L-R Eric Berlin, Geraldine Clarkson (both credit: Hayley Madden for The Poetry Society), Ian Duhig
The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition has a record of identifying the future stars of poetry. From Syracuse New York, Eric Berlin won this year’s first prize with his poem ‘Night Errand’. Berlin gives his first UK reading, sharing artfully controlled poems, where tales unspool with the masterful timing of David Sidaris.
Geraldine Clarkson’s ‘St Rose of Lima’s Revenge’ was a 2015 prizewinner. Clarkson’s lush and languorous poems are influenced by her Irish roots and time spent in a monastic community in Peru.
The incomparable Ian Duhig is twice-winner of the National Poetry Competition. Duhig’s latest collection is the Forward-shortlisted 'The Blind Roadmaker' with its riotously eclectic poems leaping from Tristram Shandy and eighteenth-century civil engineering to contemporary urban poverty and the consolations of poetry.