Jane Aspinall (Second Prize)
Poetry Means Prizes. At least for some… and it is definitely prizes time for Welsh National Literature Development Agency and Society for Authors Academi this month. This time it is the turn of their 2010 Cardiff International Poetry Competition. The winning poets and their respective poems were announced by Poetry Waleseditor and competition judge Zoë Skoulding and National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarkeat a posh lunch at St. David’s Hotel & Spa in Cardiff Bay yesterday.
The 2010 competition was judged by Zoë Skoulding and Jackie Kay, with Tiffany Atkinson as filter judge. Here’s who they chose as the best-best-best:
First Prize – £5,000! – was awarded to Giles Goodland from West London for his poem The Bees which the judges described as ‘not so much a poem about bees as a poem that does something bee-like, cross-pollinating words to make a landscape that sings in an unexpectedly fertile language.’ Giles, who works in Oxford as a lexicographer, has published a number of poetry collections the most recent being Near Myths (Oystercatcher, 2010).
Second Prize of £500 was awarded to Jane Aspinall, a university senior lecturer in law and management from the Wirral, for her poem Tambourine. A pamphlet of Jane’s poetry called American Shadow will be published by Smith Doorstop Books this June.
Marilyn Jenkins from Llantwit Fardre was awarded Third Prize of £250 for her poem Taking Delivery which the judges described as “a brilliant example of how a poem can work through letting objects do the emoting”. Marilyn, who is a member of Academi, had her first collection of poetry, Close Distances, published by Cinnamon Press in 2007.
The five runners-up in the competition each receiving £50 were:
- John Leslie Brooke from Worcestershire for his poem Tswana
- Naomi Foyle from Brighton for her poem Shaking the Bottle
- Atar Hadari from London for his poem Two Kids
- Jane Kirwan from London for her poem Lásko
- Hugh McMillan from Dumfries and Galloway for his poem My Father from Extant Sources
Academi Boss Peter Finch is never short of words at these occasions, and waxed lyrical about the competition, claiming it: ‘fixes the city of Cardiff right in the heart of the poetry world. 2010 was a bumper year in terms of both number of entries and the quality of the poems. The winner, Giles Goodland has proved himself to be a world class poet. Cardiff is a now cultural epicentre. In these guises long may they both continue.’
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