The shortlist for the Blake Prize 2024 was announced on 22 March. The three judges--Ellen van Neeven, Simone King and Peter Ramm--selected just eight poems from 575 entries, commenting that:
The poems collectively offered a wonderfully diverse array of forms, voices, language and engagement with the concept of spirituality. Some poems made us laugh, others gave us tingles, some surprised us, and others revealed connections between things that we thought were unrelated. The experience of engaging with the submitted poems was incredibly enriching, and we consider that it has expanded and deepened our own understandings of contemporary spirituality.
We are pleased to announce that one of the eight poems selected was Mark Tredinnick's October, which was described by one of the judges as:
...a delicate exploration of the intertwining of landscape and the human psyche; the journey of age, our propensity to harm, and the earth’s enduring capacity for renewal, for re-grounding the soul, for the revelation of truth. The poem is a symphony that carries the weight and the lightness of its lines masterfully, balancing the tenderness of each line with striking imagery befitting its form. It reveals itself subtly, like its subject, through observance of the beauty of its language, and the intricacy of its composition.
Mark is, of course, a 5 Islands Press poet and our managing editor. Congratulations, Mark.
You can view the full shortlist, reading the judges comments on each poem and listen to the poets reading their poems on the Westwords website (link below).
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