Bradford on Avon Arts Festival Flights of Fancy Poetry Competition. Judge: Carrie Etter

Poems-on-a-Beermat Competition 2014

Bradford on Avon Fringe Festival Open Poetry Competition 2013

Words & Ears/Bradford on Avon Fringe Festival Open Poetry Competition 2012

Bradford on Avon Fringe Festival Poetry Competition 2011

First

Lesley Saunders, Berkshire

Adam

Second

John Glenday, Inverness-shire

A Pint of Light

Third

Roy Marshall, Leicestershire

Night Swimming

Highly Commended

Tammy Adams, Northumberland

Rock Plain Boxing Club

Russ Berry, West Midlands

How She Wrote Your Name

Rosie Jackson, Somerset

Night Sky

Ruth Roberts Owen, Gwynedd

Spell

Rick Rycroft, Somerset

Sunlight

Susan Utting, Berkshire

Pale

Sarah Westcott, Kent

Riverside

How She Wrote Your Name

by Russ Berry

First with a sparkler, a flick of the wrist
In the dark back gardens of November.
Once more with a bare heel curving the sand
At Robin Hood's Bay where ringed plovers passed.
A four inch brush ahead of the roller,
Magenta on a virgin bedroom wall.
Her first show in a white cube gallery;
The crackle and buzz of luminous tubes,
A click of a switch, your name in neon,
Light waves of love flooding the room.

Judge's Comments - Martin Malone

A poem that seriously flirted with my top 3, it's a fairly rare thing: the list poem that doesn't feel like a list poem. That this is so is really down to the skill and discrimination of the poet who beautifully develops the poem's central conceit (a good example of a well-chosen title doing a lot of good work upfront).