Judge Alison Chisholm highlights the winning entries from our Open Poetry Competition
When a poetry competition is open as to both form and subject, writers have an opportunity to select the best piece they have written recently and know that, as long as it does not exceed the line limit, they have a poem that can be entered. So open competitions tend to attract work of the highest quality. Nobody has to feel their way in an alien form, or dash off a hasty entry because there’s nothing in the current body of work that will fit in. Instead, the finest unpublished poem has its chance to dazzle.