Resurgence Prize
‘Limpet’ by Anna Bindoff – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
You told me after all these years, in one Of those sweet, unexpected, piercing lines That we’ve become like limpet and a stone Whose borders can be nowhere else aligned. I wondered if you knew the home’s a scar, Abraded by rotation at the brim And strange exchanges keep them there, shell stars In constellation,…
Poetry School ‘So’ by Roy Woolley – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
On the dirt road that night, a broken thing with the new patterns leached from its wings – but no clearer signs, hence no way of knowing the destination this rough road might become if I followed the scents these greyish flowers had already lost guiding me. Scanning the thorn-fields and with hours before reset,…
Poetry School ‘The flaw in the pattern’ by Rachael Mead – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
13 thoughts on wilderness 1. It is a word for something imaginary. 2. The deep blue bowl of sky, the microbial cities in the folds of my skin. 3. Web, palimpsest, machine – nothing can capture it. All we can say is what it is not. 4. Warping the laws of physics, time drifts with…
Poetry School ‘What the trees do’ by Laura Scott – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
They play with us they want to be us they once were us a long time ago one of them caught the heel of a girl in the crook of its branch, snagged it like a bird caught in a bush flicked her up into its leaves. She cried and the birds scattered so no-one…
Laura Scott ‘Walking with Rilke’ by Linda France – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
When, after a day of rain, evening light plucks us out of the four-square house to rinse our screen-bleached faces and it takes a while to adjust then notice grass heads leaning into each other like our shadows far off to the south intent on their own attenuated adventure woven between sheep, recently shorn and…
Linda France ‘River, post-spate’ by Joanna Guthrie – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
………..‘…one broad presence that proceeds by craft and gratitude’ – John Burnside The river reassembles after being in spate. It is small water moving in shining self-interrupting wrinkled glyphs and dimples, a body of thought in movement. It flows severally in adjacent clear layers and overlays takes circular spinning journeys within itself. Having got itself…
Poetry School ‘Fractures’ by David Clarke – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
i This house just moved ………..and all the bodies in it. Our finger-pointed grip on earth dislodged another fraction. Floodlit rigs ………..assault the ground and sky, scarred trucks idle at stop-lights. Now we are tutored to open – ………..this spell of force that conjures each fissure apart, its pitching release. Whatever holds us here, together,…
David Clarke ‘Windward’ by Paul Stephenson – Resurgence Prize, Highly Commended
The sea all water, yet receives rain still And in abundance addeth to his store… ……………………………………..Sonnet 135 Could be thirteen, asleep on a beach, the sand palms still, the sea uncertain. No announcement: just the heavens in a sudden rush, but even this much water is never enough. I run for shelter, quick sink my…
Paul Stephenson ‘Dhanakosa, Scotland’ by Cath Drake – Resurgence Prize, Second Place
The mist came through the glen, past the waterfall ………..roaring vertical, sweeping through trees, the sturdy quivering stems of wildflowers and vines, ………..and uncurled itself across the loch. A heron appeared from the grass, craned its neck, ………..lifted its legs and steered its insect-like body to pierce the mist, disappearing into it ………..with flashes of…
Cath Drake ‘Bomb’ by Emily Diamond – Resurgence Prize, Third Place.
Our ancestors didn’t leave us words for this. Rain, downpour, deluge Do not describe cars and central heating Become invisible, argued-over carbon – Heated air that holds the weight of oceans And, drop by millions of drop, Returns it to us, Filling fields with the fish-coloured back and forth of sudden lakes, Reversing gravity to…
Emily Diamand ‘Ilex’ by Seán Hewitt – Resurgence Prize Winner
Distracting myself, waiting for news, I walked until I saw this white cluster of holly growing at the base of a tree, the stems yellowed, the angled clutch of leaves like a bleached coral, a pale antler, almost medieval, like a relic unearthing in the gloom of the wood. Later, still the baby would not…
Seán Hewitt
Announcing The Resurgence Prize with The Poetry School
We are absolutely thrilled to announce that we have this year partnered with the Resurgence Prize to deliver the Resurgence Poetry Prize, now known as The Resurgence Prize with The Poetry School. The Resurgence Prize with The Poetry School is the world’s first major award for ecopoetry. With a first prize of £5,000 for the…
Poetry School