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Allison McVety wins National Poetry Competition

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Allison McVety has won this year’s National Poetry Competition with her poem To The Lighthouse, the Poetry Society announced last night.  Her debut collection, The Night Trotsky Came to Stay, was shortlisted in 2008 for the Forward Best First Collection prize. Her second collection, Miming Happiness, was published in May 2010. Boy on the Bus, a poem from her first collection, appears in Poems of the Decade, an anthology of the Forward books of poetry 2002-11. Runner-up was Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch with Ponting,  and third was Zaffar Kunial, with Hill Speak 

Commended poems were White Basin by Lindy Barbour; Birmingham Roller by Liz Berry; In Vitro by Antony Dunn; Photograph by Rosalind Hudis; How to Furnish an Amercian House by Helen Klein Ross; Springtime of the Nations by SJ Litherland; Our Lady of the Pylons by Ian McEwen; and Blue Poison Dart Frog by Jon Stone.

Photograph: Derek Adams

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Comments

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Isobel

Wed 11th Apr 2012 09:57

I enjoyed the winning poem and didn't see it as inaccessible - just very subtle.

They were all great poems - as you'd expect. Like Cynthia says, there's no judging 1st 2nd 3rd really - it's all subjective and often down to luck.

Prose poetry seems very much flavour of the day though. I doubt you'd stand any chance of winning if you submitted a rhyming one. The Death of Rhyme - good title for a discussion thread?

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Cynthia Buell Thomas

Tue 10th Apr 2012 17:26

I have not yet had the time to read the other poems listed. I certainly expect them to be excellent. But, I really can't see how they could be 'better' - just different - the victims of subjectivity. This is a superb poem. I am re-encouraged for a return to prosy paragraphs neatly 'versed', and the use of punctuation (and maybe, lots of it.)

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Nick Coleman

Sat 7th Apr 2012 00:03

'Our Lady of the Pylons' for me, then 'Hill Speak'.
But on the whole pretty much what you would expect the Poetry Society to go for.

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Louise Fazackerley

Tue 3rd Apr 2012 23:55

'Hill Speak' the poem in third place for me everytime. I prefer the accessible.

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Cynthia Buell Thomas

Sat 31st Mar 2012 18:13

Thanks to WOL for keeping us updated. I think Allison has been to Manchester through the Library programme, but I'm not certain. She has an embracing smile.

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