Ooh - another nearly made it

I just found out today (thanks Michael Farry!) that I got shortlisted for the Basil Bunting Award, the new poetry competition that was launched this year.

I was delighted for a number of reasons: well, validation being one of them, but Achieving the Lotus Gait, is part of a longer sequence of poems I've been writing on and off during the year on the grisly subject of torture.

I think it may be some sort of sublimated desire to deal with yucky things from the past. Anyway, I'm delighted to see my name on that short list, along with names I recognise, like Dawn Wood from Scotland. I think I'm the only Irish name in there... that's twice that's happened now :))))

Congratulations to the worthy winners, of course. I think the judges' report shows just how tough their criteria were.