Poetry Wales Award 2026: The Winners
On Monday 17 August 2026 we were joined by our poets, our judge Bethany Handley and our magazine editor Zoë Brigley to officially announce the winners of the Poetry Wales Award 2026. Thank you to everyone who joined us for a lovely evening of poetry and celebration.
We want to offer a huge congratulations to all of our poets, awarded and highly commended – hundreds of poems were entered into the competition, so to be in the thirteen shortlisted poets is a huge accomplishment.
The Poetry Wales Award is our annual single-poem competition open to poets from anywhere in the world. We are grateful to Literature Wales for their sponsorship of the competition in the form of our first award prize of a stay at Tŷ Newydd writing centre. We will be re-opening the award for the 2027 iteration in the winter of 2026.
Read the winning poems here
Award Winners
First Award Winner
Taiwo Hassan, ‘conversations with my mother on the prayer mat’
Taiwo is a writer of Yorùbá descent, a poet and a vocalist. A 4x Best Of The Net Nominee, his poems have appeared in Uncanny Magazine, trampset, Lucent Dreaming, The Shore and several other places. His first chapbook, Birds Don’t Fly For Pleasure, was published by River Glass Books.
Second Award Winner
Katie Beswick, ‘Class War’
Katie is a writer from South East London. Recent poems appear in And Other Poems, Ink Sweat & Tears, Rattle and New Verse Review, among others. Her books include Plumstead Pram Pushers (Red Ogre 2024) and the hybrid book of poetry, cultural history and arts criticism Slags on Stage (Routledge 2025).
Third Award Winner
Jeanette Burton, ‘My grandmother and her sixteen siblings bake potatoes at Denby Hall Colliery, October 1925 ’
Jeanette is a poet from Belper, Derbyshire. She has placed in several competitions, winning the McLellan, 2021 and Ware, 2022. Her work appears in Poetry Wales, The North, Mslexia, Atrium, Ink, Sweat and Tears, among others. Her debut pamphlet, Ostriches: Ten Poems about My Dad is available from Candlestick Press.
Highly Commended Poets
(Presented in alphabetical order)
Manju Devi, ‘The Glassblower’s Daughter Considers Her Inheritance’
Manju is a writer from Bhojpur,Bihar, specializing in poetry and flash fiction. Her writing, often rooted in the vernacular spirit and rural tapestry of her region, condenses profound observation into evocative, concise forms. She finds equal power in the expansiveness of a poem and the focused resonance of a short story, establishing a distinct voice in contemporary Indian literature.
Rajendra Prasad Gupta, ‘Feedback Loop as First Language’
Rajendra is a literary voice emerging from the cultural richness of Bhojpur, Bihar. His creative expression moves seamlessly between the poignant brevity of poetry and the sharp, focused narrative of flash fiction. He captures the subtlest human emotions and the realities of the social landscape, leaving a lasting impression on the reader’s heart and mind. His writing is a unique blend of deep empathy for everyday life and the refined sensibility of a skilled artist.
Dr Ben Gwalchmai, ‘Dignity: 2. How to dance with care’
Ben is a Lecturer in Digital Innovation at USW. His first poetry collection – swimming in locks//kites over marches – was the joint winner of the Indigo Dreams First Collection competition in 2019. His second collection is seeking a publisher. He is an unpaid carer.
Stephen Joffe, ‘DUOLINGO.’
Stephen (he/him) is a Toronto actor, musician, composer, writer Pushcart Nominee, and Leonard Cohen Prize finalist. Featured in Black Warrior Review, CV2, and The Literary Review of Canada, he is a playwright, Bournemouth Prize longlistee, and songwriter for Birds of Bellwoods.
Patrick Jones, ‘Know Their Names’
Patrick is the author of everything must go, before i leave, a constellation of sorrows and fuse/fracture. He worked with Public Health Wales, The Samaritans, Welsh Refugee Council and National Museum of Wales on writing projects. Father. Poet. Playwright.
Lives near a mountain in Cymru with his cat.
Leena Joshi, ‘City Born’
Leena is an award-winning poet, environmental artist, founder of Climate Conservancy, and author of Ethereal and The Climate Awakening. Her work has appeared in international journals, art galleries, museums, and elsewhere. A TEDx speaker, she has spoken at Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge, and works between art and ecology.
Dr. Michael Kelleher, ‘Notes on withdrawal’
Michael is a member of the Newport Stanza and has published in anthologies and magazines. He is hard of hearing and is inspired by this lived experience. Mike is delighted to have been selected for the 2025-26 Representing Wales programme managed by Literature Wales.
Alex Scarborough, ‘To a Can of Red Bull’
Alex is a poet from Hertfordshire, UK and currently based in Sydney. He studied songwriting at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London. His work has recently appeared in Ink Sweat & Tears and Cacti Fur. He is currently working on his first pamphlet.
Joshua Seigal, ‘Football on the Radio’
Joshua is a London-based poet, author, performer and educator. He has several collections of poetry published by Bloomsbury and HarperCollins, and has written and performed for BBC television. He is best known for his children’s writing, and spends his time running workshops in schools around the world.
Gordon Taylor, ‘A Queer Boy Watches Movies on Sunday’
Gordon is a queer, emerging poet who walks an ever-swaying, braided wire of technology and poetry. A 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have appeared in Narrative, Cincinnati Review, Rattle Poet’s Respond, Poet Lore, Palette Poetry and more. He writes to invite people into a world they may not have seen.