Bridport Prize 2007 - Poetry Prizewinner's. Judge : - Don Paterson

Judges poetry report

Poetry longlist

Photographs of the Poetry prize giving

1st Prize £5000 Christopher Buehlman, Florida, USA. "Wanton"

Click to listen to the winning poem 'Wanton' by Christopher Buehlman

Christopher Buehlman is a playwright, poet and comedian from St. Petersburg, Florida, who plays taverns, clubs and renaissance festivals across the United States as Christophe the Insultor, a verbal mercenary people may hire to insult their friends ( www.insultor.com). His poetry has appeared in The Atlanta Review and other literary and university publications; he has been short-listed and won honorable mentions or runner-up positions in various contests, though none so prestigious as the Bridport. He recently completed a full-length play, "Hot Nights for the War Wives of Ithaka," and is the author of a novel he will seek representation for this winter. He has seen a number of his short plays produced, and has written and performed a one-man show about Christopher Marlowe.

2nd Prize £1000 Caroline Price, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. "The boy who could lay eggs"

Born in Middlesex in 1956. Studied Music in York and London; has worked as violinist and teacher in Glasgow, London and now Kent, where she currently teaches violin for Kent Music. Has been writing both poetry and prose for some 25 years; poems have won a number of prizes during that time and been published widely in magazines and anthologies. Has worked as co-editor on an anthology of women's poetry, and has published 2 collections, with a third one due to appear in 2008. Has also studied French, and earlier this year was awarded a month's residency at the Villa Marguerite Yourcenar, a centre for European writers in northern France.

3rd Prize £500 Kate Rhodes, Ipswich, Suffolk. "Wells-next-the-sea"

Kate Rhodes was born in London in 1964. She has taught English at British and American universities and now works as an educational consultant. In 2003 Kate was shortlisted for Poetry Review's Geoffrey Dearmer New Poet of the Year award. Her first collection of poems "Reversal" was published in 2005. The title poem of the collection was shortlisted for the Forward Prize in 2006. Kate's second collection of poems, "The Alice Trap" will be published by Enitharmon in 2008. She has received a number of writing fellowships in recent years, including a Hawthornden award. Kate has just completed her first novel.

Supplementary Prizes (alphabetical order) - £50 Each :-

Jonathan Asser, London. "Going to Therapy"

Originator of group therapy programme for violent prisoners.
Publisher & list of publications: Outside The All Stars (Arc Publications, 2003); The Switch (Donut Press, 2002)

Emily Berry, London. "Questions I wanted to ask you in the swimming pool"

Emily Berry is 26 and lives in London. She has recently completed an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, and her poems have been published (or are forthcoming) in magazines including Ambit, The Rialto, Poetry Wales and Other Poetry. She is working towards a collection.

Marianne Burton, London. "Puff Ball"

Marianne Burton's pamphlet The Devil's Cut (Smiths Knoll) was the Poetry Book Society's Pamphlet Choice for summer 2007. She was awarded the 2006 Smiths Knoll poetry mentorship and won first prize in the 2006 Mslexia poetry competition.

Rachel Curzon, Andover, Hants. "Exhibit"

Rachel Curzon was born in Leeds in 1978, and was eduacted at Boston Spa Comprehensive School and Somerville College, Oxford. She now lives in a Hampshire village, teaches English at a Prep school and writes whenever she can. Rachel has had poems published in Mslexia and Poetry London. She received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors earlier this year.

Claudia Daventry, Amsterdam, Holland. "Passport"

Claudia has just swapped a leaky, insect-infested house in Amsterdam for a leaky, insect-infested steading in Fife. She claims to be a serious poet although she has no conscientious objection to slam, performance, rhyme or foreign languages. She has won a few awards and commendations, and has so far performed her work live in the UK, Spain and the Netherlands, and is still reeling from the bright lights of Dutch national radio. Her first poetry collection is a bit more imminent than it was a year ago.

Anthony Hughes, New York, USA. "Ephemeral"

Anthony Hughes was born in Sydney, Australia and immigrated to the United States with his parents and sister in the late 1950s where he has resided as a citizen ever since. He grew up around the Western New York area and currently lives in Orchard Park, NY with his wife, Carole, and his infamous dogs, Mattie, a Katrina survivor, and Max, the greatest Australian shepherd on planet earth.
Anthony received his B.A. (English), his M.A. (Creative Writing, Poetry), and his Ph.D. (Film Studies) from SUNY at Buffalo. While working on his M.A., he primarily studied with Irving Feldman but was also fortunate to have worked with Robert Creeley, John Logan, and Carl Dennis as both a grad and undergraduate student.
Anthony is currently an English Professor at Hilbert College in Hamburg, NY where he has taught film, creative writing, and literature courses since 1997. While he has long since graduated in the formal sense of the word, his love affair with language has become a life-long learning process. During this time, he has continued to work with Irving Feldman, who still generously makes time to read his work, and when life permits, he also attends poetry conferences most recently, The Chautauqua Writers? Conference where he studied under Stephen Dunn.
Anthony has published and presented his poems and scholarly articles in numerous publications, poetry readings, and conferences. His book, Fashionable Films and the Endless Cutting Edge, will be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in the spring of 2008.

Catherine J Ormell, London. "Campaign Desk"

Catherine Ormell read PPE at Oxford and worked in the City for three years before training at Haymarket Publishing to become a journalist and going freelance. She wrote features for The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, World Architecture, The Times Educational Supplement, Focus magazine and others. She took a break to bring up her child and rediscovered her early interest in poetry through Michael Donaghy's class and the Troubadour readings. She is a non-executive director of a design consultancy and lives in London with her husband and twelve-year old son.

Wayne Price, Aberdeen. "Late Snow"

Wayne Price was born in South Wales and now lives and works in Aberdeen. He has published short stories and poetry in a number of anthologies and literary journals in the UK, Ireland and America including Stand, Poetry Wales, New Writing Scotland, Shorts: The Macallan Anthology and Carve. He was a runner-up in the 2005 Bridport Short Story Prize and the 2007 Fish Short Story Prize. He teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Aberdeen.

Rodney Pybus, Sudbury, suffolk. "Had I Not"

Born Newcastle upon Tyne, he has been a journalist, television writer-producer, university and school teacher. A former co-editor of Stand magazine, he has published several collections of his poetry, which has been translated into French, Russian, Spanish, Czech and Romanian. He now lives in Suffolk.
www.rodneypybus.co.uk

Christopher Stocks, Portland Dorset. "Scott of the Riviera"

Click to listen to the poem "Scott of the Riviera" by Christopher Stocks

Christopher Stocks was born in Yorkshire, and studied poetry at Manchester with Michael Schmidt. He has worked for, among others, Channel 4, Harpers & Queen, the Evening Standard, the Sunday Telegraph, the Girl Guides, and as a contributing editor to Wallpaper magazine. Most recently he was sacked as gardens correspondent for the Independent On Sunday.
Forgotten Fruits, his book on the stories behind Britain's best-loved varieties of fruit and vegetables, will be co-published by Random House and The Guardian in April 2008. For the last five years he has lived on the Isle of Portland, in a stone house overlooking the sea. He collects perfume and loves swimming off Chesil Beach but hates Swiss chard and light jazz. He is not married and has no children.
www.christopherstocks.com

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Bridport Prize 2007 - Poetry Prizewinner's. Judge : - Don Paterson

The Bridport Prize is a fundraiser for Bridport Arts Centre, charity no 1069780