'Love', not 'Pet' (Saltney Melancholy)

I was honoured, delighted and surprised three weeks ago to be presented second prize in the annual Basil Bunting Poetry Prize for my poem ‘‘Love’, not ‘Pet’(Saltney Melancholy)’. Judged by Don Share, of Poetry fame, it feels like a real feather in my cap.

Entries in the children’s prize were particularly inspirational, and it was a real moment of happiness to see a selection of the winners read their work in such a professional and joyous manner. Don rightly nodded to their inclusion and enthusiastic entries as being a positive testimony to the beginnings of a life spent enjoying the riches of poetry.

Winners in the children’s prize, as well as Elvire Roberts’s third place poem, can also be read on the NCLA archive site, in the tab to the right of the page.

Isabel Galleymore’s winning poem, ‘The Limpet & the Drill-Tongued Whelk’ rightfully took first prize in the main competition: it is a deceptively compact poem which achieves the mean feat of taking two incredibly small creatures and magnifying them, Big-Top-like, to the realms of carnival. It’s a really incredible poem, I think, and more on Isabel’s work, including her pamphlet, Dazzle Ship, can be found online.