The Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition

The Gift of Boats Sails Away with £5000

First Prize-winner Jane Routh (right)
with runner-up Marianne Burton

The much awaited results of the 2009 Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition were announced in Cardiff Bay aboard cruise vessel Seren-y-Bae on Wednesday 17 June. National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke, read a selection of her own work from her first year as National Poet and from her latest poetry collection A Recipe for Water (Carcanet, 2009) before announcing the winners to a boat full of Welsh poets, competition entrants and literary enthusiasts. The 2009 competition was judged by Ian McMillan and Kurt Heinzelman.

The first prize of £5000 was awarded to Jane Routh from Lancaster for her aptly named poem The Gift of Boats. Jane is a photographer and writer who also looks after a flock of geese and an Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland in North Lancashire. Her collection Circumnavigation (The Poetry Business, 2002) won the Poetry Business Competition and was short-listed for a Forward Prize for best first collection. Her second book Teach Yourself Mapmaking (Smith/Doorstop Books, 2006) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The judges commented that after reading The Gift of Boats they knew that they were ‘in the hands of a master mariner and master craftsman.’

Second prize went to Christopher Simons a British-Canadian poet, who is currently the Associate Professor of English Literature at International Christian University, Tokyo. It was Christopher’s poem Pink Dog, about the process of memory and a dying dog that never stops dying that the judges chose to receive the 2nd prize cheque of £500. Former Eric Gregory Award winner Emily Berry from London scooped third prize of £250 for her poem Strange Fish which the judges described as ‘a very strange piece, both vivid and distorted, like observations made underwater’.

The five runners-up in the competition each receiving £50 were: Marianne Burton from London; Laila Farnes from Nittedal, Norway; Stephen Moore from Liverpool; Philip Tomkins from Cardiff and Pat Winslow from Oxfordshire.

Academi Chief Executive Peter Finch launched the 2010 Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition which will be co-judged by multi award-winning poet an short-story writer Jackie Kay and Anglesey-based poet and Editor of Poetry Wales, Zoë Skoulding.

As a fitting end to a very enjoyable event aboard Seren-y-Bae Cardiff Poet Ifor Thomas, who dressed for the occasion in suit, tie and straw boater, entertained the guests with a lively performance of some of his Cardiff and Cardiff Bay inspired poetry.

For more information on the 2009 or 2010 competition
contact Academi on: 029 2047 2266 / post@academi.org