Read our thirteen shortlisted poems, selected by Denise Saul
Category: Poems
Hilary Menos: How I Wrote ‘Lonely Hearts’
“Space is, of course, the “final frontier” but there are other areas for exploration, such as the deep ocean, and the human mind.”
Euron Griffith: How I Wrote ‘History’
“For me, inspiration for poems tends to arrive when you least expect it and I find that my mind is particularly receptive to ideas when it’s in ‘neutral’ or ‘resting’ mode. Which is why this one came to me while I was queueing up to be served in Ashton’s Fish stall at Cardiff Market one Saturday afternoon”
John Freeman: How I Wrote ‘Staircase with Handbag’
“The very act of writing a poem implies that one hopes it will be found valuable, helpful even, by a reader or readers”
Caitlin Tina Jones: How I Wrote ‘In two hundred years we live in a cleft of Bannau Brycheiniog National Park’
“I think that titles are best used when they tell us something about the poem – specifically, something that you may be otherwise unable to say within the body”
David Lloyd: How I Wrote ‘Devil on Wheels’
“I hope that along with evoking an artist’s sensibility and intellect at a young age, my poem also conveys [Richard] Burton’s powerful forward motion in life”
Yuan Changming: How I Wrote ‘East vs West: A Synoptic Cultural Comparison’
“As I see it, the form of a poem is always an integral part of its content”
Hassan A. Usman: How I Wrote ‘Displacement Ghazal’
“I have always seen poetry as a form of resistance and an (urgent) response to every part of our daily lives”
Eve Elizabeth Moriarty: How I Wrote ‘Card Trick’
“Sometimes if I’m being flippant I say basically my entire writing career is based on pointing out that some stuff is a bit like other stuff”