Basil Bunting Award 2015 winner announced

Basil Bunting

The 2015 Basil Bunting Award for poetry was announced today (Friday 20th March) at the inaugural Newcastle Poetry Festival.  This is the first time I have ever won a poetry competition or indeed any other literary prize in a long writing career (though I achieved second place last month in the inaugural University of Roehampton Ruskin Prize) so it was doubly welcome.  It was also a special pleasure to win a prize named after the poet Basil Bunting, whose work I have long admired.

The £1000 award was announced at the Newcastle Poetry Festival on Friday 20th March where the winning poem was read out alongside the other shortlisted entries.

I am the author of several poetry collections, the most recent being Of earth, water, air and fire: animal poems (Melos) and a satire on World War 1 commemoration mania, Trench Feet (Rack).

The prize was awarded for the poem below.

Walk

En quoi un homard est-il plus ridicule qu’un chien, qu’un chat, 

qu’une gazelle, qu’un lion ou toute autre bête dont on se fait suivre ? 

J’ai le goût des homards, qui sont tranquilles, sérieux, 

savent les secrets de la mer, n’aboient pas…

I see de Nerval coaxing his lobster,

on a leash of blue ribbon.

He has made his case

for preference of pet:

because it does not bark

and knows the secrets of the sea.

In this morning’s market

the great crustaceans twitch;

a pair of claws squeezes the air;

liquid eels in slippery ranks 

slither on stainless steel;

a salmon sleeps in a drift of ice.

Those bloody aprons, 

that pink tump of guts

coiled like a frivolous dessert,

enforce a preference for

the Bois – poet and homard,

like a pair of lovers, hand in hand.