The Ted Hughes Award Citation for Imagined Sons

"The poems in Carrie Etter’s poignant collection, Imagined Sons, coalesce around a haunting: though the poems are spoken by the birth-mother, it is the son who takes centre stage, his absence experienced as a real and pervasive presence throughout. The sequence is a montage of fictional fragments, each fragment representing one of an infinite number of possible versions of the mother/son relationship. We loved this book’s innovative arrangement: the ten regularly occurring ‘catechisms’ interleaved among thirty-eight prose poems, and contained within an over-arching circularity of structure – beginning, as it does, with the refrain How did you let him go? and ending with the unsettling When will you let him go? But above all, we were delighted by the variety of tone ­– from heart-breaking to funny to frightening – and by the mix of the fantastic and the mundane, of fairy tale and contemporary detail. This is a book to be read and reread."

Ted Hughes Award judges, 2015

"Breaking the Rules" Poetry Society Stanza competition (deadline 9 September)

I'm judging this year's Poetry Society Stanza competition, on the theme of "Breaking the Rules," and hope there are hundreds upon hundreds of entries to read. Seriously. The greater the number of poems submitted, the more gold I hope to find.

You must be both a member of the Poetry Society and a member of an area Stanza to submit (free!); to find your local Stanza, please see this page. You can read more about the competition here.

Judith Palmer resumes as Director of the Poetry Society

You can read The Poetry Society's press release here.

A petition to reinstate Judith Palmer as Director of The Poetry Society

has been proposed by George Szirtes with initial signers Liz Lochhead, Carol Ann Duffy, Gillian Clarke, and Jo Shapcott, and can be found here.

A new statement from former Poetry Society Director Judith Palmer

provides a fitting response to recent media coverage with full details of the reasons for her resignation. Please read it here.

The Poetry Society's Extraordinary General Meeting, 22 July 2011

A Guardian report somewhat sympathetic to the Board of Trustees appears here, while a statement from outgoing Finance Manager Paul Ranford, about the events in question as he saw them, is on the alternate Poetry Society website here. As I did not attend, I'd be glad for others' comments on what actually happened in the meeting, written with due consideration for all parties involved.

The latest on The Poetry Society

There's an article on the recent spate of resignations in today's Telegraph.

Judging a competition

I'm judging a competition for the first time in Britain, for Poetry Society Stanza members. The theme is "breaking the rules," and members can submit up to two poems, each no more than 40 lines. I suggested not including a poem of mine on the website so that people wouldn't think I was looking for any one thing, so here's hoping for a real range of approaches--I'm curious to see what I'll receive. If you want to know more, full details are on the Poetry Society's website.