Category Archives: Poetry Competition

Winners of 2025 poetry comp expose birth realities, celebrate sexual identities

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Bethan Murphy has won the 2025 Shooter Poetry Competition with “Birth Plan”, while Sylvie Jane Lewis came runner-up with “Small Town Pride Parade”.

Murphy’s poem pierces idealised notions of childbirth with its series of sharp juxtapositions, which powerfully drive home the contrast between fantasy notions of birth and the often quite different reality. As an English teacher from Salisbury, Murphy has previously published poetry and flash fiction in magazines including Green Ink Poetry, Eucalyptus Lit, Arkana, and Sugar House Review.

Lewis captures with humour and energy the range of colourful characters taking part in Chichester’s first Pride Parade last year. Her poetry has been published in The London Magazine, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Them, all, and has been commended in the Ware Poets Prize and the Bridport Prize.

Both poems are available to read online at the Competition Winners page, and “Birth Plan” will also appear in the forthcoming print edition of Shooter (themed Sweet Hereafter). The magazine can be ordered via Shooter’s Subscriptions page; this issue, Shooter’s 20th, will be the final edition of Shooter in print.

Huge congratulations to this year’s poetry winners!

Activism and injustice fuel this year’s winning poetry

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The winners of the 2024 Shooter Poetry Competition share a sense of political and social injustice – one on a global scale, one at the personal level.

Maryah Converse won the competition with “Web of Resistance”, a compelling lyric palimpsest of activism that questions attitudes towards the ongoing war in the Middle East. The runner-up, “MS Multiple Choice” by Anna Mindel Crawford, adopts an innovative form to suggest the frustration and difficulty of living with chronic illness in the family.

Three other poets submitted strong entries to the contest: Megan Cartwright, Jet McDonald, and Suzi Mezei received honourable mentions for their poetry.

Both of the winning poems are available to read at the Competition Winners page. “Web of Resistance” will also appear in print in Shooter’s forthcoming “Nightlife” issue, which can be ordered at the Subscriptions page.

Prose writers get their turn during the second half of the year: the 2024 Shooter Short Story Competition will open to entries within the next few weeks.

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Featured photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona

Mitchell wins 2022 Poetry Competition with “Female Dedication”

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Jenny Mitchell has won the 2022 Shooter Poetry Competition with her powerful familial poem “Female Dedication”.

The poem revolves around hardships experienced by the narrator’s grandmother (as well as her mother), and won Shooter’s prize for its unflinching, spare language and compelling intensity.

Mitchell has previously won the Poetry Book Awards and her debut collection, Her Lost Language, was named a “Poetry Book for 2019” by Poetry Wales. Mitchell’s second collection, Map of a Plantation, is on the syllabus at Manchester Metropolitan University and her latest collection, Resurrection of a Black Man, was chosen as a Poetry Kit Book of the Month.

A very different type of poem, “Unrequited” by Cara Lowther, came runner-up in Shooter’s 2022 Poetry Competition. Judges enjoyed Lowther’s adept handling of the villanelle form and the poem’s deliciously bittersweet tone. An English student at Warwick University, Lowther contributes regularly to student newspaper The Boar and plans to pursue a career in journalism following graduation.

Both poems are available to read online, and Mitchell’s winning poem will also appear in Shooter’s On the Body issue, which will be published this spring.

To subscribe to Shooter’s print edition or place an advance order for the On the Body issue, please visit the Subscriptions page.

Baur wins 2021 Poetry Competition with “Status Update”

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Dominic Baur, a former history professor, has won the 2021 Shooter Poetry Competition with “Status Update”.

The poem earned first place for its layered allusions and linguistic associations, weaving together threads of meaning to conjure a strong sense of underlying narrative. “Status Update” is not only Baur’s first contest win, but his first poem to be published. Although he has previously published academic work in numerous journals, Baur began writing poetry only in retirement. “Perhaps I chose the wrong career,” he joked in an email.

Isabella Mead, who landed second place with her beautifully evocative poem “Great Aunt Audrey”, also came runner-up in Shooter’s 2018 Poetry Competition. She won the 2021 Julian Lennon Prize, the 2020 Bedford International Poetry Competition, and the 2019 Wells International Poetry Competition. She was a 2021 finalist in the Brotherton Prize for which her poetry will be published in an anthology with Carcanet. 

While “Status Update” will appear in print in Shooter’s forthcoming Dark Arts issue, both poems are currently available to read online, along with other past winners.

To subscribe to Shooter’s print edition or place an advance order for the Dark Arts issue, please visit the Subscriptions page.