A few thoughts on poems that don’t win prizes…

…from someone who sifts and judges the work

Over the past year, I’ve read poems for a few different prizes – both as sole judge, and as unnamed sifter. This means that over the past twelve months or so, I’ve read a LOT of poems.

Read them, and judged them.

I often talk about how subjective poetry prizes are – which is true. So much depends on the tastes of the judge, or just how a particular poem h…