WORDSMITHERY LAUNCHES THE ROSEMARY MCLEISH POETRY PRIZE

The inaugural Rosemary McLeish Poetry Prize is open for entries on the theme of 'Nature' from 6 December 2021 to 1 March 2022. 

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Rosemary McLeish was a poet and artist who died from cancer in 2020. Her two collections of poetry I am a field and Defragmentation are published by Wordsmithery. Rosemary was a great supporter of Confluence and we published her work in several issues. 

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Wordsmithery wanted to set up a prize in her name to support and promote writers, which is something Rosemary was always very keen to do. In this first year of the prize, the theme is 'Nature' as this is something which was always strong in Rosemary's work, and the topic of her first collection 'I am a field'.

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Prize fund: 

1st prize £500 plus artwork by Rosemary McLeish

2nd prize £200

3rd prize £100

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All longlisted entries will also receive a copy of one of Rosemary's poetry collections and be published in the Prize anthology. 

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Guest judge:

We are delighted to have as our guest judge Jane Burn.

Jane Burn is an Pushcart/Forward Prize nominated, multi award winning, working class, bi, neurodivergent poet and artist who lives for most of the year with her family in an off-grid cottage in Northumberland. Her poems are widely published, in magazines like The Rialto, Under the Radar, The Friday Poem and Poetry Wales to name a few, as well as many anthologies from publishers like Culture Matters, Seren and The Emma Press. She is in the second year of an MA in Writing Poetry at Newcastle University and her latest collection, Be Feared, is published by Nine Arches Press. She has also recently been awarded an Arts Council grant to pursue her neurodivergent hybrid writing practises and theories. 

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The prize fund has been generously funded by Rosemary's widower, Richard Cooper. 

For full information on the prize and to enter visit the Wordsmithery website. 

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