We have now received the results of the 2024 Nature and Place Poetry Competition back from Zaffar Kunial and are delighted to announce that the winners are:
1st Prize of £1000 – ‘Fox’ – Marianne MacRae
2nd Prize of £500 – ‘Extinction Submission’ – AV Bridgwood
3rd Prize of £250 – ‘Deluge’ – Tim Tim Cheng
The three prize winning poems will be published in issue 102 of The Rialto.
Zaffar also selected seven highly commended poems:
‘Twenty Minutes After Sunset’ – Jo Dixon
‘Ode to a Giant Puffball’ – Sam Phipps
‘Extracts from Finches’ – Ian Dudley
‘Fricatives of the Western Wood Peewee’ – Isi Unikowski
‘shell.smile.tribes’ – Kirsten Luckins
‘The Woman in the Snow’ – Lucy Watt
‘Ode to a Cornish Hedge’ – Pascale Petit
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 3000 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 Zaffar 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 Zaffar Kunial and our winners. This is planned for Wednesday 14th August. 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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Sprout |
Alicia Byrne Keane |
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wait for light now |
Alison J Barton |
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Acairsaid Mhor Gometra |
Anna Selby |
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Gaia Observes A Human Being |
Anna Selby |
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Woodlouse |
Anne berkeley |
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Coral Snake |
Anthony Lawrence |
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February Cotswolds Walk |
Aoife Mannix |
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Extinction Submission |
AV Bridgwood |
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Call Your Dad |
AV Bridgwood |
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Mythology |
Ben Verinder |
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55 |
Bex Hainsworth |
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Western Pygmy Possum, Eyre |
Cath Drake |
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First Sun |
Christian Ward |
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This morning’s birdsong, transcribed |
Claire Collison |
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An overall net gain for displaced bird species |
Claire Miller |
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A Turtle Carrying More Than Home |
David Bottomley |
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For The Re-Homing Team |
David Garbutt |
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Horse From the Bathroom Window |
David Gilbert |
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Shell/Skull: meditations on a brain tumour diagnosis |
Di Slaney |
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The lack |
Di Slaney |
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Asinus Minor |
Di Slaney |
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The Death of a Foal |
Finola Cahill |
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Collecting |
Fiona Moore |
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Song of the Lochs |
Fiona Moore |
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As The Platypus Does |
Freya Bantiff |
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Kakapao Egg Earth |
Freya Bantiff |
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When I Say I Want Children |
Freya Bantiff |
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The Brief Moment of Grace of a Pigeon |
Gareth Flint |
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Extracts IV, V, IX, and XI from Finches |
Ian Dudley |
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Fricatives of the Western Wood Peewee |
Isi Unikowski |
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Sometimes they Recover |
Jane Routh |
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Were You Born in a Field? |
Janet Dean |
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Edinburgh to Fionnphort |
Jay Whittaker |
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Designated Land |
Jennifer Edgecombe |
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Starry Starry Night |
Jenny McRobert |
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Birds & Powerlines |
Jey Ley |
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Gulls cry on dry tomb |
Jo Davis |
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Twenty Minutes After Sunset |
Jo Dixon |
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Calm Within The Pyrocene |
Jo Lyons |
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Early Almond |
Joanna Wright |
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In another life |
Julia Deakin |
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Cull |
Karan Chambers |
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Mushrooms |
Kaycee Hil |
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Take Me With You |
Kerry Darbishire |
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Be With |
Kevin Smith |
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shell.smile.tribes |
Kirsten Luckins |
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The Character of Small English Villages is Inevitably Sinister |
Kym Deyn |
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Detail of bees on a French lace fichu, early 19th Century |
Laura McKee |
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what I learned from the nurse at my mother’s care home |
Laura McKee |
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The Tuesday Swim Club Meets a New Member |
Lesley Curwen |
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Panamanian Gold |
Linda Goulden |
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This Lizard |
Linda Goulden |
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Luscinia: a poem for a wounded songline |
Lindsay McLeod Espinoza |
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Wild Swimming |
Liz Byrne |
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Bird |
Lorna Meehan |
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Peacock in the Car Park |
Louise G Cole |
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The Woman In The Snow |
Lucy Watt |
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Bombs are falling but not here |
Maria Ferguson |
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A letter to my husband from the Northumbrian coast |
Maria Ferguson |
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To the sea, I must go to the sea, the sea is life |
Mariam Saidan |
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because I did not want to stay indoors |
Marianne MacRae |
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Fox |
Marianne MacRae |
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Rules of Wolf |
Marie-Louise Eyres |
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Afternoons – I walk beside you |
Matt Nicholson |
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Sea Foam |
Michael Askew |
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Snow Globe |
Miyo Jade Jappie |
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One hundred animals |
Nadine El-Enany |
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The New Carthaginian |
Nick Makoha |
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Ode to a Cornish Hedge |
Pascale Petit |
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Maman Argiope |
Pascale Petit |
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The Lexicon of Extinction |
Paul Murray |
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A Foreign Country |
Peter Wellby |
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What Did You Do With All That Sky In Summer |
Poppy Stevens |
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Please Accept My Condolences |
Rachael Clyne |
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Wormwood moonshiner (Amara fusca) |
Rachel Bower |
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For So Long |
Raya Yarbrough |
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Saint Gilles |
Robert Maslen |
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On Clapham Common |
Rory Meade |
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I did a good job |
Sam Gluck |
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Ode to a Giant Puffball |
Sam Phipps |
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Land Nor River Never Said |
Sam Phipps |
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Swans |
Sam Szanto |
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I bloody love toads |
Sandra Noel |
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North Star |
Sarah-Clare Conlon |
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Purple Sprouting Broccoli |
Simon Gardner |
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Only some of this is true |
Sophia Argyris |
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Blue-Ringed Octopus |
Sue Proffitt |
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1964 To Noroway o’er the Faem |
Susan Holland |
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Grief |
Susan Holland |
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Song Thrush Nesting In My Own Back Garden |
Suzanne Iuppa |
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Return |
Tamara Evans |
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Deluge |
Tim Tim Cheng |
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The Poetry Group Takes A Walk In Ashdown Forest. |
Veronica Beedham |
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in response to bracken |
Victoria Gatehouse |
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Twenty-One in a Field |
Victoria Gatehouse |
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On the Red List |
Virginia Griem |