Verve Poetry Festival Competition Anthologies 2024 and 2025

It was an honour to have Helen Mort select my poem ‘Crocuses, etc.” as a Commended poem in the 2024 Verve Poetry Festival Competition on the theme of ‘Ecopoetry’ and see my poem published in the anthology, A gift, once given, must not be spurned. I performed at the Competition Event at Verve Poetry Festival in February 2024.

I was then overjoyed to also be Commended in the 2025 Competition on the theme of ‘Poets and Poetry’. Judge Hannah Lowe chose my poem "‘Candle people’, which brought me joy as it is about body positivity and queerness, and I was really happy to again be able to perform at the Festival and share the poem there. It is included in the anthology, The poem, I now realised, was a dog.