The inaugural prize was judged by renowned poet Hannah Lowe:

Hannah Lowe is one of a generation of younger poets whose work celebrates the multicultural life of London and its environs in the eighties and nineties. She was born in Ilford, Essex, in 1976, to an English mother and a Chinese/Jamaican father. Her pamphlet The Hitcher was published by The Rialto in 2011 and was highly praised. Chick, her first full collection, came out from Bloodaxe in 2013, and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. Another chapbook Ormonde was published in November by Hercules Editions and her family memoir Long Time, No See was published by Periscope in July 2015 and featured as Radio 4’s Book of the Week. In September 2014, she was named as one of 20 Next Generation poets.

The prize is offered by the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre at Oxford Brookes University in Oxford, overseen by the director Niall Munro, and co-director, Scottish poet, Kate Clanchy.

‘Two top prizes of £1000 were on offer in a competition that sought to celebrate the great diversity of poetry being written in English all over the world. Poems were submitted in two categories: ESL category (open to all poets over 18 years of age who speak English as Second Language), and Open category (open to all poets over 18 years of age).’

The prize received over 900 entries from across the globe.

Read the finalists for the Open Category on the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre website, including, Wes Lee’s poem: ‘Glass Eye’. And the ESL finalists HERE

The prize-giving ceremony will take place at Oxford Brookes University in February.