Theo Dorgan and Paula Meehan, as this year's Poets in Residence, have judged the competition and the results are listed below. As ever there were a large number of entries, and our congratulations go not only to the winners, but also to all those who sent their poems.

Competition Winners

Category 1 (Adult section)

First prize
Lambskin – Jacqueline Saphra (London)

Lambskin

Spring child, you turned up late
and restless, for weeks you wouldn't sleep
without a nipple in your mouth.

Stupidly, I thought there could be nothing worse,
prop-eyed for nights on end, tethered to you,
wakened hourly, at the edge of madness.

The Lambskin rescued both of us.
Your cries would muffle, comfort in its fluff,
the scent of talcum, sweat and baby-sick,

the simplified, miraculous outline
of a small animal at rest, replete
with mother's milk, too new for grass,

a safe lining for your speechless dreams.
This was your first turn away, my first longed-for
hint of freedom from the tug and suck.

I thought of it last March, lambskin,
when we drove across the Severn Bridge
past green pastures, your long limbs cramping

in the back, the crunch of crisps, the crackled
beat of ipod. I reached behind to bother you,
touched your warm cheek, just checking,

in the innocence of nudge and suckle,
their stupid-eyed, impatient mothers
feeding at the very edge of spring.

Second prize
Dickens in the afternoon –Adrian Buckner (Derby)

Dickens in the afternoon
to the memory of Non vocational Adult Education

There is a piano in the corner. Perhaps
the stool is to be found in the cupboard;

the cupboard where, the note attached
to the key informs me,

some folding tables may be found
should there not be enough in Room 3.

I am advised against opening the windows;
should I encounter any difficulties

I am to call Jean who will try to contact Arthur
who will be coming later to lock up.

I rub a Georgian shop window
from the blackboard, detach

from the flipchart a sheet inscribed:
Computers for the Terrified, Monday 11am.

No thank you. Modern life makes
us nervous enough. We prefer

Oliver Twist on Tuesday afternoons.
And when we have settled on which page

Chapter 38 begins in our various editions,
we can address today's proposition:

Dickens hoped and believed the instincts
of the well born and the public spirited

would bring England the good society.
I think we will hope it too.

Third prize
Ripples – Michael Swan (Didcot)

Ripples

Light never stops.
The first photons are still travelling
out on the edge,
ripples in space-time.

A German poet said,
what we do endures
like a blow with a stick on the sea.

There was a village where people worked and loved,
laughed and quarrelled, lived and died.

There was a boy, five years old.
His father made him a toy boat.
He sailed it on the pond, scattering the ducks.
He watched the ripples go across and back,
across and back.
And at night he took his boat to bed.

When her work was over his grandmother sang.
People sat round the fire, the flames dancing in their eyes,
as the dark pressed in.

Where have they gone?

We could find their bones, perhaps.
But to what purpose?
What can a bone tell you
about a boy who went to sleep holding his boat?
What song can a bone sing?

I want to know if those ripples of sound
are still circling the globe unheard;
if the firelight is still moving outwards
500 light-years away.

Here we are now, doing the things that we do.
Look at our factories, our galleries;
listen to our music;
marvel at the subtlety of our languages,
the nobility of our sentiments and sacrifices.
Eavesdrop on our words of love.

Like a blow with a stick on the sea.

In some billions of years, they say,
the last ripples will die
out on the edge of the universe.

And will the boy's boat wash up, then,
on those cold shores?

Young persons' section

First prize
Older – Elly Porter (Kent)

Older

Carefully draw a black line
around each lid. Run mascara through
the lashes brushing them
slowly upwards, leaving them
feeling thick and gooey. Dust
the skin lightly with a brush covered
pink. Roll up the lipstick, apply to
lips. Slip on the shoes. Hair up in clips.

She looks at the glass that holds the reflection
and sees not a girl of twelve, but of fifteen.
She closes the door tightly, climbs
the stairs to the street, waves to her friends
and wishes she was on her swing.

Second prize
Evening – Guto Dafydd (Caernarfon)

Evening

Because there's beer and love and laughs
and girls to seek and lads to keep
life's company, we bid the bus's irrelevance
farewell. Dylan's evening haze settles
over a town reborn with every second.

We shan't care about the stars
until we're 'blinded by their majesty'
as we depart the last bus home.

A pub's hustle-bustle burns
away the rain's tears from our clothes.
And I'm surrounded by conversation
in the glory of challenges and joy.

I look around. Me, without their years
of Friday nights,
watching the faces which are scarred
by routine.

The well-dressed drunkard
reaches for the skirted lass's kiss
as she, at last, dodges his tales
of Once's love and whisky. For him
death's comfort
is a 'when' which tumbles
down that street without falling.

We leave. The evening's razor
is relentless on our necks.
But our destination's windows gleam
in the evening's dampness
and we fall towards it.

And in the distance of streetlights
the shadow of inevitability creeps up
to the girls
who were once as young as I.

Third prize
Superman – Celina Macdonald (Tasmania)

Superman

They were hard times
but whenever he pulled the comic books
out from under his pillow
he was transported
into a different world;
a world with problems of its own.
The people of that world
were under attack too,
but there was someone to save them,
someone who never failed to rescue them
when they were in danger.
And as the boy scoured the pages
for the millionth time;
he wondered if there was a hero to save
him.

Children's section

First prize
The Old Man Next Door – Tabitha Everett (Bedford)

The Old Man Next Door

I sometimes think about the old man next door,
With his weak smile,
And his crippled back,
His blue knitted jumper,
His tattered old mac.

The old man next door is not often home,
Yet he's hardly ever seen walking in the hills,
Or strolling in town,
You could almost say he was never around.

But the old mans presence lingers behind him where
ever he goes,
Even when he can't be seen,
You know where he is,
And you know where he's been.

The old man next door is a mysterious guy,
You can feel his vibes all day long and all night...
But no one knows what he does by light.

Second prize
Pied Beauty – Katharine Sealy (Middlesex)

Pied Beauty

Swift and soft the piebald runs
Hooves thudding on the parched dry earth,
Dappled coat shines in the sun,
Ebony mane rustled by the wind.
Mare, dark amber eyes staring
New-born foal at her feet
Fears the winter when the food is spare
And there is nothing to eat.
Galloping through the trees
Forest deer, mottled for camouflage,
Stopping only to look behind
At the hunters following their trail.
Sly and sleek is the fox
Stalking the innocent mouse
readying itself to pounce
And break its neck with a quick bite.
Small and fast is the rabbit
Nibbling here and there at grass,
Hopping into the burrow with the speed of a cheetah
When the huntsman's shot is heard.
Quiet and black the moorhen waddles
Waiting for the chicks to follow
Swimming upstream as swift as a swallow.

Swift and soft the piebald runs
Trotting on the parched dry earth,
Stopping for a drink at a small ditch.
The forest is silent.

Third prize

Lost – Theo Lezzeri (Exeter)

Lost

He was lost.
He saw the birds spear through the wind as it cried out.
He saw the thorny cliff rise up beside it.
He saw it cut up any who ventured near.
He saw the serpent's cave, a gash through it.
He saw it as it dragged down its victims.
He saw the rocky river run below.
He saw the raven's rock as it smiled at its tired enemy
and tripped.
He saw it.
He was afraid.

2006 WINNERS

2005 WINNERS

2004 WINNERS