We have now received the results of the 2021 Nature and Place Poetry Competition back from Daljit Nagra and are delighted to announce that the winners are:

1st Prize of £1000 – ‘They say you sleep 1/3 of your life in the dark with animals’ by Simon Costello
2nd Prize of £500 – ‘the eighteenth brumaire’ – Dipanjali Roy
3rd Prize of £250 – ‘Marshall Mount Road at Dusk’ – Peter Ramm
Additional Prize of A personal tour of Wicken Fen with Nick Davies  -‘Reasons for Sanderlings’ by Jane Lovell

The four prize winning poems will be published in issue 97 of The Rialto.

Daljit also selected eight highly commended poems:

‘Sexing Chicks’ by Ali Lewis
‘Feeding my period blood to the Wordsworths’ garden’ by Anna Selby
‘Psalm’ by David Underdown
‘Puir Finch’ by Douglas McKenzie
‘Route Canal’ by Mantra Mukim
‘Wolves of Chernobyl’ by Ned Balbo
‘Magpie’ by Rich Ware
‘The Bowl’ by Tristram Fane Saunders

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 3100 poems from 1500 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 Daljit and Nick Davies for their 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 Daljit Nagra and our winners. This is planned for Wednesday 7th 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.
 
The Mackerel Past

 Ali Lewis

The Sprung Bulb

 Ali Lewis

Countryside

Ali Lewis

Sexing Chicks

Ali Lewis

Beneath the Carob tree

Ana Reisens

Bliss

Angela Cleland

Fortune’s Nursery

Angela Cleland

Beachcomber Strew

 Ann Wade

After The Phone Call I Stumble

Anna Selby

Feeding My Period Blood to the Wordsworths’ Garden

Anna Selby

Axillary Seabream, Pagellus acarne

Anna Selby

The Heron-Priested Shore

 Basil du Toit 

Rabbit Stew

Ben Wilkinson

Tongued

Bethan Roberts

The Starling Committee Decides

Caleb Parkin

Young animal

Caleb Parkin

On Ice

Camille Ralphs

Kangaroos can’t jump backwards

Chrissie Dreier

Night Away

Cian Ferriter

First on the scene

Claire Cox

Summit Disease

Clive McWilliam

Laying Down Our Burden

Courtney Conrad

Coffin Lane

Dan Stathers 

Contrail

David Cairns

Ripped

David Garbutt

Treecreeper in Crow Wood

David Underdown

Psalm

David Underdown

Furrow

David Underdown

the eighteenth brumaire

Dipanjali Roy

Puir Finch

Douglas McKenzie

Limax trapeze

E Walker

It’s Alright, That’s Love 

Ed Briggs

Language Therapy

Elena Croitoru

Seawater, Clay

Elena Croitoru

groundswell at the flood-prone landfill site and i

 Elisabeth Sennitt Clough

Mushrooms on the Roadside in South Dartmouth, After the Protests, 2020

Emily Franklin

Deer

Emma Hellyer

Lightbox

Helen Ivory

Na h-Eileanan an Iar 

Fiona Moore

Ritual Gestures / The Art of Dressing Fleas

Holly Moberley

Attenborough, of course

Hugh Dunkerley

A Curlew Cries

Hugh McMillan

#succulove: a vlog

Jade Cuttle

Observations on the Organic Remains Contained in Caves

Jane Houston

Reasons for Sanderlings

Jane Lovell 

On Finding a 500 Year old Clam

Jane Lovell 

Plague

Jane Pearn

Prayer

Jane Routh

As if floating North

Jane Wheeler

Bid Delia

Jane Wheeler

Migrants

Jay Bagaria

Rewilding

 Jen Feroze

Cuckoo

Jeremy Hughes

Field Centre

Joanne Dixon

Brick

 John Foggin

Found Art

John Wedgwood Clarke

 Red River Revolutionary

John Wedgwood Clarke

Dinner For Two

Josh Cake

A portrait. My Grandfather

Katalina Bernane

Walking the ridge at Suttin Gault

Kate Arthur

Mother

Kate Arthur

Gritstone Country

Kate Murray

Lantern

 Ken Cockburn

Blue Rope

Leonie Charlton

The Starlings

 Lesley Saunders

Done up by the landlord 

Luke Samuel Yates

Shame

 Mandy Haggith

Tui

 Mandy Haggith

Route Canal

Mantra Mukim

Newtok

Margaret Wilmot

Rules of Wolf

Marie-Louise Eyres

Mr. Day

Mark Hamilton

Steatoda

Mark Totterdel

Hens

Martin Edwards

The Morning

Martin Figura

Blackspot

Mary-Jane Holmes

Stiffkey

Michael Durrant

Iona

Nairn Kennedy

The Wolves of Chernobyl

Ned Balbo

Sky Days Like These

Niamh MacCabe

On Our Lady’s Bedstraw (close to tipping point)

Norman Franke

The Workforce

Owen Gallagher

Starlings, Granada

Paul Stephenson

Wolvercote

Penny Sharman

Marshal Mount Road at Dusk

Peter Ramm

Glassworms

Rebekah Miron

Dredging 

Rich Ware

Magpie

Rich Ware

After Man

Sarah Davies 

Now showing: the Anthropocene

Sari Cunningham

T. alba

 Shirin Jindani

They Say You Sleep 1/3 Of Your Life In The Dark With Animals

 Simon Costello

Polaroid of a girl from Pennsylvania 

Stacey Forbes

La Liebre, before a storm

Stacey Forbes

May

Sue Kindon

Pangolin 

Sue Norton

Still Life With Octopus

 Tania Hershman

Umbilicus

Tanya Gautum

The Bowl

Tristram Fane Saunders

Formation Flying

Victoria Gatehouse