Results from previous years:
2011 Poetry Competition
2010 Poetry Competition
2009 Poetry Competition
2008 Poetry Competition
2007 Poetry Competition
2006 Short Story Competition
2006 Poetry Competition
2005 Short Story Competition
2005 Poetry Competition
2004 Short Story Competition
2004 Poetry Competition

Competitions

cafe writers open poetry competition 2012

RESULTS:

Judge's Notes   

Our judge Ian Duhig wrote: 

The first thing that struck me when I had worked through all the entries for the Cafe Writers Poetry Competition for first time was how good the local Norfolk entries were: clearly the institutions and ACE expenditure down there is not being wasted. The last thing I noticed, once all the decisions were made and names were supplied to poems was how well women entrants had done. This was no surprise to me as even judging the National Poetry Competition at the turn of the Millennium all the top prizes had gone to women, which attracted a lot of comment at the time. I know things have improved in many ways since then, but work clearly needs to be work done at certain magazine publication levels. It may be that competitions are easier places to submit poetry for a lot of people, not just women, because of the safety afforded by anonymity, or at least lack of public humiliation; whateve r the reason, I very much enjoyed the broad range of styles in the poems.
 
There was a broad range of technical accomplishment displayed by the entrants too, many to a high level, and a variety of styles that I hope are suggested in the prizewinning and commended poets. In the end I gave the first prize to a poem that I thought had both a knotted and worried intensity with a freshness as I listened to it, reading it aloud over and over. Marie Naughton’s poem has a slightly macabre quality to go with its tumbling inventiveness that reminded me of Plath but it is full of wonder. For the second time in recent years one of the major prizes in a competition I have judged has gone to a prose poem; silver medal went to Jane Monson’s 'Beam of Light', a work of such poise and achievement it could easily have won. This relatively new form (in terms of the long history of English poetry) seems to be going from strength to strength, with many brilliuant pract
 
The third prize went to Colette Sensier, a Norfolk entry, 'I Have My Mother's Eyes' with its more conversational tone, quickly established itself in my mind as one of the best poems I was likely to see, and so it proved with its unique music and baroque wit.  But the Norfolk Prize itself went to Tim Munsey’s poem 'Wetland': among very many excellent entries, I felt this wasn't just a residentially-qualified writer, but someone who was saying something about the area as well. 'Wetland' is a marvellous poem, grimly humorous, intelligent and droll. Another Norfolk writer, Tim Clare, won the Funniest Poem category: 'Mango', with its surreal inventiveness, shows a talent in poetry for more than making us laugh, however.
 
Among my Commended poems, Cathy Bryant’s ' Summer Rain and Such Fol-de-rol' was also funny and clever but also smartly alive to the play of words.  Jonathan Beale’s 'Easily Forgot' admits a playful technical wit into the sonnet form with equal success, but like much of the best work I saw, conjured darkness with the light.  Ian Dudley’s 'To Rest' is a lovely realization of a grave discovery that put me in mind of Redgrove's 'The Archaeologist' and with just as much tenderness. Rosemary Norman’s  'Juggler' in its quiet way is all about balance and performance, a small tour de force.  Amali Rodrigo’s 'I Think of a Very Large Mechanical Mouth' emerges from Kafka or Simic country with a verbal contraption of a poem that is brilliant and ingenious. Amali recently won the Poetry London Competition and I have been watching her talent with great interest. Vahni Capildeo is already well-known as a marvellous poet and her 'Mercy and Estrangement' is a beautiful construction from love and language that very easily could, as others Commended, have won a major prize.
 
Judging poetry competitions rapidly becomes a very pleasurable activity as the weaker entrants are lost quickly and the judge gets to spend all their time with better and better work. It gets more difficult when you get down to the last dozen or so and that was particularly my experience in this competition. I am well aware that my ordering of these terrific poems could be challenged, as indeed I did for several days. However, what is not in question is that there is a lot of truly superb work to be enjoyed here. I congratulate all these poets, the competition organisers and all the entrants for sharing their art, in many cases fine pieces of writing that it grieved me I could not reward at all except to say here to those poets, even if your name doesn't appear here, you can still be good poets and I wish you the very best of luck with your writing.