A £2,500 international poetry completion has been launched to celebrate the 20th century English painter Stanley Spencer. The competition, part of events to mark the 50th anniversary in 2017 of the Cookham festival in Buckinghamshire, is aimed at inspiring poetry about the life and work of Spencer, who was born in Cookham and spent much of his life there. His description of Cookham as “a village in Heaven” is reflected in his famous series of paintings of Biblical scenes, set in Cookham and featuring local people. The competition judges will be Peter Robinson, professor of English and American literature at Reading university and poetry editor at Reading’s Two Rivers Press; poet Jane Draycott; and Spencer scholar Carolyn Leder. Seventy-five shortlisted poems will be published in an anthology by Two Rivers Press. The deadline is 30 September 2016. More details