Dominic Bury has won this year’s National Poetry Competition with his poem ‘The Opened Field’. The chair of the judges, Pascale Petit, said: " ‘The Opened Field’ is a neutron star of a poem compressed inside the restraining machinery of a sestina. It’s a dark allegory of six boys in a field, but I did not realise it was a sestina until a second reading, when I started to work out what the boys were up to, and what part the far from passive field was playing in these coming-of-age rituals with their compelling rhythm and mantra-like repetitions.

“The form is a perfect container for the interlinked themes: an interrogation of unchecked masculinity and our destructive relationship with each other and with the natural world. The barbaric impulses enacted are interwoven to offer us a sombre and precisely wrought fable for our times. That farm animals are involved is significant and points to a visionary eco-poetics. I marvelled at the way I found yet another layer each time I returned to this poem and still thought I had not quite got to the bottom of it. As the weeks passed it would haunt me like a recurring dream. Reading it aloud at our judging meeting, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. The poem’s mnemonic force and seriousness drew it to the top of the pile, to become our winner.”

Dominic Bury lives in Devon where he runs workshops on nature, eco-poetry and the emotional impact of climate change. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry London, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Wales and Best British Poetry. He is the recipient of an Eric Gregory award and a Jerwood/Arvon mentorship.

Second prize went to Mary Jean Chan's 'The Window'. Third was Momtaza Mehri with 'Oiled Legs Have Their Own Subtext'. Commended were David Grubb, Paul Talbot, Jane Slavin, Peter Kahn, Robert Powell, Yvonne Reddick, and Joseph Butler. 

Petit’s fellow judges were Hannah Lowe and Andrew McMillan. The National Poetry Competition is organised by the Poetry Society.

PHOTOGRAPH: GREG FREEMAN / WRITE OUT LOUD