We are delighted to be publishing the two winning pamphlets from our 2024 International Book & Pamphlet Competition, both of which are now available from our website and all other good bookshops!
Boy, Mother
by Caroline Bracken
ORDER HERE
A Dress with Deep Pockets
by Jen Feroze
ORDER HERE
Boy, Mother – Caroline Bracken
Caroline Bracken‘s poems have been published in The North, Poetry Wales, Poetry News, Gutter, New England Review, the Irish Times, the Honest Ulsterman, Belfield Literary Review, Poetry Jukebox and elsewhere. She won the 2023 Renard Press Kinship Poetry Competition and has been a finalist in the Manchester Poetry Prize, Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Festival Poetry Contest and Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize. One of her poems has been nominated for the 2024 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem by The Poetry Society UK. Her work has been supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and DLR Arts Office.
Boy/Mother is a deeply moving exploration of a mother’s relationship with her son who has a long-term mental illness. In innovative forms the poems evoke the day-to-day depredations of illness, psychiatric treatment and societal attitudes and yet the thread that runs through the collection is love.– Jane Clarke, 2024 competition judge
A Dress with Deep Pockets – Jen Feroze
Jen Feroze lives by the sea in Essex. A former Foyle Young Poet, her work has appeared in publications including Poetry Wales, Under The Radar, Magma, The Interpreter’s House, And Other Poems, Berlin Lit and Butcher’s Dog. She placed second in the 2022/2023 Magma Editors’ Prize and was highly commended in the 2021 Spelt competition. Jen has edited anthologies for Black Bough Poetry and The Mum Poem Press, and her debut pamphlet Tiny Bright Thorns was published by Nine Pens in 2024.
A lightness of touch combined with wit and insight distinguishes A Dress with Deep Pockets. The collection addresses themes of loss and change through memories of people and place and above all friendship. Here are poems that celebrate, offer solace and resonate far beyond the page.– Jane Clarke, 2024 competition judge
You can hear readings from Caroline and Jen – plus commended poets Dale Booton, Kate Rutter, Ger Duffy, James Appleby and Derval Tubridy – on our YouTube channel. Recordings of the winners and commended poets in the 2024 Book & Pamphlet Competition will also be appearing on our Poetry Bites podcast through 2025.