To see the results of the 2023 competition, click here.

Adjudicator – Julia Webb

FIRST PRIZE £600

SECOND PRIZE £300

THIRD PRIZE £100

Julia Webb is a writer, artist, poetry tutor and editor based in Norwich. She is a poetry editor for Lighthouse and is on the committee of Cafe Writers. She has three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016) Threat (2019) and The Telling (2022). Her work has been published widely in UK journals and anthologies. In 2011 she won the Poetry Society’s Stanza competition and in 2018 she won the Battered Moons poetry competition. She has had two poems highly commended in The Forward Prize: ‘Sisters’ (2016) and ‘Crash Site’ (2022). Her collection The Telling was listed as one of Expert Review’s best poetry books to buy in 2022.

‘The Telling by Julia Webb is a distinctive and acutely-observed collection of poems that unravel the intricacies at the heart of human relationships – an insistent, quietly fierce tour de force from this Forward Prize commended poet. Moving and dark, we uncover the things that go unspoken between people despite their closeness.’