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The Papers’ 106th edition lands!

The autumn issue of The Frogmore Papers has been published and dispatched. In addition to poetry from familiar names such as Vuyelwa Carlin, D A Prince and Myra Schneider, number 106 features new prose from Matthew Allen, Benjamin George Coles and Candyce Lange and all ten poems shortlisted for this year’s Frogmore Prize adjudicated by John Greening, including Sharon Black’s winning poem ‘Pont des Arts’ and poems by runners-up Michael Greavy and Jonathan Edwards.

Cover by visual artist and poet John Kay

This issue’s archive poem is by John Whitworth (1945 – 2019), whose ‘The Householder’s Tale’ was originally published in the Papers’ 65th edition in 2005. Copies of 106 are available post-free from The Frogmore Press for £5.00. Subscriptions remain £10.00 for one year, £15.00 for two.

Here is Sharon Black’s Frogmore Prize winning poem:

PONT DES ARTS

I miss the weight, the chink and slide
of steel through steel, the doting voices

I do – forever –
silence as a key rotates

a shank snaps open, a lock clicks shut
a tiny key’s tossed in the Seine.

Love is not beyond endurance.
Brass or steel, engraved or plastic-coated

I strained and warped under the bulky
chains of hearts and names –

barnacles on a hull. Doesn’t any union
hide an inch of metal grille

through which a river could once be spotted
bearing yachts and bâteaux-mouches

slipping eternally
under beams and ornate arches?

When they came with saws, with clippers,
I shivered as they jemmied off

one million cadences d’amour:
some ended up in municipal trucks,

others scattered like confetti, took
their stories to the riverbed,

to the flimsy keys and solid hope
that locked them.

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Poetry Prize adjudicator 2026 announced

The 40th Frogmore Prize will be adjudicated by the poet Mike Barlow.

Mike has won prizes in numerous competitions including first prize in the Amnesty International (2002), Ledbury (2005) and National (2006) Competitions. He is the author of four full collections, most recently A Land Between Borders (Templar), and seven pamphlets.


The deadline for submissions is 31 May 2026. Full details at: www.frogmorepress.co.uk/frogmore-poetry-prize/frogmore-poetry-prize-subguides/


This year’s Prize (2025), adjudicated by John Greening, was won by Sharon Black with her poem ‘Pont des Arts’. Runners-up were Michael Greavy and Jonathan Edwards.

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The Frogmore Papers are 105 issues old!

March sees the publication of the 105th issue of The Frogmore Papers. With a stunning cover by Brighton-born artist Lydia McDonnell, 105 is a truly international edition, with contributions from Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Romania, the UK and USA. Copies are available at £5.00 (post free) from: The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes BN7 1PJ.

Cover art of The Frogmore Papers No. 105, by Lydia McDonnell

Looking ahead, number 106 will be published in September and will feature all the poems shortlisted for the 39th Frogmore Poetry Prize, adjudicated by the poet John Greening. John has published more than twenty collections of poetry, most recently From the East: Six Huntingdonshire Codices, which was published by Renard Press last year. He has previously been awarded the Alexandria International Poetry Prize, the Bridport Prize and the TLS Centenary Prize. The deadline for entries to the Frogmore Prize is 31 May and full details can be found at: www.frogmorepress.co.uk

The winner will receive the sum of 250 guineas (£262.50) and a two-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers.

Here is a taster from The Frogmore Papers 105:

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Poetry Prize adjudicator 2025 announced

The 39th Frogmore Prize will be adjudicated by the poet John Greening.

John has previously been awarded the Alexandria International Poetry Prize, the Bridport Prize and the TLS Centenary Prize. His poem ‘Sibelius’ was selected by Carol Rumens as her Poem of the Week in 2021 and Contraflow: Lines of Englishness, 1922 – 2022 was named a best poetry book of the year by Rishi Distidar in The Guardian and Graeme Richardson in the Sunday Times. He will read all entries.

The deadline for submissions is 31 May 2025. Full details at: www.frogmorepress.co.uk/frogmore-poetry-prize/frogmore-poetry-prize-subguides/

This year’s Prize (2024), adjudicated by Graham Mort, was won by Kathy Miles with her poem ‘After a Termination on Medical Grounds’. Runners-up were Pamela Job and Ben Verinder.

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38th Frogmore Prize heads west to Wales

Kathy Miles from Aberaeron, Ceredigion has been awarded the 38th annual Frogmore Poetry Prize by adjudicator Graham Mort for her poem ‘After a Termination on Medical Grounds’.

Born in Liverpool, Kathy has lived in Wales since 1972. She worked for many years at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, where she also completed an MA in Creative Writing. Her fourth collection of poetry, Bone House, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2020, and her latest collection, Vanishing Point, was published earlier this year by Palewell Press. Commenting on the process of adjudicating the Prize, Graham Mort said: ‘I avoided poems that explained themselves, trying to choose those that yielded up further meanings or significance, that burned brightest in my own consciousness, remaining irreducible. I wanted to acknowledge adventure in theme, form and language, to find transformative endings that left my own visions active in the lingering aura of the poem.’

The Frogmore Papers 104. Cover art by Eva Bodinet

First runner-up was Pamela Job from Wivenhoe, Essex, with her poem ‘Nikolai Astrup shows a rare visitor around his village’, inspired by an exhibition of the work of Norwegian artist Nikolai Astrup at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Second runner-up was Ben Verinder from Tring, Hertfordshire, with his poem ‘The Marfa Lights’. His poem ‘Dilapidations’ also reached the shortlist of ten. Other shortlisted poets were Jane Davidson, Tim Dwyer, Kate Horsley, Sarah Salway, Thea Smiley and Vivienne Tregenza.

Their poems will all be published in the September edition of The Frogmore Papers, available from The Frogmore Press for only £5.00, including post & packing.

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Deadline looms for Frogmore Prize entries: 31 May 2024

The deadline for entries to this year’s Prize (31 May 2024) is fast approaching. Adjudicator Graham Mort will read all submissions. Full details are available at: www.frogmorepress.co.uk/frogmore-poetry-prize

The Prize was established in 1987 with a generous endowment from André Evans in his capacity as President of the Frogmore Foundation. John Rice, then Director of the New Metropole Arts Centre in Folkestone (and also a widely published poet in his own right) was persuaded to adjudicate, conditions of entry were drafted, and we were ready to roll. There may or may not have been a good reason for the decision to award the prize money in guineas rather than pounds sterling. This may or may not have been because 25 guineas sounded more desirable as booty than 25 pounds. Whatever the grounds, once the principle was established, it became a defining feature of the Prize, though the booty has multiplied tenfold over its thirty-seven years and now stands at a more impressive 250 guineas. Not that it has ever been about anything quite as vulgar as cash, albeit cash paid in guineas. Kudos, we hoped, would be the lure, and so it ultimately proved, with increasing numbers of submissions from poets whose names were recognised and whose work encountered in publications of note (though reputation counts for little when entries are judged anonymously, as they have been since the Prize’s inauguration).

David Satherley won that first Prize back in 1987, and Lynda Plater won last year. Between them there have been a series of notable winners, with John Latham and Howard Wright both winning twice, Caroline Price three times and Emily Wills on an astonishing four occasion! In every case, the Prize was awarded by a different adjudicator on each occasion, surely testament to the skill and craft of these poets.

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The Papers’ 103rd edition in their 41st year

Cover art by Arusyak Pivazyan, inspired Paul Truan’s poem ‘Tones’

The Frogmore Papers’ 103rd edition is published this month. It’s another international number, featuring a striking cover by Armenian artist Arusyak Pivazyan (inspired by a poem from Cornish poet Paul Truan), translations of Georges Brassens by Michael Swan and the Belgian poet Marc Tritsmans by John Irons, poems by Peter Bakowski (Australia) and Christine Hennemann (Ireland) and a short story by Stephen Silvester (Canada). Closer to home, there is also work by Mike Barlow, Vuyelwa Carlin, John Greening, Stuart Henson, Myra Schneider, Paul Stephenson and a host of others. ‘From the Archive’ features a 1997 poem by Tobias Hill, who, sadly, died last year. Several of his early poems appeared in the Papers, and Tobias was awarded the Frogmore Prize in 1995 by Linda France for his poem ‘Flora and the Admiral’.

The Frogmore Papers are available post-free (£5.00) from The Frogmore Press or from Skylark, the independent bookshop in the Needlemakers, Lewes. Subscription rates to the Papers have remained at £10.00 for one year, £15.00 for two years since 2010.

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Poetry Prize adjudicator announced

Adjudicator announced

The 38th Frogmore Poetry Prize will be adjudicated by writer and Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing and Transcultural Literature Graham Mort. Graham is the author of ten full-length poetry collections, most recently Black Shiver Moss (Seren, 2017)  and three collections of short fiction, most recently Like Fado and Other Stories (Salt, 2021). He has also written BBC radio drama. Graham has read his work widely across the UK and overseas in South Africa, Uganda, Vietnam and China. 

The deadline for submissions is 31 May 2024. Full details at:  http://www.frogmorepress.co.uk/frogmore-poetry-prize

This year’s Prize (2023), adjudicated by Helena Nelson, was won by Lynda Plater with her poem ‘The Revd. Michael Woolf on his way to a parishioner in need’. Runners-up were Alison Binney and Christopher Horton.

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Lynda Plater takes 37th Frogmore Poetry Prize

Lincolnshire poet Lynda Plater has been awarded this year’s Frogmore Prize by adjudicator Helena Nelson. Lynda has been writing poetry for more than forty years and her work has been published in Rialto, Stand and Verse, among other poetry journals. She has published two pamphlets with Wayleave Press, Three Seasons for Burning and Saving Fruit, of which Rennie Halstead has written: ‘Saving Fruit creates a vivid and memorable picture of life in rural Lincolnshire in the first half of the twentieth century. Plater captures the wildlife, the landscape and the lives of the people living and working in it with a pictorial, almost photographic realism. She has the ability to transport the reader back into the past through her spare imagery and simple language.’ 

Of her Frogmore Prize-winning poem, ‘The Revd. Michael Woolf on his way to a parishioner in need’, Helena Nelson comments: ‘It has imprinted itself on my mind like a painting. I find it strangely compelling, and perfect. The form and thought are precisely matched, beautifully balanced. So much that it doesn’t say! So much it evokes!’

First runner-up is Alison Binney with ‘Party Susan’, which Helena describes as ‘funny and a little sad. I admire the way it appears at first casual – almost awkward – while subtly and tenderly working its magic.’ Second runner-up is Christopher Horton with ‘Elvis Presley Makes it Just In Time for the Charity Event in an English Village’, one of the longest entries for this year’s Prize, but, Helena notes, ‘the reading investment is worth it. It is exquisitely detailed and beautifully rendered: a short story of a poem – a delight.’ Other poets shortlisted were Alex Barr, Sharon Black, Eric C Brown, Charles Evans, Jane Kite, Laura Strickland and Jane Thorp. Their poems will all be published in the September edition of The Frogmore Papers, available from The Frogmore Press for only £5.00, including post & packing.

Lynda Plater

THE REVD. MICHAEL WOOLF
ON HIS WAY TO A PARISHIONER IN NEED

This is plainsong: flat line of marsh,

cordgrass, seeding thrift, sow-thistle,

sliver of sea far out where boats

rest in Humber’s low tide.

Grey seals are wintering: monophony

of their song in cold air

as he cycles between staves

of fields: cassock, the wing of a rook.

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Deadline looms for the 37th Frogmore Poetry Prize

The deadline for entries to this year’s Prize (31 May) is fast approaching. Adjudicator Helena Nelson, poet, critic, publisher and founding editor of the renowned HappenStance press, will read all submissions. Full details at: www.frogmorepress.co.uk/frogmore-poetry-prize

Helena Nelson

The Prize was established in 1987 with a generous endowment from André Evans in his capacity as President of the Frogmore Foundation. John Rice, then Director of the New Metropole Arts Centre in Folkestone (and also a widely published poet in his own right) was persuaded to adjudicate, conditions of entry were drafted, and we were ready to roll. There may or may not have been a good reason for the decision to award the prize money in guineas rather than pounds sterling. This may or may not have been because 25 guineas sounded more desirable as booty than 25 pounds. Whatever the grounds, once the principle was established, it became a defining feature of the Prize, though the booty has multiplied tenfold over its thirty-seven years and now stands at a more impressive 250 guineas. Not that it has ever been about anything quite as vulgar as cash, albeit cash paid in guineas. Kudos, we hoped, would be the lure, and so it ultimately proved, with increasing numbers of submissions from poets whose names were recognised and whose work encountered in publications of note (though reputation counts for little when entries are judged anonymously, as they have been since the Prize’s inauguration).

David Satherley won that first Prize back in 1987, and Laura Jenner won last year. Between them there have been a series of notable winners, with John Latham and Howard Wright both winning twice, Caroline Price three times and Emily Wills on an astonishing four occasion! In every case, the Prize was awarded by a different adjudicator on each occasion, surely testament to the skill and craft of these poets. A selection of poems shortlisted for the Prize was published in The Frogmore Poetry Prize Anthology 1987–1991 and also in Decade: Ten Years of the Frogmore Poetry Prize. The 40th anniversary of the Prize in 2026 may prove to be the moment to bring its forty deserving winners together in one volume.