Bexley-based poet Sarah Westcott has won second prize in the Candlestick Press/Cloud Appreciation Society (CAS) poetry competition. Her poem ‘Flight’ was picked out from hundreds of entries from all over the world and will feature in Candlestick’s forthcoming anthology Ten Poems about Clouds to be published in the summer.

Sarah says: “I have long admired Candlestick Press and its beautifully-made pamphlets – also the fine poetry within their covers, so to be published by them in a new pamphlet is an honour. The wonderful ‘clouds’ topic was a spur for me to write something fresh and I’m really grateful for that stimulus.”

The competition judge was Katharine Towers, who is assistant editor at Candlestick Press and Poet-in-Residence at CAS. She says: “I read over 600 poems that flew in from all over the world. Sarah’s poem does what Emily Dickinson says a poem should do and ‘tells it slant.’ It’s a beautiful poem that explores a beguiling simile - ‘if love was like clouds..’. and is entirely worthy of its second place.”

Sarah Westcott's first collection, Slant Light, was published by Pavilion Poetry, an imprint of Liverpool University Press, last year, and she is currently Manchester Cathedral Poet of the Year. Sarah’s poems have appeared in magazines including The Poetry Review and Magma, on beermats, billboards and the side of buses, and in anthologies including The Forward Book of Poetry 2017. She lives in Kent with her family.

To read Sarah’s poem go to www.candlestickpress.co.uk/competitions

Submitted by Kathy Towers