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Poet of the Year – Judges’ Feedback

The 2020 Poet of the Year Competition was a great success with submissions from poets both national and international. Although we were unable to host the awards event live, our judging panel have kindly provided their feedback on this year’s shortlisted poems which can be downloaded here.

As our winning poets were unable to attend in person, we invited them to submit a video reading of their poem. Our winners were:

Poet of the Year 2020: Charlotte Cornell, The Gift of Mrs Anne Thwaytes, 1839

Second place: David Simpson, Cold tea’s spring shadow

Third place: Ojo Taiye, How Tall is Truth?

We are delighted to share these below and look forward to next year’s submissions.

The Festival Friends wish to thank all who entered the 2020 Poet of the Year Competition, the Judges, Luigi Marchini, Mara Adamtiz Scrupe and Gary Studley, anthology designer Jeremy Dunhill , sponsors Adams Printers and, especially, Prof Geralyn Pinto for generoulsy donating the prize money.