Emily Wills, author of Diverting The Sea (The Rialto, 2000), Developing The Negative (The Rialto, 2008) and Unmapped (The Rialto, 2014), has won the Frogmore Poetry Prize for an extraordinary fourth time. She previously carried off the 250 guinea booty in 2012, 2013 and 2017.
Of her Prize-winning poem adjudicator Janet Sutherland says: ‘This poem describes the death of a friend and how the son of the friend is affected by that grief in adulthood. This is a confident and moving account. The poem moved me every time I read it. There’s a deep sense of the caring relationship between the speaker and the child’s parent. The comparison between fracking and grief is applied very delicately.’
Runners-up for this year’s Prize (the 32nd) were Rosie Jackson and Carole Coates and other shortlisted poets were Jonathan Edwards, Wendy Klein, Jeni Mills, Miriam Patrick, Susannah Violette and Margaret Wilmot. The winner, runners-up and shortlisted poems will all be published in number 92 of The Frogmore Papers in September. Prize entrants can order a copy at the reduced price of £3.50 (cheques payable to: The Frogmore Press).
Emily Wills has now won the Frogmore Prize on more occasions than any other poet. Caroline Price has won on three occasions, while John Latham and Howard Wright have both won twice.