by Kate Birch | Apr 12, 2026 | Picks of the Month
VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED. THE PICK OF THE MONTH FOR MARCH 2026 WILL BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY. There is a wintry feel to our March shortlist. We feels its chill but are not frozen by it. And we look up! Which poem will you choose as your Pick of the Month? Alicia Byrne Keane,...
by Kate Birch | Apr 11, 2026 | News
The Forward Prizes have given us the green light that our submissions have been successful and we are pleased to announce that poems by John Bartlett, Rachael Clyne and Mariam Saidan are our three nominations for the Prizes Best Single Poem award for 2026. Please join...
by Kate Birch | Mar 7, 2026 | News, Picks of the Month
succinct, modest, affecting portrait of a good but constrained life It takes great skill to make the ordinary extraordinary and the well observed and considered ‘At the Barbers’ by Stephen Chappell has done just that. It is for this reason and many more...
by Kate Birch | Mar 1, 2026 | News
Zebra Print Gridlines project across my body as I become part of a painting made to scale. I bloom with tipsy sunflowers, so bright that I forget their maker was morose. In the gallery, the walls swirl in detail, The artist’s large orange sun pans a...
by Kate Birch | Feb 1, 2026 | News, Picks of the Month
A very striking and thought provoking piece of work. An evocative poem, powerful, visceral; a poem striking in its metaphors and nuances, with a strong sense of place – Plymouth and its Barbican area – and both past and present. (Two days after the poem was submitted...