We are delighted to announce the prize-winners, highly commended, commended and longlisted poets in the Yaffle Prize Competition 2025.

All the poems listed below will be included in an anthology later in the year. 

 

Thanks to everyone who sent their poems for Antony Dunn to judge,

you gave him a difficult task!

 

To those who haven't made the list, thank you for sending your work to us,

please consider sending to us in the future 

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Yaffle Prize Winners

 

1st Prize – Julie Elizabeth Griffiths – Sonnet to my Marigolds

2nd Prize – Rachel Glass – Ode to Pedro Pascal

3rd Prize – Tonnie Richmond – Anne Briggs wasn’t there

 

Highly Commended 

 

Clifford Liles – Desynchronisation

Rebecca Bilkau – Motion/less

 

Commended  

 

Lauren. K. Nixon – Brink

           Sharon Larkin – Dread or Kindred

           Penny Blackburn – Masking

           Jenny Robb – Solace

           Jennifer. A. McGowan – Umbrella

 

  Longlist

 

A surf of starlings – Sandra Noel

A witch in transition – Jill Lang

Actionable, transformative,

relational leadership training day– Donna Irving

Alabama Rules – Colin Day

Alibi – Michael Brown

And then my heart – Helen Kay

Apocrypha – Gail Bolland

Apostrophe – Carolyn Thomas

At the Repair Shop – Sharon Larkin

Baggage Claim – Rachel Glass

Becoming Irish – Marion Hobday

Bluebeard’s Housemaid – Elizabeth Holt

Breakown – Liz McPherson

Broad Street, Friday Night – Jennifer. A. McGowan

Butterfly – Andy Humphrey

Children of the Tsunami – Jeffa Kay

Crate up your sadness – Lauren.K.Nixon

Difference – Gail Bolland

Digs – Julie Elizabeth Griffiths

Disposable – Marion Hobday

Dragged a comb across my hair – Helen Kay

Echoes of Self – Sandra Noel

Embedded – Pat Edwards

Extracts from the Sister Letters – Julia Webb

False Gods – Lyn Valentine

February Drift – Sue Burge

Fermentation – Sharon Phillips

Fighter, lover, dancer – Colin Day

Food Shopping – Ellen Davies

Forecast – Matt Nicholson

Further – Terry Simpson

Geese – Janet Dean

Give me the moon – Pen Kease

Granddaughter says – Pen Kease

Gretel thinks her father is still working – Doryn Herbst

Humber Crossing – Matt Nicholson

I don’t know why we christened you – Ali Pooley

I flippin love toads – Sandra Noel

I have been inventing it for days – Liz McPherson

I need these journeys – Miriam Otto

If every tongue were still – Mandy Schiffrin

In her lucid moments – Lucy Heuschen

Initiation – Donna Irving

Insomnia – Joy Winkler

Inventory of Scars – Sharon Phillips

Joe is a currant slice without cherries – Liz McPherson

Just Yellowness – Doryn Herbst

Last year I wrote a book instead of dying – Jennifer. A. McGowan

Letter from the surface I know I can’t send – Sandra Noel

Listen – Rebecca Bilkau

            Love poem featuring Lupe’s Cantina – Kristina Diprose

Medusa gives advice about walking in darkness – Lucy Heuschen

Minotaur – Tina Cole

Mint – Kate O’Neil

Miscarriage of Justice – Mandy Schiffrin

My father thinks he’s on a train – Sharon Phillips

My fitness app asks my mood – Suzanna Fitzpatrick

Ode to my funeral – Rachel Glass

Old Sailor in Kirkwall – Colin Day

Ophelia Prepares Jugged Hare – Marion Hobday

Palmistry – Lauren.K.Nixon

Panoply – Matt Nicholson

Parietal – Sue Burge

Reconstruction Worker – Sharon Larkin

Rock, Paper, Scissors – Janet Dean

Roses Forewarned – Jennifer. A. McGowan

Silent Movie – Sherlock Jr – Paul Francis

Sonogram – Andy Humphrey

Spark – Andy Humphrey

Splitting the Bill – Patrick Druggan

Sugar – Lauren.K.Nixon

Summer Breeze – William Coniston

Thaw – Mandy Macdonald

The Beta Max Effect – Gary Akroyde

The Cat – Charlotte Smith

The Door – Michael Brown

The older female poet – Clare Wigzell

The Ushawant Kaur Educational Society – Terry Simpson

The Weight of Stones – Holly Bars

The woman at the back of the 60 – Lauren.K.Nixon

The wrong psychiatrist – Lyn Valentine

Today I am Sixty-Nine – Janet Dean

visits Pontefract Castle – Terry Simpson

Watcherwoman --  Lucy Heuschen

Ways of Seeing – Sharon Phillips

What Demeter saw – Kristina Diprose

When you say elegizers write about the dead – Sandra Noel

White Goods – Andy Humphrey