Award Winners
Our Award Winners for the Wales Poetry Award 2023 are:
- First Award: ‘Driving Home from My Folks on Thanksgiving’ by Travis Mossotti
- Second Award: ‘Outside Vega, Texas’ by Jacqueline Goldfinger
- Third Award: ‘Oregon Nocturnal’ by Adedayo Agarau
Poetry Wales alongside sponsors Literature Wales are delighted to announce the shortlist for Wales Poetry Award 2023, judged by Denise Saul.
The shortlist, presented here in alphabetical order, is:
- ‘After Mum Died, I went to the Freud Museum’ by Julia Runacres
- ‘Calton Hill’ by Jake Smith
- ‘Cheshire hills: parlando’ by Pete Taylor
- ‘Driving Home from My Folks on Thanksgiving’ by Travis Mossotti
- ‘Gas Station Manager’ by Zachary Forrest y Salazar
- ‘Hauling Sand through the San Juanico’ by Ryan Caidic
- ‘In Iowa, I Dreamt Of Canoes’ by Adedayo Agarau
- ‘Opium’ by Travis Mossotti
- ‘Oregon Nocturnal’ by Adedayo Agarau
- ‘Outside Vega, Texas’ by Jacqueline Goldfinger
- ‘Pietà’ by Philip Tomkins
- ‘Portrait Of Manhattan In Oils’ by Lucy Holme
Find out more about the poets in their bios below, and read their shortlisted poems in the e-pamphlet at the bottom of the page
*NOTE: for Wales Poetry Award 2023, there will be nine, rather than ten, Highly Commended poems. This is due to one poem being withdrawn after judging had ended.
Wales Poetry Award 2023 Shortlisted Poets
Presented Alphabetically
Adedayo Agarau
Adedayo Agarau is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and a Cave Canem Fellow. He obtained his MFA in 2023 at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he won the Deena Davidson Friedman Scholarship, the John C. Shupe Scholarship, and the 2023 Summer scholarship from The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His poems have been featured in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Society of America, World Literature Today and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbooks Origin of Names (African Poetry Book Fund, 2020) and The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020). He is Editor-in-Chief of Agbowó.
Jacqueline Goldfinger
Jacqueline Goldfinger is a poet-playwright-librettist whose poetry has been published in La Piccioletta Barca, Beyond Queer Words, inBetween, and others. Her plays and libretti have been performed at The Kennedy Center (US), Court Theatre (New Zealand), Sydney Opera House (Australia), Voces8 (UK), Chor Leoni (Canada), and others.
Jake Smith
Jake Smith is a poet and writer based in Bristol. His poetry is interested in the tensions between the natural and urban. He believes greatly in the sonic elements of words and his poetry is largely inspired by music, especially jazz. Jake has an MA in Creative Writing & Education from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Julie Runacres
Julie Runacres grew up in Leicestershire, returning on retirement from a career in English teaching that followed six misspent years in the City. She was longlisted in the 2022 National Poetry Competition. Writing poetry and hybrid short prose, her work has appeared in journals in the UK and US.
Lucy Holme
Lucy Holme is a PhD student at University College Cork. She was recently a finalist in the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition, the Brotherton Prize, the Mairtín Crawford Award and won the Cúirt New Writing Prize for Poetry 2024. Her chapbook, Temporary Stasis, published by Broken Sleep Books in 2022 was shortlisted for The Patrick Kavanagh Award . A collection of nonfiction essays is forthcoming this Autumn also from Broken Sleep Books.
Pete Taylor
Pete Taylor lives in Cheshire and works as an editor. His poetry has appeared in PN Review and The Rialto, as well as anthologies from the 1-2-3, Candlestick and Wee Sparrow presses. He has been shortlisted for the Ginkgo/AONB ‘UK Landscape’ Prize, among other commendations and longlistings. Under the penname of Thomasson, Taylor was highly commended in the 2019 Wales Poetry Award
Philip Tomkins
Philip Tomkins has spent most of his working life as a professional viola-player and music therapist, only turning to writing in later years. His poems and short stories have been published in various magazines in Wales and elsewhere. He has twice been longlisted in the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition.
Ryan Caidic
Ryan Caidic is a Germany-based Filipino creative director. His advertising work has won nearly every global award, from New York Festivals to London International. His poetry has been shortlisted in Prism’s Pacific Spirit Prize, Wolverhampton Festival, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Southword, Eunioa, Rising Phoenix, POETiCA and elsewhere.
Travis Mossotti
Travis Mossotti’s fourth collection, Racecar Jesus, won the Christopher Smart – Joan Alice Prize in the UK (BSPG, 2023), and his fifth collection, Apocryphal Genesis, won the Alma Book Award (Saturnalia, 2024). Mossotti lives in St. Louis and works for Washington University.
Zachary Forrest y Salazar
Zachary Forrest y Salazar is a software engineer and American poet. He’s previously been published in Only Poems Magazine, Moon City Review, and Pensive Journal among others. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.