We are thrilled to announce the results of the Hay Writers’ Circle Poetry Competition, 2026.
This every popular competition received a good number of entries from both inside and outside Hay Writers’ Circle and we very much welcome all external interest in our writing competitions.
We must firstly take a moment to thank our amazing 2026 Poetry Judge, Lesley Saunders, who has read all the entrees and whittled them down to our ultimate set of prize winning poems.
Lesley wrote,
“I want to salute all the entrants who sent in their poems to the competition – I know from experience that it takes courage to submit one’s work for scrutiny and judgement by someone else. Just by entering the competition, writers have taken their writing a bit more seriously. My advice to people who weren’t successful in this competition is: keep trying, but above all keep writing. And I also want to honour the depth of emotion that inhabits many of the poems. I think that testifies to how we look particularly to poetry to hold and express our thoughts and feelings in these sad and difficult times.”
Thank you Lesley.
(Lesley also took the time to write constructive feedback notes for all competition entrants, these appear at the end of this update.)
Hay Writers’ Circle Poetry Competition 2026 – Results!
First Prize – Advice from the Widow Next Door, by Livia Frisby Parker Clements
Second Prize – Home, by Hilary Watkins
Joint Third Prize – Change of Use, by David Shields, and Getting to Grips with the Resistometer, by David Shields
Highly commended poems:
Numbered, The Weight of Water, and Trainers.
The Winner
“Livia Frisby Parker Clements is currently studying A levels at Orleans Park School in Twickenham and plans to apply to study Veterinary Medicine at university. Alongside this, she is taking English Literature as a fourth A level, reflecting her love of reading and creative writing. She has been writing poetry for the past three years, often drawing inspiration from Gothic and postmodern literature, which has become her favourite creative outlet.”
The Winning Poem
Advice from the Widow Next Door
by Livia Frisby Parker Clements
Listen to me girl, you cannot
dress this up, sweep it under layers of mascara
and concealer, stand still when you hear it
crunch between clenched teeth
or twist it into some hollow tragedy
because I know you long for people to notice
the stains it tracks over your smile, your voice
the oh so soft skin of your cheek
but nobody will see past your rosy lips
too blinded by the white glinting in your mouth,
too drunk on the honey in your tone,
too busy tracing the freckles on your jaw
I know you could draw around each slab of flesh
left withered by his touch
listen to me girl, you cannot
dress this up
when he shows up on your doorstep
do not invite him in
instead grab your keys, a broken beer bottle,
your father’s rusted axe
tread lightly and on the seams of the
floorboards,
still the tremor in your hand and the
fluttering bird behind your ribcage
though, be honest, that bird has long since died
so use the carcass
to lure the predator and,
listen to me girl,
aim for the neck.
We will be sharing the other placed poems, and their author bio’s in our next update.
In the mean time, huge congratulations to our winner, Livia, all our placed poets, and to everyone who entered our competition. Well done all!
Poetry Competition Feedback from our Judge, Lesley Saunders.
” I’d like to share a few tips that emerged from both the successful and the unsuccessful poems:
1. Less is more – good poetry often works because of its economy of expression; see if you can compress your poems by using allusion and metaphor – trust your readers’ intelligence!
2. Find a different angle – human experiences and emotions (love and death and the whole damn thing, to paraphrase the film title) have been written about since the dawn of time. How can you find a new way into thinking and writing about yours?
3. The shocking nature of catastrophic events and actions, such as in Ukraine and Gaza, makes many of us want to articulate our outrage and express our empathy. But it often works better to come at such topics obliquely – it can sound artificial or even voyeuristic to write too directly about someone else’s extreme experience.
4. If you want to use a formal rhyme scheme, don’t be ruled by it – read Paul Muldoon and Philip Larkin for brilliant ways of writing rhymefully
5. To write good poetry you need to read good poetry, including at least some works by poets of the 20th and 21st centuries. Otherwise you may be working with a restricted idea of what is ‘poetic’. On the other hand, you need to be able to say why what you have written counts as a poem rather than prose broken up into lines.”
And Finally,
Reminder of our Fiction Workshop – Tuesday 9th June, 2026
To keep up to date with all our competition and workshop news etc., why not subscribe with your email address in the box below.
