What's in the box? Is it some rocks or a fox in red socks?

No, it's the Winchester Poetry Prize entries!

After a worrying twenty-four hours in which DHL claimed to have delivered it despite there being no trace of it , my next-door-but-three neighbour showed up with this box. And I now have 1924 poems to read and judge over the next three weeks. In practice, that means reading 150 poems a day, putting aside poems for further consideration - sifting, in essence, - so that in the final week of August I have a pile of around 200 from which to select the winners and the commendations and special mentions. I read the first 150 today; 25 of them joined my Perhaps Pile. Two or three of them gave me the chills or made my guts twist or my heart hammer and my hair stand up. They already feel already like definites … but I know that there are others which will give themselves up slowly, and which deserve to be read carefully and repeatedly.

There will be more reflections of competitions and poetry and community … but for now now my head is packed full of words and images and their infinite possibilities. If you entered the competition, thank you for filling my head, thank you for trusting me. I will take care of your poem; I will read it within sight of the moors; or in cafes with cake; I will read it out loud to my bottles and shards; and if it is lucky, it will go on an outing to Oxfordshire to celebrate Kathryn with me; it might see the Thames; or it may come to Leighton Moss and hear the birds sing.