Jamie Hale – Best Single Poem and Best Unpublished Pamphlet
Through founding and judging the Disabled Poets Prize, we are highlighting some of the most exciting work being produced today by deaf and disabled writers, across both individual poems and pamphlets. Judging the work was both a considerable challenge and an absolute joy, due to the range, breadth, and quality of work. I hope this Prize will bring the worthy winners, shortlisted, and longlisted poets to the attention of wider opportunities, and support them in further developing their careers.
Jamie Hale, Disabled Poets Prize Co-Founder and Judge, Best Single Poem and Best Unpublished Pamphlet
Jamie is an award-winning theatre maker, poet, (screen)writer, charity CEO and founder and Artistic Director at CRIPticArts. They focus creatively on crip- and queer- realities, and the urgency of living as a disabled person. Their poetry pamphlet, Shield was published in 2021. In 2021, their poetry pamphlet, Shield was published, they were awarded a Jerwood Poetry Fellowship, and won Director/ Theatremaker of the Year Award for NOT DYING in the Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund Awards. Jamie founded CRIPtic x Spread the Word online retreat for deaf and disabled writers in 2020, and ran it in 2021. They have been published in magazines including Magma and the Rialto, guest-edited the Bodies issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, and are working on their first full poetry collection.
Romalyn Ante – Best Single Poem
Romalyn Ante is a Filipino-British, Wolverhampton-based poet, essayist, and editor. She is co-founding editor of harana poetry, a magazine for poets who write in English as a second or parallel language. She won the Manchester Prize for Poetry 2018 and her work has been featured in BBC World Today, BBC Radio 4, The Verb, The Guardian, Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue UK amongst others. Her debut collection, Antiemetic for Homesickness (Chatto & Windus), was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. She was awarded a Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2021-22.
Peter Raynard – Best Unpublished Pamphlet
The Disabled Poets Prize is an important addition to the poetry landscape. It was a great privilege to co-judge the Unpublished Pamphlet Prize with Jamie Hale of CRIPtic Arts, supported by Spread the Word and Verve Poetry Press. The pamphlets covered a wide range of topics and styles and speak to an exciting generation of emerging writers of poetry.
Peter Raynard, judge, Best Unpublished Pamphlet
Peter is a disabled working class poet, and editor. He is a former member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. In 2018, with Jane Commane he represented Coventry in Cork as part of an annual exchange between the two cities. His debut collection, ‘Precarious’ was published in April, 2018 by Smokestack Books. He has also written The Combination: a poetic coupling of the Communist Manifesto, published by Culture Matters. His latest book ‘Manland‘ was published by Nine Arches Press in July 2022. His debut pamphlet, The Harlot and the Rake: poems after William Hogarth will be published in 2023 by Culture Matters.