Today on My Poetic Side, we look at this year’s National Poetry Competition winner and the search for a poet-in-residence for the City of London Bridges.

National Poetry Competition Winner Inspired by New York Mugging

, which was written by Imogen Wade, has been announced as the winner of the National Poetry Competition and awarded the £5000 prize.

The poem tells the story of the poet’s mugging in New York, where she was locked in a van, driven to Grand Central Station and then forced to give her mugger money. Writing the poem, she said, helped her to process the event properly. The mugging happened when she was a 19 year old exchange student travelling between the airport and the station in the city.

The judges were impressed with the

The way in which she described the details of such an ugly incident in strangely beautiful detail was also particularly striking.

There were a staggering 19,000 entries for the competition this year, written by 8841 poets and coming from 110 different countries. The judging was done anonymously by a panel of three poets. The second prize poem was “Eric” by Fawzia Muradali Kane and the poem that was placed third was “Like Her” by Rency Jumaoas Raquid. All three winning poems will see their poems published in The Poetry Review, the Poetry Society’s journal, in the spring issue.

Previous winners of the prize include former UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, James Berry and in 2022, the youngest-ever winner of the prize, Eric Yip.

Bridges Poet Sought for London

The City Bridge Foundation is offering an unusual opportunity for the right poet. They are seeking a poet to help “celebrate” five of the bridges in London. The position of poet-in-residence will be a first for the charity, which has been around for 900 years.

The role will involve writing about the major crossings of the Thames, the role that they play in the everyday lives of the Londoners who use them and, of course, their history. The poet who is chosen for the role will be paid £10,000 for this twelve month role. The Foundation says that this is the only job of this kind anywhere in the world.

The City Bridge Foundation is responsible for five of the bridges in the city of London, Tower, Southwark, London, Blackfriars and Millenium. They feel that despite the hundreds of years of history that the bridges have contributed to the city, there are very few verses that have been written about them.

The job is open to any style of published poets who live in London or who are able to travel there on a regular basis in order to visit the bridges. The search for a suitable candidate is being supported by The Poetry Society, which will help to manage the role.