What better way to celebrate International Women's Day than by announcing the winner of our PBS Women's Pamphlet Competition. We're delighted to reveal it's Sarah Wimbush!
Judge Amy Wack of Seren Press said: "I fell in love with the gusto, the sheer gritty texture of these poems, with their harsh monosyllables and ruthless wit". Sarah has also recently won a Northern Writer's Award, a Mslexia Poetry Competition runners-up place and second prize in the last Ledbury Poetry Competition.
Bloodlines is an exploration of Sarah Wimbush's own Gypsy/Traveller heritage, a journey made by piecing together fragments of distant stories and scattered language. Along the way, we meet people who are 'tethered to the seasons'; voices that reverberate with a sense of family and resilience, and always with that constant wonder of being part of something colourful, untamed and rare.
"There is a Romany saying, We are all one: all who are with us are ourselves; Sarah Wimbush's collection draws us into the world of Travellers with linguistic panache and delight." – David Morley
"Sarah Wimbush's exciting poetry has that rare ring of authenticity. Her language brings to life a lost world with startling vividness. It is the real thing." – Carole Bromley
"Bloodlines asserts Carroty Kate, our Jud and Lizzie's right to have their mother tongue placed among the voices of poetry." – Stuart Pickford
"A thrilling debut that kept me outdoors in the grassy world of communal lives. I love the formal dazzle and linguistic dare that spoke of defiance, survival and utter joy." – Daljit Nagra
Many congratulations to these highly commended entries too:
Rachel Bower, Mothers of Gods which Amy Wack described "as funny as they are perceptive"
Rosamund Taylor, We Lose our Edges - "The series of gay love poems... are lush and sensual full of the fear and bite and glory of love"
Sarah Mnatzaganian, Bogle - "Expertly done... this poet knows what to leave in and what to take out"
Heidi Beck, The Listening Project - "about... the power of narrative to transcend trauma"
Nicola Bray, Boi - "a topical, astute and courageous depiction of a heartbreaking - and making - coming of age"
Bloodlines will be published on Tuesday 10th March. Pre-order here.