News Archive

The Welsh Poetry Competition
 Winners Announced

The Welsh Poetry Competition, which was launched in Pontypridd in March 2007 has this week announced its first ever winners. The winning poets were revealed and awarded their prizes at an event in Pontypridd Library on Wednesday 15 August. Welsh writer John Evans judged the competition which is set to continue into its second year; further details will be announced on St David’s Day 2008.

The competition organisers confirmed that the overall standard of entries was exceptionally high with a large dose of passion emerging from some great new writers.

The top three prize winners are:

1st Prize – Concrete by Gavin Price
2nd Prize – My Body is Old Porridge by Eloise Williams
3rd Prize – Space by Amanda Weeks

A large number of the poems entered were also deemed good enough for the Specially Commended section. As well as a one-off prize being awarded to the youngest entrant, 6 year old Josiah Rowlands.

The aim of the competition was, and will continue to be, to encourage and foster the wealth of creative writing talent that exists in Wales and further afeild.

Dave Lewis, competition organiser commented "We certainly had plenty of pure raw passion bursting through our letterbox, in this, our very first year, and if this is just the start I can only imagine how big the competition will become as time goes on and more people get to hear of us".

“We feel that having Welsh writer, John Evans, as a judge for this year’s competition has helped us attract many new voices and with entries from all over the world as well as many from within Wales we feel the competition has been a huge success. To reflect this John has had no problem picking twenty quality poems from the hundreds sent in. In fact narrowing it down to just twenty was difficult.

“John Evans is currently part funded by the Welsh Academi to hold writing workshops in the South Wales Valleys, where he is forever inspiring and nurturing new talent.”

For more information on The Welsh Poetry Competition and to read all of the winning poems visit www.welshpoetry.co.uk