike Barlow |
| Hope is a zombie frog | Molly Underwood |
| Salmon on the Garry | Morag Smith |
| Salvage From The Sky Days | Niamh Mac Cabe |
| Terms of the Tail | Nicky Hallett |
| Trapper | Nicky Kippax |
| Buds | Nicola Healey |
| Death of a Field Mouse | Nicola Healey |
| An Australian Summer | Oliver Cocks |
| for we are young and free | Olivia Tuck |
| Walking the Dales | Paul Stephenson |
| A Boy Digging | Peter Wallis |
| Mother Scorpion Thicktail | Prerana Kumar |
| Cae Ysbyty | Rachael Davey |
| Hindsight is a map | Rachel Baum |
| Concerning the principle underwriting several questions left at the Nature Table | Roger Elkin |
| A Stone Pond Below Kashyem | Roop Majumdar |
| Whooper Swans | Rosie Rockel |
| Upkeep | Rowan Lyster |
| The Road | Sally St Clair |
| Mistletoe | Sam Garvan |
| Acorn | Sarah Westcott |
| If Time Were a Colour | Serena Alagappan |
| Shop Local | Serena Alagappan |
| Love song of a lesser girl | Stacey R. Forbes |
| Excess | Sue Burge |
| Sublimation | Sue Burge |
| Flint | Thea Smiley |
| Uncaged | Theresa Sowerby |
| no ice today | Tiffany Murray |
| The Day Comes When I Can’t Hear The Crickets | Victoria Gatehouse |
| At the Autumn Equinox | Virginia Astley |