Competition 2016: announced

Fire River Poets Open Poetry Competition 2016
1st Prize £200  –   2nd Prize £100  –   3rd Prize £75

The closing date was 31st October 2016. Competition rules and entry details can still be viewed here


Alison BrackenburyOur Judge, Alison Brackenbury, born in Lincolnshire in 1953, comes from a long line of skilled farmworkers. She now lives in Gloucestershire and has published nine collections of poems. Her work has won an Eric Gregory Award and a Cholmondeley Award. She reviews poetry for leading journals, including P N Review and Poetry London. Her work has been heard many times on BBC Radio, and she has been interviewed in the national press about her interest in promoting poetry via the Internet, especially on Facebook and Twitter.

Her latest collection, Skies, was published by Carcanet in 2016. Skies has been featured in The Guardian, The Independent, The Poetry Book Society Bulletin, and on Radio 4’s arts programme, Front Row. The award-winning poet Helen Mort has called it ‘her best, most urgent collection to date… tender, exact and unflinching’. Skies has also been selected as The Observer’s Poetry Book of the Month. Kate Kellaway, the reviewer, wrote ‘The seasoned craft and musicality of Alison Brackenbury’s poetry shine through in this humble, haunting and humorous collection’.

More information about Alison, including new poems and a blog, can be found at her website www.alisonbrackenbury.co.uk