2024 Ten-liners competition Results
PREVIOUS COMPETITIONS
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Open Competition 2024 Results
FIRST PRIZE: ‘Benefiting the Publick Pocket’ by Josh Ekroy
SECOND PRIZE: ‘The Mortgage’ by Damen O’Brien
THIRD PRIZE: ‘The Month-by-Month Guide to the Allotment Book’ by Robert Seatter
Winning and selected poems published in the competition anthology.
Adjudicator: Merryn Williams
Highly Commended:
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‘The Lucky Generation’ by Peter Sutton
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‘Unsinkable Sam’ by Neal Mason
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‘Jacobean Tapestry’ by Elizabeth Barton
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‘Paper Cut’ by Steve Lott
Commended:
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‘Enlightenment’ by Fiona Ritchie Walker
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‘Coercive Control’ by Estelle Price
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‘The importance of having a broom nearby’ by Valerie Bence
Selected:
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‘Regret’ by Ariane Sherine
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‘Riddle’ by William Holloway
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‘For God’s Foolishness….’ by William Holloway
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‘Sperm Daddy’ by David Byrne
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‘Fault line’ by Valerie Bence
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‘Girl with Peaches’ by Sue Norton
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‘Flashback’ by Doreen Hincliffe
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‘Jamie Vardy Scores’ by Roy Marshall
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‘Her Childhood as a Bat’ by Vivienne Tregenza
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‘Dentist Trip’ by Katie Mason
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‘My mother didn’t touch salt’ by Mary Mulholland
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‘Oblivion’ by Paul Francis
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‘The Wanderer Drowses’ by Claudine Toutoungi
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‘Where to Watch Fireworks in London’ by Siobhan Ward
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‘Blood of Christ’ by Kristen Mears
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‘An Annunciation’ by David Walrond
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‘Serpent’ by Miles Salter
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‘Handkerchiefs’ by Caroline Smith
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Ten-liners competition 2024 Results
Winning and selected poems published in the competition anthology.
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Adjudicator: Stephen Claughton
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FIRST PRIZE: Cynthia Kitchen
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without anaesthetic
a leg to be amputated
by the light of mobile phones
her brothers are stretching up
crowding their father with his blunted scalpel
who slows before a first incision
willing his hand to be stilled
his heart to a murmur
JOINT SECOND PRIZE: Jenny Hodson
Still Life
On the table by an empty chair
the remote sits parallel to specs,
arms out, open case left to the side.
The porcelain coaster, blue and white,
shows a faint trace of tea.
A pen bisects the paper square
where my mother’s scrawled reminders
offer empty promises.
And the hands on the tiny clock persist,
as if the final hour is yet to come.
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JOINT SECOND PRIZE: Katie Mason
Homecoming
I’m telling you some things that you don’t know:
how the crunch of your key in the lock
prompts a pattering of feet on the stairs,
and how your homecoming breaks the stillness.
You arrive on a wave of fresh night air,
and your energy is as bright and crisp
as the light leaves that skitter on the tiles.
When you stop to take off your scarf and hat,
your long coat heavy with the damp of dusk,
your body is a barrier to the dark.
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