The Poetry Society is delighted to announce the winners of the 2018 Timothy Corsellis Prize for poems and essays responding to poetry of the Second World War.
The Timothy Corsellis Prize was set up in memory of the young poet Timothy Corsellis, both as a memorial and an encouragement to others to explore the often overlooked field of Second World War poetry.
2018 marks the fifth year of the Corsellis Prize and once again the judges were impressed by the standard of the poems submitted by young people from around the world. Young writers responded to the life and work of nine poets of the Second World War: Keith Douglas, Sidney Keyes, Alun Lewis, John Jarmain, Henry Reed, Anna Akhmatova, Gertrud Kolmar, Günter Eich and Timothy Corsellis. This year we were glad to introduce Günter Eich to our roster of poets, and were impressed with the imaginative responses to his life and work.
Out of the many brilliant competition entries we received, we are now delighted to announce our winners:
Timothy Corsellis Prize 2018
Winner:
‘Gomorrah’ by Isaac Silver
2nd Prize:
‘After they throw eggs at your house’ by Natalie Bolderston
3rd Prize:
‘To Lev Gumilyov’ by Lydia Wei
Commended:
‘Boys in the Sky’ by Em Power
‘Anna’ by Matilda Houston-Brown
‘Me Sitting at Home Having Suffered Next to Nothing’ by Beatriz Santos
Timothy Corsellis Young Critics Prize 2018
We are also delighted to announce the winner of our Young Critics Prize, which called for short essays exploring which three poets of the seven are most likely to be read in twenty years’ time and why.
Winner:
Many thanks to everyone who entered, and congratulations to our winners!
The judges for both Prizes were Professor Fran Brearton (for the War Poets Association), a leading authority on war poetry and Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre in Belfast; Karen Leeder, FRSA, poet and professor of Modern German Literature at New College, Oxford; Llewela Selfridge on behalf of the Imperial War Museum in London; and Judith Palmer, Director of The Poetry Society.
We would also like to thank the Corsellis family for their generosity in establishing this prize, and their invaluable support of The Poetry Society.