Throughout October, the Rebecca Swift Foundation will be running a crowdfunding campaign to raise vital funds so that we can continue to serve our growing community of women poets.
Winners announced for the 2022 Women Poets’ Prize
Poets Prerana Kumar, Dillon Jaxx and Jennifer Lee Tsai have been announced as the winners of the 2022 Women Poets’ Prize at the inaugural one-day Women Poets’ Festival at the National Centre for Writing, Norwich. The biennial prize, founded by the Rebecca Swift Foundation and supported by FMcM, is awarded to three women writers who each receive a holistic package …
Women Poets’ Prize 2022 launches with a new festival in partnership with the National Centre for Writing
Writers and artists including Helen Mort, Victoria Adukwei Bulley and Sophie Herxheimer lead programme of workshops and performances, with the 2022 winners announced live at Dragon Hall in Norwich New festival looks to prioritise accessibility and hybridity, ensuring remote attendees equally catered for Submissions now open for the third prize year, judged by Penelope Shuttle, Nikita Gill and Abi Palmer …
A dream cut out of the air by Joelle Taylor
There is no way to succeed in poetry. There is no way to fail. There is only poetry. Everything else is noise off-stage. The prize is the piece of writing you just found hidden in the air. The prize is indistinct. The prize is each other. The prize is the conversation, is being included, is having your thoughts carefully weighed. …
Be where the people are by Jemilea Wisdom-Baako
I step into boardrooms unsure of myself, the lanyard around my neck has a cute photo I took at the reception desk with my name; and title – Founder of Writerz and Scribez CIC. What does it mean to create something, to take it out of your mind and imagination and turn it into a living, breathing thing? My arts …
On reading writers I don’t know and whose names I can’t pronounce by Shazea Quraishi
As I write this, my view is of our tiny back garden where through the open window I can hear a child crying, someone playing the drums, Mehboob’s mother calling him. If I stand at my front door, I can see that the corner-shop-which-used-to-be-a-pub is now open, the Kurdish family who run it, having come from miles away. This is …
How to find your community when you don’t know anyone by Christy Ku
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Yet another guest speaker at our school gives this ‘advice’ to our teenage ears. They hurriedly mention their first job/internship came from their aunt/neighbour/family friend but hey, if they could do it we could too. “Make sure you really work your contacts! Knock on doors! The worst thing they can do …
Poets and Prizes – Thoughts of an Unprofessional Poet by Anja Konig
Anja Konig grew up in the German language and now writes in English. Her first pamphlet “Advice for an Only Child” was shortlisted for the 2015 Michael Marks Award and her first full collection “Animal Experiments” from Bad Betty Press was nominated for the 2021 Laurel Prize. She once won first and second place at the Stroud Poetry Competition, which …