Brotherton Poetry Prize Anthology III: Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage introduces the new anthology
If you’re reading this, hello. Not everybody reads poetry – if they did, it wouldn’t be poetry! This anthology contains the winning and shortlisted poems from The Brotherton Poetry Prize, a short manuscript competition organised by the University of Leeds Poetry Centre. Submissions of up to five poems are invited from poets who are yet to publish their first full-length book. It demands a level of consistency not required by single-poem prizes, but attracts entries from writers whose work is still developing or whose poems are yet to be fully appreciated. The Brotherton Prize is distinct in offering a kind of bridge or stepping stone towards something we call a collection, but as the following pages demonstrate, there is nothing provisional or incipient about the poems. For all they appear in sampler form here and as sections in an anthology, they are eminently publishable, and have been assessed by those standards, members of the judging panel acting as editors to some extent. As one of those judges I look for challenges and rewards within the language, for playfulness and poignancy, and for ideas being articulated in ways that are fresh and surprising — patterns and arrangements of words that I haven’t heard before and wouldn’t have thought of myself. I’m also looking for things I didn’t know I was looking for, like ‘saunas heated by goodwill generated out of bitcoin mining’ in of people born unfree by Will Fleming, or ‘The Polaroids and cheap plastic mascots, those flea market pendants, gilt peeling to reveal a hard interior, all your good intentions re-apportioned’ in (You were) decluttering before Marie Kondo made it famous by Lucy Holme, or ‘the congregation mumbling prayers/as though they are ingredients for a meal / in a language they never plan to serve’ in “distended family” by Dillon Jaxx, or ‘Fall webworms, which eat the tender leaves/but avoid the larger veins and midrib / shrouding their meal in a silken mist’ in “An Inventory of Invasive Species” by Jam Kraprayoon, or a razor moving ‘as if peeling a film of air / from a pressed / flower’ in “Snow” by Adam Panichi. The winning and shortlisted poets receive a financial reward, but the bigger prize, I believe, is seeing their work in print, and by such an esteemed poetry publisher as Carcanet.
Poetry isn’t for everybody. It is sometimes described as a well kept secret. If you’re reading this I guess the cat is out of the bag.
This week's article is by Simon Armitage, and is taken from his introduction to the third Brotherton Poetry Prize Anthology, which is published this month! Remember to use the code JUNEBOOKS for 10% off and free UK P&P.