We are delighted to announce the final placements of the Wales Poetry Award 2021, judged by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch and sponsored by Literature Wales. The first, second and third award winners will all be published in a future issue of Poetry Wales, as well as receiving cash prizes and Seren book bundles.
You can read all of the poems, awarded and highly commended, in the PDF below.
FIRST AWARD
David Walrond for Cardiff, Summer 1976
David Walrond has lived in Cornwall for the last 20 years and recently retired from working in further education. He won the Llanishen Comprehensive School Eisteddfod Poetry Prize in 1973 under a pseudonym. Shortly after that he took what turned out to be a much longer than planned break from writing.
SECOND AWARD
Tess Biddington for A Father Hanged for Poaching
Tess lived for many years in the Forest of Dean and now lives in Cheltenham. She works full time for a national partnership to address domestic abuse.
She has been published in magazines and won some prizes including the Forward Prize in 2000, but has only recently been able to focus fully on writing due to the lockdown. The space and silence that it gave her helped her to reconnect with poetry and paint
THIRD AWARD
Faith MW Buckley for Us
The co-founder of Merthyr Tydfil’s Arts Hub, The Full Spectrum Project; Faith is a spoken-word artist, and co-host of Spectrum Live, a six-weekly music, art, poetry and comedy gig in the Merthyr Area.
She is proud to be an advocate for her home town, the LGBTIQA+ and the Arts, and is currently writing children’s books with her poet husband Stu.
HIGHLY COMMENDED
In alphabetical order:
Robert Bodman for Outsider
Miles Bradley for Single Man, with Dog
Jeanette Burton for Poem in which my Dad knows Great Britain like the back of his hand
Yvonne Green for Farouk
Prof. John Hunt for Ness
Hannah Linden for Cave: How to Say Goodbye to a Door
Isabella Mead for Connection
Mike Pullman for That’s My Nan
Amanda Rackstraw for The Odds
Jean Stevens for Distances
Read all of the winning poems here