Australian Poet Wins £5,000 in 2012 Cardiff International Poetry Competition

Entries to the Cardiff International Poetry Competition arrive each year by the sack-full from poets spread across the globe, as well as from within Wales and the rest of the UK. In 2012 the truly international reputation of the competition continues as the judges award First Prize of £5,000 to multi award-winning poet Mark Tredinnick from Australia.

Mark was awarded the prize by judges Patrick McGuinness and Sinéad Morrissey for his poem ‘Margaret River Sestets’. No stranger to competition success he has won many Australian poetry awards, including the Blake and Newcastle Prizes and last year he won the prestigious Montreal International Poetry Prize. Mark, who lives with his family on the Wingecarribee River, southwest of Sydney, has been described as “one of our great poets of place - not just of geographic place, but of the spiritual and moral landscape as well” (Judith Beveridge). He has published eleven works of poetry and prose and a second volume of poetry, Body Copy, will appear in 2013, along with a memoir, Reading Slowly at the End of Time.

On receiving his prize Mark said: “The Cardiff International Poetry Competition is one of the world's great poetry prizes, and it's a joy to win it this year with a poem that evokes country a long, long way from Wales - a fair way, even, from New South Wales, where I live.”

Second Prize of £500 was awarded to Jonathan Edwards from Crosskeys in south Wales for his poem ‘Evel Knievel Jumps Over My Family’. Jonathan was awarded a Literature Wales New Writer’s Bursary in 2011 and won the Terry Hetherington Award in 2010. His first poetry collection, My Family and Other Superheroes, is forthcoming from Welsh publisher Seren Books. Digital editor and Creative Writing tutor Harry Man from London was awarded Third Prize of £250 for his poem ‘Lost Ordinance, Sussex, 1943’. His work has appeared in a number of literary magazines and journals including New Welsh Review and in 2011 Harry produced a contemporary dance and poetry collaboration for the London College of Fashion.

The top three winning poems will appear exclusively in print and digital formats in New Welsh Review 97, published on Saturday 1st September 2012.

The five equal runners-up in the competition each receiving £50 are: Annemarie Austin from Weston-Super-Mare for her poem ‘Cremated Girl’; Ben Holden from Bristol for his poem ‘The Lepidopterist’; Brett Evans from Conwy for his poem ‘Directed by Sergio Leone’; Jo Hemmant from Tonbridge for her poem ‘The Portreeve's House, East Street’; and Kathryn Simmonds from London for her poem ‘The San Michele Cemetery’.

Click here to find out more about the 2012 winners and to read their prize-winning poems.

The Cardiff International Poetry Competition is administered by Literature Wales and supported by Cardiff Council. The 2013 competition will be launched in autumn this year. The 2012 competition was judged by poets Patrick McGuinness, Sinéad Morrissey and filter judge Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch.

Source: Literature Wales 

Patrick McGuinness wins Wales Book of the Year 2012

Patrick McGuinness is named overall winner of the Wales Book of the Year Award 2012, after winning the Fiction category for his novel, The Last Hundred Days (Seren). This is the first year categories have been introduced to the prize. The other category winners are Richard Gwyn, who took the prize for Creative Non-Fiction with his memoir, The Vagabond’s Breakfast (Alcemi), and Gwyneth Lewis who won the Roland Mathias Poetry Award for her collection, Sparrow Tree (Bloodaxe Books). 

The category winners recieved £2,000 each and an additional £6,000 was awarded to the overall winner in both Welsh and English. 

The announcements were made at a ceremony held by Literature Wales at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff on Thursday 12 July. The winners were presented with their cheques by Leighton Andrews, Minister for Skills and Education and Chair of the Arts Council of Wales, Professor Dai Smith. Patrick McGuinness is already a renowned poet and this, his debut novel, has achieved world-wide recognition, having reached both the Costa First Novel Award Short List and The Man Booker Prize Long List in 2011.

The English-language judges for 2012 were Dr Spencer Jordan (Chair), Dr Sam Adams and Trezza Azzopardi. Spencer Jordan, said of Patrick McGuinness’ novel: “In a world turned upside by the Arab Spring and economic cataclysm, can there be a more apposite or important book than The Last Hundred Days? I doubt it. Set against the backdrop of Ceaucescu's crumbling regime, the book explores the very human cost when society itself begins to self destruct.” 

Fiction Category Winner and overall winner:
Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days (Seren)
 

Creative Non-Fiction Category Winner:
Richard Gwyn, The Vagabond's Breakfast (Alcemi)

The Roland Mathias Poetry Award Winner:
Gwyneth Lewis, Sparrow Tree (Bloodaxe Books)

 

It proved to be a successful year for poetry as Philip Gross was named the public’s favourite, winning Media Wales’ People’s Choice Award for his poetry collection, Deep Field (Bloodaxe Books).    

“Each of the three category winners are writers at the very top of their game,” said Spencer Jordan. “Writing is never more compelling or braver than when it comes from the heart, and that's what these three books do. In their own small way, each is a manifesto for the human soul in the twenty first century”.

“It has been fantastic to be able to reward a greater range of writers this year following the introduction of the categories, and it’s great to see poetry, a genre which has been sidelined in the past, step into the limelight,” said Lleucu Siencyn, Chief Executive of Literature Wales. “I’d also like to congratulate all the authors who reached the Short List, which is no mean feat in itself. The strength of the Short List manifests the flourishing publishing industry that exists in Wales today, defiant in light of the current economic climate.”

The main Welsh-language winner this year was also the winner of the Fiction category; International Fellow of the Hay Festival Jon Gower. His novel, Y Storïwr (Gwasg Gomer) fittingly follows a young man who has an exceptional talent for storytelling.

Allan James won the Welsh-language Creative Non-Fiction Category for his study of the scholar and poet, John Morris-Jones, (University of Wales Press) and poet Karen Owen topped the Welsh Poetry category. Karen celebrated a double win as she also won the Welsh Language People’s Prize sponsored by Golwg360.

Keep an eye out for pictures from the ceremony on to the Wales Book of the Year website soon. 

www.walesbookoftheyear.org

Source: press release from Literature Wales