Friday 25 August 2017

UK winners for Settle poetry competition


It's been a busy month for Settle Sessions

Veronica Caperon presented a workshop for 8-12 year olds as part of the Tom Twistleton Festival at the Library in Settle. "I was very pleasantly by the standard of work which the children produced" she said. You can see some of the results at the exhibition planned for the end of September at The Folly.

And then there's the excitment surrounding the 2017 SS poetry competiton winners!

Entries from all over the UK were received for the 2017 Settle Sessions Poetry Competition with local poets in the top three prizes.

The winners will be announced at the special evening on Friday 29th September at The Friends Meeting House in Settle. Amongst the prize winners are local writers from Kendal, Lunedale and Kirkby Stephen as well as some from as far apart as Suffolk, Scotland, West Yorkshire and Dorset.

Appearing at the evening will be two leading British poets.

Competition judge Kim Moore, who lives and works in Cumbria, is fast building an admirable reputation for her work. Her first full length collection The Art of Falling was published by Seren in April 2015.  She won a New Writing North Award in 2014, an Eric Gregory Award in 2011 and the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2012. Her first pamphlet If We Could Speak Like Wolves was a winner in The Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition, judged by Carol Ann Duffy.

Carola Luther was born in 1959. She grew up in South Africa and moved to England in 1981. She works in Leeds and lives in the Yorkshire Pennines. Her first Carcanet collection Walking the Animals was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2004. She was poet in residence at The Wordsworth Trust 2011-12.

Prize winners and commended poets will be invited to read their award winning entries. Tickets for the evening, which starts at 7.30pm, are available from Cave and Crag and The Folly in Settle, and The Cheese Centre in Lawkland, or on the door, priced £6.