by Kate Birch | Jun 14, 2026 | News, Picks of the Month
The mixture of love, longing, nostalgia and its undercurrent of exasperation perfectly sums up the emotions involved in dealing with the loss and attendant tasks and duties when our parents die. Losing a parent can be an overwhelming and complex process. The initial...
by Kate Birch | May 13, 2026 | News, Picks of the Month
An artful description of the feeling by simultaneous belonging and separation of second-generation immigrant from their ancestral homeland That sense of simultaneous belonging and separation, of connection and longing was key to those who voted for this amazing poem....
by Kate Birch | Apr 12, 2026 | News, Picks of the Month
It captures the silence and stillness of childhood snow and all it can mask and hide beautifully It was a poem of two halves. Some voters were drawn to the joy of playing in the snow. It had a ‘vivid wintry feels’, it reminded them of their childhood, with...
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 | 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...
by Kate Birch | Jan 19, 2026 | News, Picks of the Month
I love the whimsical way this develops like a slowly falling snowflake Snow may sometimes be an inconvenience and a bore, as many will have experienced this winter but it is also playful, wondrous and beautiful. And all too much in danger of disappearing. It is for...
