Forward prize nominations

We are very happy to announce our nominations for this year’s Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. They are:

‘Postcards from the Northwest’ – Caitlin MacKenzie (issue 10, read here)
‘Our Return to Sierra Vista’ – Jeffrey C. Alfier (issue 11, buy here)
‘Lunch in Ars en Ré’ – Lucy Furlong (issue 10, read here)
‘Birdsong in the May-wood’ – Tim Keane (issue 10, read here)

Best of luck to all the nominees! We think they’ll hold their own.

Previous Forward Prize winners include Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Alice Oswald, Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy and Kathleen Jamie. The Best Single Poem prize is open to poems published in the last 12 months in a British or Irish print publication.

Lenten Psalm contest

Contest logo by Sarah Mushong

For the last couple of years, Structo’s poetry editor Matthew Landrum has run a Lenten Psalm contest over on his blog. This year we’re running it together, and in addition to Matthew’s excellent US$200 first prize, we will be publishing the chosen poem in Structo issue 12 and giving the winning poet a two-year subscription to the magazine.

The idea is that you pick any biblical Psalm and create your own version in English. There’s no wrong way to go about approaching a Psalm, but the end result should be a poem that combines the soul of the original with your own personality as well as poetic and personal vision. Feel free to mangle, tangle, make strange, reverse and experiment. The goal is to make strong poetry, whatever form that takes.

You don’t need to have any knowledge of Hebrew, and no religious affiliation is necessary. This is a chance to engage and wrestle with ancient, beautiful, complex poetry. The 150 poems which make up the Psalms contain some beautiful language and imagery—there’s a reason they’re quoted so much in literature—and this is your chance to make that language your own.

Entries will be judged by panel on originality, musicality, accuracy (to the psalm’s spirit) and aesthetic. Submissions are open from Ash Wednesday to midnight GMT on Easter Sunday, which this year is on April 20th.

Send us your poems using using this link. There is no entry fee.

To give you an idea of the breadth of poetry that’s possible, head below the fold to read last year’s winner, To the Pilot Bridegroom, by Jen Hinst-White.

Issue 12 submissions now open

Photo (CC BY): Magdalena Roeseler

We are now accepting submissions of short stories and poetry for Structo issue 12. It doesn’t seem five minutes since the last one, but we seem to be a bit more organised this time around, as we have already conducted the interview for this new issue – with the novelist and poet Margaret Atwood.

The deadline is midnight GMT in the evening of Monday April 7th. For more information and for our submission guidelines, head over to our website, where you can also find the link to send in your work. Can’t wait to see what comes in this time around.

— Euan