Poetry Prize 2021 Results, Long and Short-lists

Winners

Here are the 10 winners, as chosen by judge Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2021

The Fish Anthology 2021 will be launched as part of the West Cork Literary Festival (July 2021), as an online event.

The 10 winning poems will be published in the FISH ANTHOLOGY 2021.
1st prize: €1,000
2nd: a week in residence at Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat.
3rd:€200

Billy Collins

Comments on the winning poems are from Billy Collins (below), who we sincerely thank for lending his time and experience to judge the prize.

Congratulations to the ten winning poets, and also to those whose poems made the short-list of 95, and to the poets who made the long-list of 390. Total entry was 2,987.

More about the 10 winning poets (link).

The Ten Winners:

Selected by Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2021

FIRST

LETTER TO DOWSIE, FROM ROETHKE IN IRELAND by Greg Rappleye (Michigan USA)

“It’s one long stanza perfectly fits Roethke’s sustained utterance as he writes home from Ireland about his current state. The lack of self-pity is impressive here, for this man is in the throes of depression and alcoholism, riding the ‘moron bus’ and led around by ‘four orderlies in white”. And far from home. His joys sustain him, though, particularly music and the pub life, where he hushes ‘the fiddles and parts a cloud of pipe smoke’ before reciting a poem to the crowd. This poem is a sensitive comic/tragic portrait of a mad genius in extremis, a stranger in a land whose own strangeness suits him.” Billy Collins

SECOND

CHEMO by Matt Hohner (Baltimore, USA)

“This poem smartly and charmingly avoids the slippery slope of the maudlin that goes easily with the sub-genre of cancer poetry. The saving grace is the friendship of the patient and her visitor and the humor they mix into the horrifying toxic effects of her treatment, including a serum ‘meant to almost kill her in order to kill/the tumor growing inside her head.’ We feel the seriousness under the joking, and the love under the horrid symptoms. It’s a poem that keeps it cool under the immediate pressure of life and death.” Billy Collins

THIRD

DON’T RUSH TO CLEAN HER ROOM by Pippa Gough (Kent, England)

“I saw this poem as a corollary to Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. It’s too late to rage at Death, of course, or anything else, but the speaker uses a similar imperative tone to insist that the departed’s room be left intact, preserving it for a while. ‘Allow… the toothpaste stains to harden on the sink.’ ‘Ignore the powder-tangle of her drawer,/ the sweet half-sucked, the scattered pills.” How such common things are made to move us! And leave the mirror, for ‘it holds her in its silvered depths.’ As in the best elegies, grief and loss are anchored and illuminated by the common things around us.” The speaker rages in favor of respect and reverence.” Billy Collins

SEVEN HONORABLE MENTIONS

(In no particular order)

THE ROWAN BERRIES OF WINTER by Phillip Crymble (New Brunswick, Canada)

ODE TO IGNORANCE by Michael Lavers (Canada)

DECEMBER SUNLIGHT by Harry Nisbet, 1919, Oil on Canvas by Alice Twemlow (Amsterdam)

FIRST TIME by Maureen Boyle (N. Ireland)

STORY OF SISTER WHOSE BROTHER LOST HIS HAND TO THE BUZZ SAW

by Victoria Walvis (Hong Kong)

SWIFT DEPARTURE by Will Ingrams (Suffolk, UK)

THE BREAK UP by Partridge Boswell (Vermont)

MORE ABOUT THE WINNERS

Greg Rappleye lives in Grand Haven, Michigan. His second collection of poems, A Path Between Houses (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000) won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry. His third collection, Figured Dark (University of Arkansas Press, 2007) was co-winner of the Arkansas Prize in Poetry was published in the Miller Williams Poetry Series. His fourth collection, Tropical Landscape with Ten Hummingbirds, was published in the fall of 2018 by Dos Madres Press. He teaches in the English Department at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.

Matt Hohner is an editor for Loch Raven Review. He once won a poetry slam in Washington State over the phone from Baltimore, Maryland. He has adapted a poem of his with composer Brechtje into lyrics for a song performed in Amsterdam. Hohner’s first collection is Thresholds and Other Poems (Apprentice House 2018). Salmon Poetry will publish his next collection in 2023. Hohner has published in six countries and four continents. He lives in Baltimore, USA.

Pippa Gough was born in England, but grew up in sub-Saharan Africa. She enjoyed an itinerant childhood and developed extraordinary talents in being as adaptable as a chameleon but as rootless as a milk tooth. She has had a number of careers – all of them connected to nursing and health care, about which she grows increasingly passionate. She is currently an executive coach working mainly with health care workers and lives Kent with Nick.

Phillip Crymble is a physically disabled writer and literary scholar from Belfast. A poetry editor at The Fiddlehead, he holds a MFA from the University of Michigan and has published poems in Magma, The North, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review, Iota, The Forward Book of Poetry, and elsewhere. In 2007 he was selected to read in Poetry Ireland’s Introductions series. In 2016, Not Even Laughter, his first book-length collection, came out with Salmon Poetry.

Michael Lavers is the author of After Earth, published by the University of Tampa Press. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, AGNI, Southwest Review, Best New Poets 2015, and elsewhere. He has been awarded the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize, the Moth Poetry Prize, and the Bridport Poetry Prize. Together with his wife, the writer and artist Claire Åkebrand, and their two children, he lives in Provo, Utah, and teaches at Brigham Young University.

Alice Twemlow (Ph.D RCA/V&A) is a design historian and research professor at The Royal Academy of Art The Hague (KABK) and Leiden University and a professor by special appointment at University of Amsterdam. She contributes essays about all aspects of design culture to publications such as Disegno, MacGuffin and Dirty Furniture. These range from critiques of the anti-clutter movement and toilet paper branding to readings of manifestations of post-disposal design such as plastiglomerate and space junk.

Maureen Boyle lives in Belfast where this summer she retires from teaching after thirty years – 28 of them in St Dominic’s Grammar School on the Falls Road. She will miss the students but be glad to have more time for writing, the garden and her allotment and plans to be on some class of beach in the first week of September in celebration and because she can.

Victoria Walvis lives on Lamma, a subtropical island without llamas in Hong Kong, with one foot in Florence Italy—soon home. She’s part England, part Holland, part perfectionist tomboy. Passions are moving words small distances on paper and swimming inexpertly with a lot of splashing. She’s powered by coffee, but it won’t sponsor her. Poet of the Peel Street Poets, she’s performed for the Economist and HK International Literary Festival, and runs curious poetry workshops for anyone remotely curious.

Will Ingrams writes poetry, short stories and the occasional novel at his cottage in rural Suffolk. He has won or been shortlisted in a number of competitions over the years, and has a blog at https://willingwordwhirl.wordpress.com where more of his poems can be found. Will’s flesh and blood avatar has spent time as a forecourt attendant, a postman, a teacher, and a computer geek before turning to writing and growing vegetables.

Partridge Boswell is a stay-at-home rover, father of seven, and author of the Grolier Award-winning collection Some Far Country. When not hitchhiking or freighthopping, his bindlestiff poems have recently found homes in Poetry, Gettysburg Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Rattle and The Moth. Co-founder of Bookstock Literary Festival, he troubadours widely with the poetry/music group Los Lorcas, whose debut release Last Night in America (2021) is available on Thunder Ridge Records. Please say hello when you see him busking on Grafton Street.

The overall winning poem:

Letter to Dowsie, from Roethke in Ireland

-St. Brigid’s Psychiatric Hospital at Ballinasloe,

County Galway, September 3, 1960

Driven mad by channel wrack and fresh sprats in bad oil,

sobbing on the oyster dock, at lowest tide I was

rowed to the mail boat by a barefoot Carmelite,

then lugged ashore at Cleggan and poured into the back

of a Singer sedan. I swore I’d suppress my “affect”

for a splash on our way to the bughouse,

and the good padre, having tippled with me

in those dicey island days, found nothing against the faith

in that. He meted out Kilbeggan’s every ten miles

or-so, toasting each chosen apostle, excluding the Iscariot,

but counting Matthias and Paul. As single-pot prodigal,

I’ve found an easier, softer way: drinking cold buttermilk,

noshing stewed apples and mealy fishcakes

with the daft nuns and my attending physician,

a kindly man who is the spitball image of Barry Fitzgerald.

Walrus-like, I’ve wallowed in the hydro baths

as in our famous days at Mercywood, and thanks

to my trans-Atlantic laurels, my benzo-calm

and affable demeanor, I’m driven to a public house

on seisiún nights aboard the moron-bus, and allowed

two stiff drinks and the recitation of a poem.

It’s grand to hush the fiddles and part a cloud of pipe smoke,

led through the tavern door by four orderlies in white,

as if I’m blind O’Carolan, stumbled home at last,

escorted by that squadroon of virtuous angels

by which minor deities are ushered into the world.

On the wall chart of temperaments, mine approaches a shaker

of dry martinis—sanguine with ice and three drops of melancholic.

Dowsie, when did you last climb a honeysuckle trellis?

When did you last scurry through an asylum greenhouse,

tripping over clay pots and hashing your knees?

I imagine you now as sea-lioness, sleek and black,

your most clever pup dropped carelessly,

left to gorge on red dulse in a midnight sea

and you, shrieking all those long tumultuous hours

atop a granite rock, eelgrass wilding beyond you in the surf.

Greg Rappleye

SHORT-LIST:

(Alphabetical order)

There are 95 poems on the short-list. The total entry was 2,987.

night men rowing	Nick	Allen
To my Reader	Lucia	Altenhofen
Obits	Jayne	Benjulian
Green Parrots	Michelle	Bitting
Boxing Day	Michelle	Bitting
How Not to Kill a Chicken	Sharon	Black
When to Flip the Pancakes	Elizabeth	Boquet
The Breakup	Partridge	Boswell
My Lucky Day	Partridge	Boswell
Parting Shot	Partridge	Boswell
The Breakup (2)	Partridge	Boswell
First Time	Maureen	Boyle
Timepiece	Alan	Buckley
Yellowstone and what the bears mean	Sue	Burge
Tea Ceremony	Carol	Caffrey
Stilts	Jean	Cassidy
When I said I wouldn’t love again, but then I tried	Toni	Chappell
THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH	John	Claxton
Flour	Brid	Connolly
This is a Confessional Poem	Alexandra	Corrin-Tachibana
They Say You Sleep 1/3 Of Your Life In The Dark With Animals	Simon	Costello
Coaxing	Kathryn	Crowley
The Rowan Berries of Winter	Phillip	Cymble
i had my share of graves	Isabell	Dahlberg
Veronica Lake	Robert	Daseler
Notes addressed to the person who received my ex’s heart	Sophie	Dumont
Question for a Friend at the Edge of Passing	Simon Peter	Eggertsen
Soundtrack	Billy	Fenton
A Chair	Chris	Fitzgerald
Polaroid of a girl from Pennsylvania	Stacey	Forbes
I am unlearning	Julia	Forster
The Lord’s Work in Uganda	Gary	Geddes
What we do	E A	Gleeson
Don’t rush to clean her room	Pippa	Gough
Edward Hopper’s Soir Blue	Jennifer	Harrison
Lady of the Beasts	Lenore	Hart
Apartment in Lucca	Orla	Hennessy
Sea Change	Orla	Hennessy
There’s Something About Moonlight	Orla	Hennessy
I am Glad to be Your Daughter	Rachael	Hill
Chemo	Matt	Hohner
Questions I would ask if we ever got married	Tamsin	Hopkins
1921	Paddy	Hunter
Practicing the Saving	Christina	Hutchins
Northern California Interior	Christina	Hutchins
A Hilltop Piked in Spruce	Cory	Ingram
Swift Departure	Will	Ingrams
On an English allotment	Anthony	Kelly
Peony picker	Caire	Kieffer
Maun Sanctuary	Mel	Konner
Soundview Dawn	Mel	Konner
the song of tattie-bogle	Charlie	la Fosse
Grateful	Vanessa	Lampert
Ode to Ignorance	Michael	Lavers
Diagnosis	Stacey	Lawrence
Man with Green Gloves	Sarah	Lawson
The Convent Rose	Fidelma	Mahon
Best Wishes to the Next Bride	Susan	Manchin
Men With Guns	Seán	Martin
Cherry Brandy	Jenny	McRobert
A Marriage Come Evening	Cathy	Miller
Monday Totems	Cathy	Miller
Quantum Decoherence	Brookes	Moody
Dartmouth Square	Martin	Murphy
Operation Sophistication	Olive	Murray Power
The Colour of Water	Susan	Musgrave
The Devil’s Wife	Damen	O’Brien
INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER McCORMICK No. 5 HAYRAKE	Thomas	O’Grady
Kia Ora	Judy	O’Kane
For Jeanne Villepreux-Power	Chloe	Orrock
The tap in grief’s kitchen	Chloe	Orrock
Cut Flowers	Trevor	Parsons
Letter to Dowsie from Roethke in Ireland	Greg	Rappleye
Desuetude	Ann	Reckling
INTO THE RED LIGHT of the great burning in Oregon 2020	Leo	Rivers
Dusk	Robin	Schwarz
A Letter For Neruda	Robin	Schwarz
The conditions on which I will come to your funeral	Tessa	Scott
Letters that Work	Chris	Scriven
Full Disclosure	Saudamini	Siegrist
The Leafing of Cabbage	Annette	Sisson
Night Heron Under a Crescent Moon	Kevin	Smith
On Poetry as a Motive for Murder	Harvey	Soss
Wild Thing, I Think I Love You	Harvey	Soss
Whom Should I Run to Tell?	Genevieve	Stevens
Big Earrings and a Hat	L.J.	Sysko
daphne	Cecily	Trepagnier
December Sunlight by Harry Nisbet, 1919, Oil on Canvas	Alice	Twemlow
Ultramarine	Barbara	Tyler
Story of a Sister whose Brother Lost his Hand to the Buzz Saw	Victoria	Walvis
Sodium	Christopher	Watson
A Small Cabin	Christopher	Watson
At the Nursing Home	Leland	Whipple
Foil	Milena	Williamson
Charging	Enda	Wyley
After	Enda	Wyley
Encountering the Unicorn	Steve	Xerri

LONG-LIST

(Alphabetical order)

There are 394 poems on the long-list. The total entry was 2,987.

Title	First Name	Last Name
Still Life	Edward	Adderson
Parallax	Vasiliki	Albedo
Glaucus and the apple	Esa	Aldegheri
sorry charlie	Esteban	Allard-Valdivieso
deerform	Nick	Allen
night men rowing	Nick	Allen
To my Reader	Lucia	Altenhofen
Imperdible (Safety Pin)	David	Alvarez
His Lemon Water Dilemma	Nitsa	Anastasiades
Self-Help	Ingrid	Andersson
In a Swedish Hanseatic Town	Ingrid	Andersson
Bowl Barrow	Lottie	Angell
Anyone could write these lines	JACOB	ARVESON
For Marilyn	Roger	Asleson
Woman, Indeterminate Age, Has Changed Her Mind	Maxine	Backus
Cisternino, Puglia	Maxine	Backus
Lighting a candle in a strange church	Verity	Baldry
THE APARTMENT	Madhurii E.L.	Ball
In the heavy air of a once-vogueish home	Diana	Bandut
Attachment	Jill	Barker
Ageless	Helen	Bar Lev
Killers	Alex	Barr
It’s Sushi Wenesday at the upscale grocery	Ellen	Beals
Quest	Angela	Beese
You’ve got to take your love where you can get it	Angela	Beese
Airborne	Anneke	Bender
Obits	Jayne	Benjulian
Sky Fall	Jackie	Bennett
Goats	Donald	Berk
Boxing Day	Michelle	Bitting
Green Parrots	Michelle	Bitting
DIAGNOSTICS	David	Black
Victoria	Sharon	Black
Six Blankets	Sharon	Black
How Not to Kill a Chicken	Sharon	Black
If I ha my way…	Andy	Blackford
LAST KNOCKINGS	Adrian	Blackledge
Spirals	Rosalin	Blue
Brother Blue	Roger	Bonner
When to Flip the Pancakes	Elizabeth	Boquet
Release	Peter	Borchers
Infinity and beyond	Peter	Borchers
Beer and Sandwiches	Partridge	Boswell
Inheritance	Partridge	Boswell
Strike Anywhere	Partridge	Boswell
Ode to My Vocation	Partridge	Boswell
Polaris Star Trails	Partridge	Boswell
SparkNotes	Partridge	Boswell
The Return	Partridge	Boswell
The Speed of Ice	Partridge	Boswell
The Breakup	Partridge	Boswell
My Lucky Day	Partridge	Boswell
Parting Shot	Partridge	Boswell
The Breakup (2)	Partridge	Boswell
The Best Age	Charlie	Bowrey
First Time	Maureen	Boyle
Takings	Caroline	Bracken
Owwwwww Mnn	Paula	Brancato
The house in the night	Esther	Brazil
The Performance	Esther	Brazil
Faces	Esther	Brazil
TUMBLEWEED	Rory	Brennan
DRY-EYED AR GRAVESIDES	Rory	Brennan
Alice’s Return to Wonderland	Hans	Brinckmann
The Test	Robert	Brown
Timepiece	Alan	Buckley
The Invisible Woman	Alexander	Buelt
Yellowstone and what the bears mean	Sue	Burge
Munich Freiheit	Jen	Burke Anderson
That thing	Liz	Byrne
Outcry	Carol	Caffrey
Tea Ceremony	Carol	Caffrey
Stilts	Jean	Cassidy
Eve	Deborah	Catesby
Constellation	Deborah	Catesby
Gate	Deborah	Catesby
Overkill: how the fish see it	Tim	Cawkwell
Waiting in Forest Lawn	Joseph	Chamberlain
Remembering Tim at Olcott Beach	Joseph	Chamberlain
Coming Upon Cyclamen	Mary	Chantrell
When I said I wouldn’t love again, but then I tried	Toni	Chappell
Road Kill	Helen	Chinitz
Arnett Blvd	Caleb	Choate
THE UNRAVELING	John	Claxton
THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH	John	Claxton
Onlookers – poem in memory of George Floyd	Don	Colburn
Onlookers at 38th & Chicago	Don	Colburn
Changing Measure of Time	Katie	Colombus
Wardrobe	Brid	Connolly
Flour	Brid	Connolly
Postcard from Grand Anse	Alan	Coombe
Home	Alexandra	Corrin-Tachibana
Her	Alexandra	Corrin-Tachibana
This is a Confessional Poem	Alexandra	Corrin-Tachibana
Russian Roulette for Beginners	Simon	Costello
The Other Café	Tony	Costello
They Say You Sleep 1/3 Of Your Life In The Dark With Animals	Simon	Costello
The Human Exhibit	Miriam	Craig
Well-stowed	Miriam	Craig
Gilmore Girls	Miriam	Craig
Thirteen Ways to Use a Mobile	Paul	Crichton
Mother	Elena	Croitoru
The Handbag	Barbara	Crossley
Birds	Laurie	Crowley
Coaxing	Kathryn	Crowley
The Rowan Berries of Winter	Phillip	Cymble
To Want to Kill a Mockingbird at 2 in the Morning	Brittany	Curran
i had my share of graves	Isabell	Dahlberg
Lentil Salad	Robert	Daseler
Veronica Lake	Robert	Daseler
Turn	Jenny	de Ceapog
Child’s Silk Kaftan with Tiger Stripes (Victoria & Albert Museum)	Eilín	de Paor
The Visitor	Julian	Debreuil
King Cat	Julian	Debreuil
Religion as Government	Julian	Debreuil
Tide’s edge	Olga	Dermott-Bond
centenary	Heather	Derr-Smith
Tonito	Gary	Diamond
Village	Piaras	Dineen
another winter	Bill	Dodd
Ward song	Nuala	Doherty
The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck	Caroline	Drew
In confidence	Gavan	Duffy
The comet is gone, but here are the meteors	Heather	Duffy
Notes addressed to the person who received my ex’s heart	Sophie	Dumont
Passer Londinius	Michael	Dunne
Question for a Friend at the Edge of Passing	Simon Peter	Eggertsen
Not any more	Lyn	Ellis
Between	Jennie	Ensor
There	Jennie	Ensor
Emissary	Charles	Evans
Antillia unfound	Dena	Fakhro
sometimes i like to	Brady	Fauth
Soundtrack	Billy	Fenton
Apple	Rachel	Ferguson
West	Cian	Ferriter
Unfinished	Cormac	Fitzgerald
A Chair	Chris	Fitzgerald
Factory	Mary	Fitzpatrick
Rockpool	Sharon	Flynn
Knot	Stacey	Forbes
Polaroid of a girl from Pennsylvania	Stacey	Forbes
Strong Men, Carrying Horses	Cy	Forrest
What I thought while crashing the car, Boxing Day 2013	Julia	Forster
I am unlearning	Julia	Forster
I Hate You for Asking/ The Answer is Yes	Naoise	Gale
Stone fruit	Barbara	Geary Truan
By No Means Gone	Gary	Geddes
All That Rains	Gary	Geddes
The Lord’s Work in Uganda	Gary	Geddes
Free Solo	Ellen	Girardeau
What we do	E A	Gleeson
October 2012	Amy	Glynn
A good suit makes a man appear trimmer, taller and stronger	Nicolette	Golding
Don’t rush to clean her room	Pippa	Gough
Thanatos	Louise	Green
Poet Tree	Jonathan	Greenhause
At a Crossroads	Jonathan	Greenhause
Near the Opera House	Joseph	Grikis
Spilt Milk	Nancy	Gunning
Understory	Nancy	Gunning
Everywhere Inside Me	Nancy	Gunning
My Heart Was A Fragile Blue-Black Shell	Nancy	Gunning
Theology	I	Hanson
come as you are	William	Harris
Edward Hopper’s Soir Blue	Jennifer	Harrison
Borrow	Alan	Hart
Lady of the Beasts	Lenore	Hart
After Sally Mann, Thinner	Lisa	Hartz
The Voyager Spacecraft and The Golden Record	Eoin	Hegarty
Apartment in Lucca	Orla	Hennessy
Sea Change	Orla	Hennessy
There’s Something About Moonlight	Orla	Hennessy
Triptych	Petra	Hilgers
I am Glad to be Your Daughter	Rachael	Hill
From The Big Book of Cornish Postcards	Deirdre	Hines
Putty Hill	Matt	Hohner
Chemo	Matt	Hohner
Boatman, Pass By	Kathleen	Holliday
November Morning Unlike Others	Kirsty	Hollings
Mask Me	Karen	Hones
My dog is reading Nietzsche…again	Eleanor	Hooker
Questions I would ask if we ever got married	Tamsin	Hopkins
Chuang-tzu Feels the Weight of the World	Adam	Horvath
Geological Study	Diana	Howard
Hide and Seek	Susan	Hubbard
Only a Chair	Robert	Hume
1921	Haddy	Hunter
All We Could Do Was Laugh	Christina	Hutchins
String Theory	Christina	Hutchins
Practicing the Saving	Christina	Hutchins
Northern California Interior	Christina	Hutchins
At the Smithy	Cory	Ingram
A Hilltop Piked in Spruce	Cory	Ingram
Swift Departure	Will	Ingrams
The Lady of the Lake	Jenni	Jackson
Invitation	Judith	Janoo
Chow Chow	Karla	K
Directions	Eileen	Kavanagh
Dispersed	Rebecca	Keating
Bubble Mixture	Corinna	Keefe
Holy Innocents	James	Kelly
Remember The Un-barred Bones	John D.	Kelly
On an English allotment	Anthony	Kelly
Waving in Space	Vincent	Kenny
Imagination	Peter	Kent
My Psychiatrist Keeps Reminding Me That Depression is Anger Turned Inward	Jay	Kidd
Peony picker	Claire	Kieffer
They Say We Are	Sara	Kiiru
Tongueless Nightingale	Sara	Kiiru
Death of a structuralist	Katja	Knezevic
Blue Ridge	Mel	Konner
Convalescent Summer	Mel	Konner
Kxai-Kxai Dawn	Mel	Konner
South Shore	Mel	Konner
Maun Sanctuary	Mel	Konner
Soundview Dawn	Mel	Konner
Mid-Spring	Alison	Kreiss
gabriel	Charlie	la Fosse
the song of tattie-bogle	Charlie	la Fosse
The lost ones	Mran-Maree	Laing
Belonging	Vanessa	Lampert
Grateful	Vanessa	Lampert
To My Ex Husband,	Ryan	Lannigan
Tickers	Miles	Larmour
Ode to Ignorance	Michael	Lavers
Poetry Lesson for Golfers	Joe	Lawlor
Diagnosis	Stacey	Lawrence
Suppose Princip Had Missed	Sarah	Lawson
Once in Lascaux	Sarah	Lawson
Man with Green Gloves	Sarah	Lawson
Arguing with Buddha	James	Leader
March-you are my favorite month	Gabriele	Lees
He Sees the Smaller Picture	Liz	Lefroy
Pulse	Colin	Lightbourn
Meditation man and my meditative state	jordan	lillis
Field	Sue	Lockwood
Fledgling	Priya	Logan
Appurtenant	Michael	Lyle
New Shoes For a Funeral	Michael	Lynch
Glacier Bay	Peter	Maeck
The Convent Rose	Fidelma	Mahon
Burning Trees	Dave	Mahony
Framing that Circle	Dave	Mahony
Best Wishes to the Next Bride	Susan	Manchin
Lesson	Luigi	Marchini
Men With Guns	Seán	Martin
Shannon Diving	Paul	McCarrick
Waiting for the snow	Penny	McCarthy
Blue Brindle	Kathleen	McCracken
Yesterday’s Bar	Kathleen	McCracken
Wings	alison	mccrossan
Break This	Scott	McDaniel
A Prayer for the Solitary	Meghan	McNamara
Cusp	Kate	McQuade
Breathe	Jenny	McRobert
Finding Cenotes	Jenny	McRobert
Sailing the high seas with my brother	Jenny	McRobert
Cherry Brandy	Jenny	McRobert
Mosquito Net for Rwanda	Isabella	Mead
For Fuck’s Sake	Fiona	Meehan
Of Wolves	Becca	Menshen
‘Miscarriage’	Dante	Micheaux
faith	Cathy	Miller
Last Codicella	Cathy	Miller
Before Dawn	Cathy	Miller
Monday Totems	Cathy	Miller
A Marriage Come Evening	Cathy	Miller
Witness at Olallie Creek	Tamara	Moan
Quantum Decoherence	Brookes	Moody
The Clemency of Old Kings	Darren	Morris
Late ’80s, mid-afternoon in June	Cassandra	Moss
Strangers Again	Mary	Mulholland
they say its glamorous to have french grandchildren	Mary	Mulholland
Fish and Bicycle	James	Murphy
Wood shed	M	Murphy
Dartmouth Square	Martin	Murphy
Day of Days	Olive	Murray Power
Operation Sophistication	Olive	Murray Power
The Broker	Tegan	Murrell
The Colour of Water	Susan	Musgrave
White Heritage (A Blasphemy in the key of lHell)	Iain	Napier
Papa’s Aftershave	Jordan	Nishkian
Ode to my Envy	Damen	O’Brien
The Longest Wave	Damen	O’Brien
The Beasts	Damen	O’Brien
The Devil’s Wife	Damen	O’Brien
Saturday Night	Kathleen	O’Brien
INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER McCORMICK No. 5 HAYRAKE	Thomas	O’Grady
Kia Ora	Judy	O’Kane
My father came to me last night	Denis	O’Sullivan
The Only Poem I’ll Ever Write About My Father’s Dementia	Jon	Olseth
Home, Where I Am Not	Nicole	Olweean
Forgiveness	Rena	Ong
Edale	Madeleine	Orange
To My Step Daughter (Nattfjärilar)	Madeleine	Orange
The stones	Chloe	Orrock
For Jeanne Villepreux-Power	Chloe	Orrock
The tap in grief’s kitchen	Chloe	Orrock
The Bicycles	Fran	Palumbo
Cut Flowers	Trevor	Parsons
Incapacitating the Agent	Ann	Pelletier-Topping
Gecko	Jill	Penny
Fusion	Fiona	Perry
The Window	Michael	Phillips
The Shell Game	Michael	Phillips
La Anjana	Benjamin	Radcliffe
Self-flagellation and the Falls	PETER	RAMM
Letter to Dowsie from Roethke in Ireland	Greg	Rappleye
Desuetude	Ann	Reckling
When we were still mistaking me for female	Arien	Reed
The Yellow House	Jennifer	Reid
Exit	Joan	Renino
After Jim Beam	Elisabeth	Ribbans
Ribbon Gum	Sarah	Rice
The Binman Knows this Early Ebb	Bill	Richardson
INTO THE RED LIGHT of the great burning in Oregon 2020	Leo	Rivers
John the Baptist	Everett	Roberts
Summer Festival	Bruce	Sarbit
Tick Tock	Janice	Schantz
Book of A Thousand Regrets: The First Three	Nancy	Schoenberger
Dusk	Robin	Schwarz
A Letter For Neruda	Robin	Schwarz
The conditions on which I will come to your funeral	Tessa	Scott
Letters that Work	Chris	Scriven
El Malpais	Lindsay	Sears
body singing	Renée	Sgroi
Suitcase	Penny	Sharman
littlewomen#figmentsof	Penny	Sharman
Lost in Translocation	Quentin	Shaw
Reminiscence Bump	Quentin	Shaw
Hook and eye	Susan	Shepherd
Missed Calls	Christopher	Shipman
To My Mind	Laura	Shore
Full Disclosure	Saudamini	Siegrist
Ode to Retirement	Annette	Sisson
The Leafing of Cabbage	Annette	Sisson
The Incomplete Poems of Archer Baldwin	Samuel	Smith
Night Heron Under a Crescent Moon	Kevin	Smith
His Name was Yitzhak	Harvey	Soss
Incidents and Accidents in Pursuit of a Manifest Destiny	Harvey	Soss
On Poetry as a Motive for Murder	Harvey	Soss
Wild Thing, I Think I Love You	Harvey	Soss
Smoking in Greece	Luke	Soucy
Haiku Calendar	Rachel	Spence
Peace Pilgrim	Kathleen	Spivack
Google Maps	Joel	Stein
Whom Should I Run to Tell?	Genevieve	Stevens
Premeditated Happiness	Sarah	Stickney
Only Now, Black Snake	Jasper	Swann
Ship’s Clock	Jasper	Swann
Thistle on Mars	Jasper	Swann
Date and Walnut	Jasper	Swann
Naked	Tigi	Syme
The Mall	L.J.	Sysko
Big Earrings and a Hat	L.J.	Sysko
Thanksgiving Prayer	Adam	Tamashasky
My Crow	Mary	Tate
For Eyeing My Scars	Mary	Tate
Portrait of My Anxiety As An Imp	Rosamund	Taylor
Dharma without Dogma	Jane	Thomas
daphne	Cecily	Trepagnier
December Sunlight by Harry Nisbet, 1919, Oil on Canvas	Alice	Twemlow
Ultramarine	Barbara	Tyler
Meltdown	Mukta	Vasudeva
Stolen Jasmine	Roger	Vickery
ON THE OCCASION OF MY FATHER’S ONE HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY	Maggie	Wadey
On Coming Back to Earth	Lucy	Wadham
So I’m In The Car	Lucy	Wadham
Clay Pipes	Fiona Ritchie	Walker
Nothing Special	Lindsay	Waller-Wilkinson
The Parkinson’s Enigma	Rob	Wallis
Milawa Church	Rob	Wallis
Story of a Sister whose Brother Lost his Hand to the Buzz Saw	Victoria	Walvis
ON THE WAY	Tony	Ward
Freedom	Angela	Washington
Sodium	Christopher	Watson
A Small Cabin	Christopher	Watson
James Joyce singing, with guitar	Richard	Westley
At the Nursing Home	Leland	Whipple
In the Soft Still-Falling Snow	Alice	White
The Covid Alphabet	Elizabeth	Whyatt
Tea for Four (with a nod to John Betjeman)	Fiona	Wild
Cuthbert and the Seals	John	Williams
Magritte in Hartlepool	John	Williams
Foil	Milena	Williamson
Noah’s Daughter	Jay	Wilson
In a field, outside Princeton, New Jersey	Martha	Wingfield
The Art of Dying – a triptych	Pat	Winslow
Extraction	Pat	Winslow
Dynasty	Amaury	Wonderling
Charging	Enda	Wyley
After	Enda	Wyley
Encountering the Unicorn	Steve	Xerri
Two Odes & An Elegy	Jeanne	Yeasting
Picture Never Taken	Sharon	Yencharis

Poetry Prize 2021 Results, Long and Short-lists

Winners

Here are the 10 winners, as chosen by judge Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2021

The Ten Winners:

SEVEN HONORABLE MENTIONS

MORE ABOUT THE WINNERS

The overall winning poem:

Letter to Dowsie, from Roethke in Ireland

SHORT-LIST:

LONG-LIST

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