Oxford Canal Festival
Poetry Competition 2024
winning entries
Our Judge, Roy McFarlane FRSL, Canal Laureate of England and Wales, writes:
Judging this competition has been a pleasure and a joy. Thank you for entrusting your beloved poems to me, from the personal to the observational, from the magical to those that speak of the reality of living or spending leisure time by our waterways.
I chose the title The Ways of Water to encourage people to write about canals and any other form of water that they feel drawn to, celebrating both the wonders and the importance of our waters. And we have received so many fantastic poems, from close by in Oxford and from far away in other countries. We have had over 500 entries across the three categories and I loved the whole process of reading them.
Hearing so many of shortlisted poets perform in the Spoken Word Tent at the Oxford Canal Festival on Saturday 21st September was very special.
It has been so difficult to make a choice. Everyone who was shortlisted was a winner in my heart.
Congratulations to the winners and shortlisters alike and good luck with your poetry. I look forward to hearing about your future prizes!
[Use the arrows to toggle through the winning poems in each category]
First Prize 'Ask me about my Theory that the Leeds Liverpool Canal and the River Aire are Lesbian Lovers': Kristina Diprose
Second Prize 'A Hoar Frost': Joe Reynolds
Third Prize 'Sea Dreams': Sarah Doyle
Special Mention 'A Canalside Jamboree': Leanne McClements
Special Mention 'The Stir Beneath a Fall of Willow': Val Harris
Special Mention 'Two Ways with Water': Helen Angell
Winning Poets' Biographies
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Kristina Diprose
Kristina Diprose co-runs the Rhubarb at the Triangle open mic in Shipley, and co-edited its anthologies Un/Forced and Seconds. She has been shortlisted in the Ginkgo Prize and Leeds Poetry Festival competitions and was an Ilkley Literature Festival 2023 New Northern Poet. Thin Spells, her debut pamphlet of ecopoetry, is forthcoming in 2025 from The Black Cat Poetry Press.
Instagram: @kristinadiprose
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Joe Reynolds
Joe Reynolds started writing poetry in the mid 1960s, but let it lapse due to work and raising a family. After retiring he began writing again mainly short stories, poetry and articles for online magazines. He has lived in or around Coventry all of his life and a lot of his work reflects on the area. He also plays the saxophone (and was the session saxophone player on The Selector's hit 'Three Minute Hero'). He has been married to his wife Julie for 50 years, and has five daughters and twelve grandchildren. He has a long association with canals and remembers playing and fishing on the towpaths in the 1950s and '60s when they were still working waterways.
X: @Sax_Joe.Reynolds
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Sarah Doyle
Sarah Doyle holds an MA in Creative Writing from UL Royal Holloway, and is the Pre-Raphaelite Society’s Poet-in-Residence. Her poetry has been published in journals including Spelt Magazine, Wild Court, Under the Radar, Atrium Poetry, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Mslexia, Finished Creatures, The Alchemy Spoon, Lighthouse Journal and The Lonely Crowd; and in anthologies from publishers such as Broken Sleep, Faber & Faber, The Emma Press, Laurence King Publishing, Paper Swans, Shoreline of Infinity and Places of Poetry. Sarah won 1st prize in the Ver Poets Open Poetry Competition 2023, was highly commended in the Ginkgo Prize for Ecopoetry 2023, and was longlisted in the 2022 National Poetry Competition. She is a former winner of the William Blake Poetry Prize, the Wolverhampton Literature Festival poetry competition and Holland Park Press’s Brexit in Poetry; and has been a runner-up in the Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize and Essay Prize. A pamphlet of poems collaged from fragments of Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals – Something so wild and new in this feeling – was published by V. Press in 2021, and her second pamphlet, (m)othersongs, was released by the same publisher in autumn 2023. Sarah lives in London, and works as a freelance workshop leader, mentor, and poetry critique provider.
Website: sarahdoyle.co.uk
