The six winners of our Sylvia Plath inspired members’ competition are Sarah Wimbush, Stanley Iyanu, Victoria Gatehouse, Kathryn Bevis, Audrey Molloy and Peter Wallis. The winning poems are published in the Poetry News and on The Poetry Society website. This members’ competition was theme was ‘Magical Nature.’ The topic was picked by competition judge Ian Humphreys to celebrate Sylvia Plath’s ninetieth birthday which would have been October 27th this year.

Writing on the poems for Poetry News, Ian said “Congratulations to the winning poets – all of whom worked their magic in very different ways.” He described how the poems intertwined Plathian themes of blood, place and existence. On the winning poems, he said: “I hoped for alchemy on the page and I wasn’t disappointed.”

Two of the poems, ‘Little Red’ and ‘What Does it Mean?,’ will be published in After Sylvia (Nine Arches Press) – an anthology of new writing inspired by Sylvia Plath. The book will be launched at the Sylvia Plath Literary Festival in Hebden Bridge (October 21–23, 2022) to honour the ninetieth anniversary of Plath’s birth.

Read more about the After Sylvia anthology here. Follow the festival on Twitter @PlathFest.

 

‘Magical Nature’ Winning Poems 

‘Little Red’ by Sarah Wimbush 
‘Atlas’ by Stanley Iyanu 
 ‘I Always Knew I was a Blackthorn’ by Victoria Gatehouse
‘The title of this poem is “What’s the Title of this Poem?”’ by Kathryn Bevis
‘Helen Listens to the Last of the Jonquils’ by Audrey Molloy
‘What does it mean?’ by Peter Wallis

29th of June 2022