In 2024, Oxford Poetry Library collaborated with The Oxford Hub to launch our VERY FIRST poetry competition!
This OPL poetry competition in association with the Oxford Hub is a clarion call to all new and experienced poets to make their voices heard. Building on the phenomenal success of OPL’s monthly open mic sessions (This is just to say…) and its many workshops and events, we want to extend our poetry welcome within and beyond the city boundaries, beyond artificial town and gown limits, beyond all physical and psychological obstacles no less! We aim to bring together all those passionate about poems in a bid to highlight the many talented but possibly under-celebrated poets we know are out there. And for those who just like to read and listen to poetry, we will provide a feast of entertainment by sharing new work on the sensory theme of TASTE.
Without reading poetry and learning from others who have gone before, it’s difficult to write poems, let alone improve on them. OPL helps to start a poetry conversation by drawing in readers and listeners, who may well go on to be writers themselves. With the support of students from the Oxford Hub and OPL volunteers, we aim to make the first OPL poetry competition a poetic feast for all and bolster the fortunes of the library so that it can continue to reach out to poets and poetry readers or listeners, whatever stage they are at in realising their aims.
We invited you to submit up to 5 pieces of original poetry and be in for a chance to win. Poems were judged by Oxford poets from both the city and the university: local prize-winning poets Vanessa Lampert and Alan Buckley, and Jenny Lewis, a poet and teacher of creative writing at the University of Oxford.
About the judges:
Alan Buckley is a poet, editor, and poetry tutor, who was brought up on Merseyside and now lives in Oxford. The author of two pamphlets – Shiver (2009) and The Long Haul (2016) – his first full collection, Touched, was published by HappenStance in 2020. His work has been highly commended in the Forward and Bridport prizes. Alan was a founding editor of the award-winning pamphlet publisher ignitionpress, and has taught creative writing to young people with both Arvon and First Story. He is a regular contributor of essays and reviews to The Friday Poem.
Vanessa Lampert‘s first full collection Say It With Me was published by Seren last year. Poems from this collection were commended in the National Poetry Competition and have appeared as Poem of the Week in The Telegraph and in The Forward Prize anthology 2024. She works as a volunteer teaching poetry in schools and for Learning With Leaders via zoom in India. She has taught at Poetry School London and a number of festivals including Aldeburgh. Vanessa has also won a number of prizes including first in The Cafe Writers, Edward Thomas, Sentinel and Ver prizes (twice). She co-edits The Alchemy Spoon Magazine. Recently, Vanessa was commissioned to write the lyrics for a song for The Unthanks. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Oxford Poetry, Strix, Five Dials (Hamish Hamilton), Finished Creatures, Magma, The Oxford Times and The London Magazine.
Jenny Lewis is a poet, playwright, songwriter and translator who teaches poetry on the Creative Writing MSt at Oxford University. She has had seven plays and poetry cycles performed at major UK theatres including the Leicester Haymarket, the Royal Festival Hall, the Polka Theatre, London (for children) and Pegasus Theatre. Her first book of poetry, When I Became an Amazon (Iron Press, 1996) won the New Writer Prize, and she has since published several further collections and collaborated widely with other writers and practitioners. A mini-album of Jenny’s 1960’s songs, including ‘Seventeen Pink Sugar Elephants’ (later developed into the iconic ‘Train Song’), co-written with her friend, the singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan, is forthcoming in 2024.
Prizes were:
1st prize: A delicious meal for 2 at Lula’s Restaurant, Oxford (donated by an anonymous OPL member) AND the opportunity to perform as the featured poet at OPL’s monthly open mic event, This Is Just to Say
2nd prize: Three beautiful poetry books, including the anthology Soul Feast: nourishing poems of hope & light, the Forward Book of Poetry 2024, Ten Poems about Libraries (prize donated by an OPL patron, in memory of Helen Osborn).
3rd prize: Two tickets for the Phoenix Picturehouse cinema (or any other UK Picturehouse cinema) for any film, sponsored by Picturehouses to coincide with the launch of a new film, The Taste of Things in February
We held a special event on 10 May at the Oxford Poetry Library, where the winners were announced. Winning and commended poems will be featured on the OPL website, and there will be an exhibition in The Community Works of all the winning and commended poems.