The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2023 winners have now been announced!
More than 6,600 poets aged 11-17 submitted over 15,800 poems into this year’s competition. Young people from 119 countries entered the competition from as far afield as Romania, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, and 94 percent of postcodes in the UK.
This year’s poet-judges Jane Yeh and Jonathan Edwards had a difficult job choosing the top 100 winners but were inspired by what they read. Jane reflected on her experience: ‘In judging this award, I was astonished – and humbled – to read so many poems brimming over with inventiveness, ambition, and sheer quality. The standard of numerous entrants’ work was equal to, or indeed higher than, that of the adult writers in other competitions I’ve judged over the years, displaying remarkable maturity and talent. I was deeply impressed by the artfulness and linguistic sophistication to be found in many of these poems, as well as the engaging, ardent lyricism of their unique voices. It was actually a bit heart-breaking not to be able to reward more of these wonderful young poets, who I hope won’t be discouraged if they didn’t win this time round. For me, it was a privilege and a pleasure to read these entries, which make me feel excited and energised about the future of poetry. I look forward to reading many of these writers’ work in years to come.’
Jonathan shared his thoughts: ‘If I try to choose one word to describe the experience of reading this year’s entries for the award, the word is excitement. The poems show such joy and invention in language that it is an absolute pleasure to spend time with them. Sometimes they play language like a big bass drum, setting a marching band strutting through the reader’s head. Sometimes the poems walk on their tiptoes across a high wire in a sparkling costume, and we all hold our breath. Sometimes they step out on stage, wave a magic wand and reach into a hat, winking at the camera. Always the poems coin images and metaphors so inventive that they render as daft any judge’s attempt to describe them. The poems are suffused with love, whether this be familial or romantic or for our natural world, and they look in an open-eyed way at all sorts of difficult experiences, from bigotry to loss. In every situation, they offer their beautiful and uplifting singing. The achievement of the poems is enough to drive faith not just in the future but in the present of the art. Like all great poems, these entries make us better people and they make us less alone, and I think any doctor might offer half an hour with these poems for anyone who’s jaded or tired or fed up. What a wonderful advert these entries are for the importance of poetry, and – more – how much faith they give us in people, our capacity for empathy and tenderness and how, with nothing more than words, we can make the world go “Wow!”’
Huge congratulations to the top 100 winning poets, who were announced at Shakespeare’s Globe on 5 October 2023 in a ceremony where the top 15 winning poets read their poems, and all the poets commended in the competition were celebrated.
The top 15 winners of the 2023 Award are:
Tyra Alamu, Ellen Bray Koss, Cameron Calonzo, Heather Chapman, Freya Gillard, Rishi Janakiraman, Charlie Jolley, Sidney Lawson, Lauren Lisk, William G. Marshall, Frank Qi, Dawn Sands, Issi Sharp, Bea Unwin and Eva Woolven