Canadian Natalya Anderson has won the Bridport poetry prize with her poem ‘Clear Recent History’.  Judge Liz Lochhead said she liked it “for what it doesn’t say as well as for what it does. I like it because of its structure and the aplomb it demonstrates within it; the chorus-like repetition of what the protagonist was able to do, what not, at each stage of recovery; because of the documenting of how, increasingly confidently, she recorded or shared her progress towards it; because of the cataloguing of very precise details – and for its dynamic moving-on narrative.”

Anderson, who currently lives in Cambridgeshire, is a writer and former ballet dancer from Toronto. She completed an MA in creative writing at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge and a Bachelor of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto. She has worked as a medical writer and  written features for Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail. For six years, she wrote a column for Dogs Today Magazine in which she interviewed celebrities about their pets.

Runner-up was Tori Sharpe, from Dallas, US; and third placed was canal laureate Jo Bell, of Stone, Staffordshire. Among the highly commended was last year’s Bridport winner Daisy Behagg (‘On Reclaiming My Life From Social Media’). Others highly commended: Being a Beautiful Woman – Alan Buckley, Oxford; Punting from Camden Lock – Florence Cox, Felixstowe, Suffolk; The Maker – Jane Dunn, Sedbergh, Cumbria; Touch – Roz Goddard, Cradley Heath, West Midlands; Apprehension – June Lausch, London; Bedtime Ritual – Val Ormrod, Alvington, Gloucestershire; Repeat After Me – Katherine Swinson, Charlottesville, VA, US; To travel hopefully – Lorna Tait Westwell, Edinburgh; Difficulties – Wes Ward, Newville, PA, US.