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Kumar, Jaxx and Tsai triumph at 2022 Women Poets’ Prize
Poets Prerana Kumar, Dillon Jaxx and Jennifer Lee Tsai have been crowned as the winners of the 2022 Women Poets’ Prize at the inaugural Women Poets’ Festival in Norwich, following a record number of entries.
The biennial prize was held at the National Centre for Writing with this year’s judges – poets Penelope Shuttle, Abi Palmer and Nikita Gill – announcing the winners live as part of the Women Poets’ Festival on Saturday (19th November).
The judging panel selected the three winners from their shortlist of nine, chosen from a longlist of 30, carefully selected from a record number of 910 entries, anonymously sifted by four readers who were chosen to be diverse in terms of age, ethnicity, dis/ability, sexuality and geographic location around the UK.
The prize was founded by the Rebecca Swift Foundation and supported by communications consultancy FMcM, with the three writers receiving a holistic package that combines financial aid, creative development, well-being and pastoral support. The 2022 winners win a £1,000 cash prize, one-to-one mentoring and coaching from The Literary Consultancy, workshops with Faber as well as performance coaching with national spoken word charity Apples & Snakes.
The festival featured readings from the winning poets and a range of interactive seminars on page craft, writing from the body and how to develop poetry-based projects, led by Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Debris Stevenson and Jacqueline Saphra. Organisers added: “Also incorporated into the festival were both physical and digital ‘fallow’ spaces, curated by artist and poet Sophie Herxheimer, and spoken word and digital artist Paula Varjack.” The Telegraph became the official media partner of the prize and festival this year.
Shuttle said: “It has been a privilege to discover the work of these poets. Each one voices their truth with grace and insight, demonstrating their craft in vital, varied and exciting ways. Thank you, poets, and thank you to my co-judges both for their empathy and their grounded, deeply thoughtful, responses to these poets.”
Of the winners, Kumar is an Indian writer based in London, who has featured in Magma and the White Review among others, with a début pamphlet forthcoming with Guillemot Press in 2023.
Jaxx is a queer writer living with disabling chronic illness who has been honoured by various prizes including shortlistings for the Nine Arches Primers 2021 and Creative Futures Writing Prize 2022. They are writing towards their first collection.
Tsai is a writer, poet and critic who was born in Bebington and grew up in Liverpool. Her work has appeared in publications such as the TLS and the White Review as well as in the Bloodaxe anthology Ten: Poets of the New Generation (2017). Her début poetry pamphlet is Kismet (ignitionpress, 2019).
For more information, visit rebeccaswiftfoundation.org
