Stephen Sexton has won this year’s £5,000 National Poetry Competition with his poem ‘The Curfew’, the Poetry Society announced on Wednesday night. The winning poem combines reminiscence about a legendary miner grandfather with the emancipation of animals from a zoo and an unspecified industrial accident.

Stephen Sexton lives in Belfast where he is studying at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. He has had work published in many poetry magazines and anthologies. His pamphlet Oils was published by the Emma Press in 2014.

Sexton described winning as an “outrageous honour”. He added: “Perhaps the most exciting thing for me is the plain old fundamental feeling of being understood. Even if I’m not sure what is lingering behind the poem, there is pure joy in thinking that whatever is being transmitted arrived at its destination intact.”

Judge Moniza Alvi said: " ‘The Curfew’ rose to its number one position, as a completely unexpected poem, a tour de force, dreamlike in its shifts, wide-ranging and deeply felt. With magic-realist leaps, it moves fluidly between a zoo’s escaping animals and memories of a 'legendary' miner grandfather, a very unusual man, to which the poem is, in part, an unusual tribute. The language is alive, very much the poet’s own, and impressively adventurous."

Nine other winners were also named, including Caleb Parkin for his poem ‘The Desktop Metaphor’ (2nd, £2,000), TL Evans for ‘Detuned Radio’ (3rd, £1,000) and seven commended poets (£200 each): Patrick James Errington, Sam Harvey, Fran Lock, Laura Scott, Holly Singlehurst, Marc Brightside and Peter Wallis.

You can read Stephen Sexton’s winning poem here