The Poetry Society has announced the winners of the 2025 competition. The three finalists were selected from 21,254 poems – each and everyone read by the panel – submitted by 9,564 entrants (were you among them?) from 133 countries across the world.
First prize went to Partridge Boswell for his poem The Gathering. Second prize went to Damen O’Brien for Axe and the Third prize to Zoe Dorado for Badminton. There were also Commendations for seven other entrants.
According to the judging panel: Susannah Dickey, Ian Duhig and Denise Saul, they were ‘blown away’ by the winning poem by American poet, Boswell: ‘It slowly unfurls, becoming an ever more expansive interrogation of language and morality’, according to Susannah Dickey.
Ian Duhig said of Axe by Australian poet O’Brien: ‘the poem struck us with the energy of its execution, its mordant humour and percussive music of its diction’. While Denise Saul, commenting on Badminton by Californian poet Dorado: ‘This is a poem of circumstances, haunted by the past and the present… Ideas of masculinity and power are pulled apart…’
All the winning poems are included in an anthology published by the Poetry Society
The next National Poetry Competition launches in June and closes 31 October, 2026.
At the recent LBF2026, I was introduced to poet Alan Price, who kindly presented me with a copy of his new collection Evidence of War – A Response to Gaza. Not a critique of the participants, as you might expect, but a beautifully crafted observation of the daily plight of tens of thousands of human beings.
In his introduction, Price says his Gaza poem Deliverance was written when he heard the news, in February 2025, that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu had concocted a real estate plan for the rebuilding of Gaza. ‘For me the creation of a “Riviera of the Middle East” was a disturbing idea. I thought Deliverance would be a one-off poem for Gaza, but when a state of famine was officially declared and midsummer brought daily TV and radio accounts of the terrible conditions people were enduring. then I began to write a series of responses to the war.’ he says.
The result is a collection of 17 poems. His aim, not to accuse or criticise the main protagonists or their powerful allies – or even mention them by name, but to ‘try and reach out and use words to empathise, as a very distant observer, with the cruel plight of civilians being systematically starved and bombed’.
In his principle poem Deliverance the residents of ‘Hotel Humane’ are protected form the disturbing scenes outside:
‘You have enough to eat and drink and watch screens. /Still, these complaints. What’s the cause of your gripe?/ Oh, the real view is disturbing. No matter. Our concern. /We will draw down the blinds on shattered windows. /At Hotel Humane discretion for the few still matters.’
I enjoyed this collection, if that’s the right sentiment, especially as I found each of the poems always contains especially memorable lines. In Agricultural Hub, for example, where a ‘starvation machine thinks beforehand, bombing orchards, greenhouse, farmlands and fisheries…’ a Commander responsible for this poisonous destruction ‘breakfasted on bread, coffee and anger’. Later in The Dogs of War a conversation ensues between two dogs – a pompous, upright Military Dog, who denies any wrongdoing, and a local Starving Dog – forced to eat whatever or whoever it finds in the street. It’s no longer dog eat dog: ‘Humans taste better…’, the Starving Dog admits:.‘…searching for a corpse is becoming more dangerous. A dog can’t survive in Gaza’.
Later in Peace Plan the people are told ‘We have our best intentions at heart … Rule yourselves far away from us/imagining an end to fear.’ While in his final poem Renewal the poet cites Auden’s view that the best way to see a ruined city was either through the eye of a crow or a camera. Here ‘King Drone’, with its camera is constantly watching, ready to: ‘bomb the victims who may have been looking skywards at the wrong time, in the wrong place, for the wrong saviour.’
I found this collection deeply moving but also humorous and empathetic. I enjoyed the brevity of the poems – the messages more succinct. I found myself not just re-reading specific poems, but running through all 17 again at a more thoughtful pace. It is tempting to point out the wrongdoers, their idiotic presentiments and their crass ideas, but when you’ve seen the TV footage from afar, the secret filming, the reportage – as we all have: in Evidence of War you stand alongside the poet witnessing, first hand, the harrowing daily life and death that is Gaza.
Alan Price: Liverpool born, he is a poet, short story writer, film critic and blogger. His TV film A Box of Swan was broadcast on BBC 2. He has two short story collections The Other Side of the Mirror and The Illiterate Ghost. His debut collection of poetry Outfoxing Hyenas was published in 2012. His 2022 collection The Cinephile Poems (The High Window) received a multimedia presentation at the BFI. His latest collection Unknown Woman & Other Attachments (Caparison) was issued in 2024.
Evidence of War – A response to Gaza is published by Culture Matters (2026)
I was delighted to be invited to a reception on the Ukraine Book Institute stand at LBF2026.
I’ve always admired the way they arrive at the show and put on such as warm, positive face despite the adversity back home. This year the Ukraine Ambassador to the UK, Valeriy Zaluzhny (left|), spoke of the importance of books and invited listeners to discover Ukraine through its literature – through the ideas, experiences and voices of the people who their history today.
‘Books shape a person’s memory, worldview, and future. That’s why books once had an amazing ability to survive eras, wars, and borders. However, like a newspaper with the editor-in-chief’s name at the end, a book disappears. The editor and author disappear with it, and, as a result, the truth disappears. Instead, so-called information has appeared that strikes people’s minds from anonymous sources and shapes their future. Unknown people are still doing this today, and AI will do it tomorrow.
Therefore, today, in times of great trials, the word of truth acquires special power. It must become an instrument of memory, a form of resistance, and a way to explain to the world who we are. That is why Ukrainian literature is experiencing an important moment today – it speaks not only about war, but about the values that determine our future. That is why it is extremely important for us today that Ukraine is present here at the London Book Fair.’
Welcoming everyone to the stand he concluded: ‘As a person who has the honour of serving his country, and as an author, I understand well that a book is not just a text. It is an opportunity for Ukrainian voices to be heard. It is a chance for new translations and for new partnerships. I am sincerely grateful to all our international partners, translators, publishers and readers who help Ukrainian literature find its place in the world cultural space’.
I’d also like to thank Olena Odynoka, Deputy Director of International Cooperation, for her kindness and media assistance.
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