Earlier in the year Creative Manchester launched its inaugural Poetry Competition, which invited staff, students and alumni of the University to submit a poem themed around ‘Manchester means the world to me’.

Manchester was designated as a UNESCO City of Literature in 2018 and has been home to many great writers, so this competition was an opportunity for our University community to add their name to that list and also enhance their wellbeing through creativity.

All the poems received were reviewed by a distinguished panel of judges led by Professor John McAuliffe, Co-Director of the Centre for New Writing in our School of Arts Languages and Cultures.

John had this to say about the entries: “I spent a very enjoyable afternoon with our Chancellor Lemn Sissay and Burgess Fellow in New Writing Zaffar Kunial talking about poetry, and about Manchester, the subject of the poems we were looking at for this Creative Manchester Poetry Competition. In particular, we liked how the winning poems told us something about the city and the University that we did not know – Wittgenstein’s engineering studies and which pub he would visit – and also something about the poets themselves and the angle or stamp they put on their material. I am sure I was not the only one of us thinking there will be many more poems like these to come in future, of memory and imagination, putting their stamp on the city which has put its stamp on us”

Overall nine entrants were shortlisted with winners and runners up in each of the three categories awarded prizes. The winners are:

• Alumni winner: ‘Ludwig’s Jet’ by Ken Evans, MA Creative Writing 2015
• Staff winner: ‘The University of Manchester Lens’ by Lauren Bolger, a Postgraduate and Recruitment Admissions Assistant in the School of Materials, Faculty of Science and Engineering
• Student winner: ‘St Anselm Hall’ by James Bamber, BSc Physics, graduating July 2019

Further information on all the winners and shortlisted entries can be seen on the Creative Manchester Poetry webpage.