Nature and Place winners 2025
We have now received the results of the 2025 Nature and Place Poetry Competition back from Helen Mort and are delighted to announce that the winners are:
1st Prize of £1000 – ‘Beryl’ – Rosamund Taylor
2nd Prize of £500 – ‘crossing fields’ – Wendelin Law
3rd Prize of £250 – ‘Deer sighting, late July’ – Victoria Spires
The three prize winning poems will be published in issue 103 of The Rialto.
Helen also selected eight highly commended poems:
‘Bryology’ – Corinna Board
‘Moth goes for an X-ray and you are the radiologist’ – Eden Wright
‘How to pick walnuts in Iran’’ – Jenny McRobert
‘The soil archives her hoofprints’ – Molly Twomey
‘Two horses running through the streets of central London’ – Di Slaney
‘The Children’ – Sarah Westcott
‘Buttercups’ – Grace Copeland
‘When the fieldfares’ – Matthew Gilbert
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 3500 poems from 1600 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 Helen for her generosity in working with us and indeed to all of you who entered.
The competition event featuring a reading from Helen Mort and the winners reading their poems will take place at 7pm on Monday 7th July. The event will be hosted by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.
The event is free and you can attend either in person in Cambridge or join us online through Zoom. You can book your place here:
https://www.cambridgeconservation.org/event/the-rialto-nature-place-poetry-competition-readings/
The 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 Gastropods Rain Dance | Alice Stainer |
| Bob Marley Beach | Amílcar Peter Sanatan |
| Pressed | Anastasia Taylor-Lind |
| Eden | Anna Mindel Crawford |
| Jellyfish Watch, Rùm | Anna Selby |
| In your sights | Arabella Currie |
| Lad Taxonomy | Aruna Stannard |
| The mountain hare | Ben Verinder |
| ANOTHER POEM ABOUT A SMALL MANGLED SCRAP OF SKIN AND TEETH LYING BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD | C.P. Nield |
| Garden Mouse | C.P. Nield |
| a nest of finches (on the platform at Jerez Airport) | Camilla Nelson |
| not yet night | Cathra Kelliher |
| Nordic Journey | Christine Spencer |
| Bryology | Corinna Board |
| You Find a Fox Skull | Corinna Board |
| Two horses running through the streets of Central London | Di Slaney |
| Of Course | Dick Smith |
| Moth Goes for an X-ray and you are the Raidographer | Eden Wright |
| the way a curlew calls through you | Elaine Desmond |
| Reading the Hill | Elizabeth Rimmer |
| Flower-girl | Ellen Pigott |
| The end of summer | Ellen Pigott |
| Silver Y | Emma Must |
| An Admiration of Dairy Thieves | Finola Cahill |
| Cygnus | Gillian Dawson |
| Buttercups | Grace Copeland |
| Maps | Grace Copeland |
| Six Eagles | Iain Roden |
| No More Talk of Curses | Jade Angeles Fitton |
| Clay, or the Ode to Nabu | James Dowthwaite |
| Stormcock | Jane Lovell |
| Fireweed | Jane Lovell |
| For the mournful tree | Jane McKie |
| Harvest Hymn | Jennifer Edgecombe |
| The Red-Legged Partridge | Jennifer Vuglar |
| Apocalypse on a starry night | Jenny McRobert |
| How to pick walnuts in Iran | Jenny McRobert |
| Meanwhile in Arcadia | Jo Bratten |
| Nature Notes | Josh Ekroy |
| Arousal | Katie Beswick |
| Show me my Nature, put me in my Place | Katrine Wilmouth |
| Almanac | Kaycee Hill |
| Something about the sway | Laura Scott |
| Love Poem from the Bog | Laura Theis |
| Blue Rope | Leonie Charlton |
| Once all this is over | Leonie Charlton |
| Wildflowers | Leonie Charlton |
| Sometimes Not Everything Is Lost | Lesley Saunders |
| small bird | Linda France |
| a chalk stream’s monologue | Lindsay Fursland |
| Figgy Sestina | Lisa Kelly |
| The Zipless Fuck | Lisa Kelly |
| Swan | Liz Byrne |
| Natural History | Luke Samuel Yates |
| The wreck of my sleep | Lydia Benson |
| The Swift | Lyn Butler Gray |
| Two eggs on Rimac foreshore | Lynda Plater |
| Swimming Downriver Towards my Sons | Malene Engelund |
| Olive Ellen | Mark Czanik |
| Whimbrels in May | Mark Roper |
| Start Planning Yours Now | Marten Baxter |
| The Landfill Site | Martina Dalton |
| A Galaxy in Blue | Marvin Thompson |
| Dúluachair, Dúloch | Mary Noonan |
| Nocturne with grasshopper warblers | Matt Haw |
| When the fieldfares | Matthew Gilbert |
| The Soil Archives Her Hoofprints | Molly Twomey |
| Interview with the colour green | Molly Underwood |
| Syrinx | Nicola Healey |
| Swift | Oliver Hipkins |
| To the Trees | Oliver Hugemark |
| Dear Redback | Olivia Tuck |
| Metamorphosis | Rebecca Campbell |
| [middle english pigeon poem] | Rebecca Ferrier |
| Along the other axis to the field | Rebecca Goss |
| bodily ecosystem | Rebekah Chia |
| Adriatic Afternoon | Richard Wilcocks |
| Birdwatching on a day of crisis | Robin Muers |
| Pelican | Ros Marsden |
| Beryl | Rosamund Taylor |
| The Weed Dance | Sally Mills |
| Hyacinths | Sam Gluck |
| The Tourist | Sam Phipps |
| A Welk Shell Conjures | Samuel Prince |
| Northern Service | Sarah McCormack |
| Salt Marsh | Sarah Nathan |
| The Children | Sarah Westcott |
| Against metaphor | Siobhan Campbell |
| Mountain Warehouse | Siún Carden |
| Marmalade | Steph Ellen Feeney |
| Christopher Smart considers the Tyger in Paignton Zoo | Sue Boyle |
| Anosmia | Sue Proffitt |
| Storm Petrel | Sue Proffitt |
| Vesica Piscis | T C Arkle |
| Wintersweet | Teddy Mills |
| Ripples on the loch | Tim Ellis |
| Wintering | Tim Relf |
| Moss Girls | Victoria Gatehouse |
| Deer sighting, late July | Victoria Spires |
| On the track to Frampton in late January | Virginia Astley |
| Crossing Fields | Wendelin Law |
| Inverleith Terrace | William Wyld |