Congratulations to Jordan Maly-Preuss (Merton College) who has been awarded this year's Lord Alfred Douglas Memorial Prize for her poem 'Selvage’. The Lord Alfred Douglas Memorial Prize is awarded for the best sonnet or other poem written in English and in strict rhyming metre.
Jordan commented: "Sonnets are my favourite form to work in and often also to read: receiving a prize for one of my own is a particular joy. 'Selvage' comes from a collection I have been writing for a couple of years, telling stories about figures from the Gospels who find themselves brought in from various peripheries – though that underlying theme is one that has only shown itself to me as I composed these very lines! I am grateful that the judges chose to bring this periphery poem into the centre, and glad also for a chance to thank the friend who so perceptively said, when given it to read, 'the word you need is "outskirts"'. For a poem to live, it needs to have a place within a community."
Austin Spendlowe (Lincoln College) was awarded second place for his poem ‘We Workshop Love’. He commented: "If you told me last year that I’d be the runner up in the Lord Alfred Douglas Memorial Prize, I probably wouldn’t have applied. I am very grateful."
