Mslexia, the magazine for women who write | www.mslexia.co.uk
Poetry Competition
5th Annual Mslexia Poetry Competition
Judged by Carol Ann Duffy
1st Prize SIBYL RUTH (£1000)
2nd prize VALERIE LAWS (£500)
3rd prize PATRICIA ACE (£250)
Runners up
Hilary Menos, Elizabeth Berry, Alexandra Citron, Nazneen Zafar, Lesley Saunders, Heidi Williamson, Julie Lydall, Josie Turner, Kathy Towers, Siobhán Campbell, Nell Farrell, Sarah Westcott, Jo Verity, Fiona Ritchie Walker, Carole Bromley, Rosie Garland, Sarah Roby, Berta Freistadt, Frances Thompson and Kate Hunter
The winners of our 2008 Women’s Poetry Competition were selected from entries from published and unpublished authors. Some of the writers represented here have only recently begun writing seriously; others have made it a part of their lives for many years.
2008 the judge
"For me, a good poem asserts its own necessity to exist. That is why we can quote from those poems that we love and admire most."
Read the winning poems
1ST: A Song of Jean by Sibyl Ruth
2ND: A Litter of Moons by Valerie Laws
3RD: Ruby Turning Thirteen by Patricia Ace
On winning…
"I'd just finished emptying an extremely smelly waste bin. Hearing I'd won the competition made life seem a lot more fragrant!" - Sibyl Ruth
Read what 2008's winners say about their experience of the Mslexia Poetry competition.
Five years of the Mslexia Poetry Competition
- A Song of Jean by Sibyl Ruth (Carol Ann Duffy - 2008)
- Too close by Ann Alexander (U A Fanthorpe and R V Bailey - 2007)
- For a plain man by Marianne Burton (Wendy Cope - 2006)
- Buffalo Mozarella by Polly Clark (Jo Shapcott - 2005)
- Women by Polly Clark (Selima Hill - 2004)
