Colette Bryce's poem 'The Full Indian Rope Trick' has been voted the favourite National Poetry Competition winning poem of the last 30 years.

 The top ten winning poems were:

The Full Indian Rope Trick by Colette Bryce 2002

Through the Square Window by Sinead Morrissey in 2007

The Third Wife by Mike Barlow in 2006

A Shrunken Head by John Levett in 1991

The Lammas Hireling by Ian Duhig in 2000

Homeland by John Sait in 2004

The Mermaid Tank by Stephen Knight in 1992

The Flitting by Medbh McGuckian in 1979

Breaking the Rule by Julia Copus in 2002

Believed by Simon Rae in 1999

Don't forget we are still looking for our 31st winner! The deadline for the National Poetry Competition 2008 is 31 October. Enter here.

You can read all the past 30 winning poems in chronological order below.

 

 Sinéad Morrissey (2007)

 
“I am absolutely delighted to be the winner of the 2007 National Poetry Competition, and amazed that my poem spoke strongly enough over all those other thousands of voices. And I feel honoured to follow in the footsteps of two other Irish women poets who have also won in the competition’s thirty-year history: Medbh McGuckian and Colette Bryce.”
 
 
 
 
 
 


Mike Barlow (2006)


Read 'The Third Wife'

 

"Poetry is a defiant art; it refuses to be daunted by boundaries. An effective poem insists on intimacy with its reader, regardless of nation, religion, gender, or age. I've felt a jolt of immediacy, for example, reading Japanese poets from the 11th century Heian period. For a poem to be relevant, it must create connection. Yet in reality, a writing life can be intensely solitary at times. The Poetry Society's award located me in community. I believe that the National Competition generates the essential nourishment of "call and response"-- when annually, thousands of poems are sent out into the world, received, and heard."


Melanie Drane (2005)
Read 'The Year the Rice-Crop Failed'

 

Jon Sait (2004)

 

“Winning brought new opportunities, including invitations to submit a collection, and collaborative work with film makers and musicians. Writers have to tough it out between encouragements; winning was a fillip and a rare pleasure. Winning also thickens the skin. Homeland has been called toxic, repellent and squalid. My favorite brickbat is "Hardly Miltonian". All good fun!”


Read 'Homeland'

Colette Bryce (2003)

 
"When the news was relayed to me on the phone I think I blushed. To win seemed such a public thing to do – perhaps it's the word 'national'? When it finally sank in, I was delighted. In such a solitary line of work, to have a poem singled out for praise in this way is hugely affirming."
 
 
 
 
 

Read 'The Full Indian Rope Trick'


Julia Copus (2002)
Read 'Breaking the Rule'


Beatrice Garland  (2001)
Read 'undressing'

Ian Duhig (1987; 2000)

"The judges' vote of confidence in your poetry is the lasting satisfaction: writers whose own work you admire and respect, however intoxicated, delusional or misguided they were when they chose you; however unsatisfactory a compromise you were that midnight when they were desperate and exhausted, starving, suffering withdrawals or under siege by messages from their children threatened with being taken into care as "home alone" - they still had to put you in the hat with the others before they could make that mistake. And that, in the end, will do nicely."
Read 'The Lammas Hireling'
Read 'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen'
 

Simon Rae (1999)

“Having been a runner-up twice before, I had faith in the competition, and confidence that I could produce a poem that would stand out among the thousands of entries.  Believed (as in Missing, Believed Dead) started life as a verse commentary for a television feature about missing people.  This was never made, but the poem seemed worth persisting with, and so it proved.  It strikes a chord with a lot of people.  Winning the prize made me very happy, though I probably exaggerated its significance in terms of my career.  The money was useful.”
Read 'Believed'
 


Caroline Carver (1998)

"Winning the prize was like falling off a cliff, falling from doubt and obscurity into the surprise soft landing of success, notoriety, and a future as a poet. Notoriety, by the way, since writing had taken my subconscious back to the forgotten dialect of childhood, and I'd used the voice of a young black rasta man. Or so the press liked to say.”
 
 
 
 
 
Read 'horse underwater'
 


Neil Rollinson (1997)
Read 'Constellations'
 

Ruth Padel  (1996)


 

 
“It was amazing and validating to win with at oem - I had been doign new things in it that i felt were risky. Also it was the only time a long poem was allowed.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Read 'Icicles Round a Tree in Dumfriesshire'



James Harpur (1995)
Read 'The Frame of Furnace Light'
 

David Hart (1994)

"Winning was a big thing and a little thing: it meant I'd made one good poem, anyway, at least for those judges, then winning was a few words in my biographical note while I went on living and writing."

 

 


 

 

Read 'The Silkies'

Sam Gardiner (1993)

“When you win the Grand National run by the Poetry Society, your name will be known and your poems more carefully read.”

 


 

 

 


Read 'Protestant Windows'


Stephen Knight (1992)

“The Mermaid Tank was, I believed, a departure from the poems in my then recently completed first book; winning the National Poetry Competition was a timely encouragement to continue down the new path it opened up.”

 

Read 'The Mermaid Tank'


 

 


Jo Shapcott (1985; 1991)
Read 'Phrase Book'

Read 'The Surrealists' Summer Convention Came to Our City'

John Levett (1991)

“I remember an initial and very real sense of affirmation. Robert Frost reminds us that the term “poet” is a praise word, a title given to us by others. So that phone call from the Poetry Society was, for me, a kind of bestowal.”
Read 'A Shrunken Head'
 


Nicky Rice (1990)
Read 'Room Service'


William Scammell (1989)
Read 'A World Elsewhere'


Martin Reed (1988)
Read 'The Widow's Dream'

Carole Satyamurti (1986)

Read 'Between the Lines'

 

 

Tony Curtis (1984)


Read 'The Death of Richard Beattie-Seaman in Belgian Grand Prix, 1939'


Carol Ann Duffy (1983)

 “Winning the National Poetry Competition was the loveliest, most unexpected thing at the time, and was followed by the BEST party at dear old Earls Court- (Bernard Stone, Judith Radstone, Gavin Ewart, Elizabeth Bartlett, Stephen Spender, Elizabeth Smart, Dannie Abse, and still-greatest living poet Kit Wright propping up the bar...)- where I was delighted to insult various Thatcherite MPs face to face. As I vaguely recall, I lost the cheque on the tube on the way home and had to have it re-issued. by Pamela Clunies-Ross- (or Loonies-Cross, as she was affectionately known.) In those days, one was still called a "poetess"- so it meant a lot, as a young woman poet, to begin to try to change that. And, oh girls, just look at us now...”

Read 'Whoever She Was'

 
 
Philip Gross (1982)

“I won the National Poetry Competition about 18 months into my life as a poet. If I'd won it five years later, when I was more sure of my writing and more canny about the politics of the poetry world, it might have done me and my work more good... but who can choose? It tipped me over a threshold, into a life which has had writing at its heart ever since. Do I regret that? Heck, no!”
 
 

Read 'The Ice Factory'
 

James Berry  (1981)


 

'Winning the National Poetry Competition included me among winners - it was quite a heart-throbbing experience. More notice was taken of my work afterwards - the win seemed to place me in a position of recognition. I continue to feel a sense of gratitude to the individuals and the organisation who founded the competition and opened up these opportunities.'
 
 


 

Read 'Fantasy of an African Boy'
 


Tony Harrison  (1980)

Read 'Timer'


Medbh McGuckian (1979)

 My life was completely changed by the award…I became a professional writer at that point and have been able to earn living from poetry and teaching poetry ever since…. It was the most wonderful thing to happen in my life apart from my children and meeting Gregory Peck.”

Read 'The Flitting'
 


Michael Hulse (1978)



Read 'Dole Queue'