Previous Winning Poems from the Christopher Tower Poetry Competition

These are the winning and shortlisted poems from each year with the theme since the first competition in 2000.

2011 Simplicity

Elizabeth Johnson (Winner) Wires

Jack Westmore (2nd prizewinner) Shipbreakers

Abigail Richards (3rd prizewinner) Simple

James Browning (commended) How Brando is Famous

Thomas Fraser (commended) Very Simply the Sound it Makes

Molly Underwood (commended) The Breaking Day

2010 Promises

Emily Harrison (Winner) Love has no Larynx

Katie Woods (2^nd prizewinner) Selkie

Megan Owens (3^rd prizewinner) Jane Loudon

Jamie Sutherland (commended) Dear Dad

Julia Goroszeniuk (commended) A Portrait Painted Scarfless

Hugo Havranek (commended) Sign Language

2009 Doubt

Timothy Carson (Winner) Is Life Likely?

Iona Twiston-Davies (2^nd prizewinner) Grey Mile

Paul Merchant (3^rd prizewinner) Three Guesses

Charlotte Turner (commended) Doubt

Sophie Stephenson-Wright (commended) Villanelle

Emma Jourdan (commended) Evidence

Bethany Aitman (commended) Contact

2008 Change

Emily Middleton (Winner)  The Five Stages

Ashley McMullin (2^nd prizewinner) Journey to Hilly Country

Nina Bahadur (3^rd prizewinner) Heat

Richard O’Brien (commended) Texting in Church

Charlotte Geater (commended)We Beasts

Amelia Penny (commended) Quickening

Anna Savory (commended) Sestina 102 ; 26

2007 Flight

Charlotte Runcie (Winner) Flying Fish

Annie Katchinska (2^nd prizewinner) Margarita

Sophie Mackintosh (3^rd prizewinner) On Illumination and Reasons to Fly

Laura Marsh (commended) Missiles

Alice Howlett (commended) Before Dawn

Rees Arnott-Davies (commended) Gallus Domesticus

2006 A Building

Colette Sensier (winner) Country House Communion

Alice Malin (2^nd prizewinner) Fire at the Morecambe Bay Pleasure-Dome 1917

Alice Alexandre (3^rd prizewinner) Private Property

David Devanny (commended) The House

Charlotte Geater (commended) The Tower

Julia Rampen (commended) My Grandmother’s House

2005 Gravity

Eleanor Williams (Winner) Gravity

Craig Farrell (2^nd prizewinner) The Fall

Miranda Cichy (3^rd prizewinner) The Undertaker

Francesca Beasley (commended) The Perimeters of Gravity

Rebecca Hawkes (commended) Newton’s Dream

Shin Woo Kang (commended) Thank you

Katherine Hindley (Winner) Sunrise in Egypt

Nancy Freeman (2^nd prizewinner) this morning

Laura Tisdall (3^rd prizewinner) Resurrection

Caroline Bird (commended) The Softness of the Morning

Joanna Moorman (commended) Early Morning (with/out you)

Helen Mort (commended) Matins

2003 Passport

Aruna Nair (Winner) The Passport

Wing Ying Chow (2^nd prizewinner) (no title) 

Hannah Briggs (3^rd prizewinner) Pilgrimes With Passports

James Williams (commended) Burgundy

Tim Smith-Laing (commended) The Passport

Sarah Henderson (commended) Recognition

2002 Floods

Anna Lewis (Winner) Into the Distance

Dhruv Sookhoo (2^nd prizewinner) Falling From, Rising To…

Thom Glover (3^rd prizewinner) After the Rain

Christopher Edwards (commended) (no title) 

Kezia Gaitskell (commended) Flooded

Holly Patterson (commended) The Flood

2001 Blue

Rebecca Dudley (Winner) Blue

Mairi Brewis (2^nd prizewinner) Birthday turtle

Felicity Marks (3^rd prizewinner) Shelling Blue Eggs

Eve Blair (commended) Blue

Swithun Cooper (commended) Battered in Blue

Charlotte Dickens (commended) Fever-Headed on Ninety-Fourth Street.

Isabella Mead (commended) Merging The Colour