Judges

Award-winning Welsh poet and author Mick Evans will judge our 2026 competition. This will be our 20th contest, and sadly our final one.

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Born in London, Mick Evans grew up in rural Hertfordshire. He read English at Oxford, where he gained a Violet Vaughan Morgan Prize. He pursued a career in teaching on Kent’s London fringe, in Cheshire, and finally Carmarthenshire, which has been his home for many years. The move to Wales was prompted by the desire to re-establish the family’s Welsh roots.

With origins in London and now surrounded by landscapes steeped in myth, and the dramatic scenery of the Black Mountains and Towy Valley, the tensions of urban and natural worlds are a constant source of inspiration. His work reveals a fascination with the interplay of lyricism and rhetoric, and the historical, mythological, and literary cross-currents underpinning feelings about experience.

A founder member of the Dinefwr Poets group, he has been published in several anthologies, was runner-up in the Cinnamon single poem competition, and was the winner of the Welsh Poetry Competition in 2015 with his poem ‘Map makers’. In a subsequent year, four of his poems made it into the final twenty. Published by Cinnamon Press, his debut collection, ‘Burlesque’, came out in 2019, followed in 2021 by ‘Light Airs’. Both works were reviewed in Agenda. His collection of short prose pieces, ‘Short Cuts’ (2022), has been described as ‘written with a dagger masquerading as a pen’.

Mick performs at spoken word events in Carmarthen, has run workshop sessions with Cinnamon Press, and has read selections from his work at the Llandeilo Literary Festival.

Mick’s latest work is ‘Songs for Later‘, published by Cinnamon Press.

“Mick Evans is a writer who takes risks. Never content to remain static, the voice is increasingly explorative, increasingly nuanced and possessed of a compassion that is also clear-sighted. The feel for language, the lyrical pulse, the acuteness of observation and the range and depth of references are signature features of Mick Evans’ work. But with each new collection, the reach is extended. There are poems here that unsettle or warn, that celebrate or remember, that surprise and delight, poems that make us laugh or wonder… and always there is love — not sentiment, not nostalgia, but permeable, authentic, love in all its shades of grief and joy.”

Praise for Mick Evans:
‘Clever and moving poetry. He deserves to be much better known.’ | ‘Extraordinarily sophisticated.’ | ‘It is a ballet of a work.’

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Note: Unlike some competitions where the judge never gets to see your hard work our judges read every poem submitted. We do NOT use any filter judges.

The poems will be judged anonymously to ensure a fair competition and unbiased result and winners will be announced on our website here as well as in the local and national press.

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