Poetry please! Student’s poetry highly commended at prestigious awards

The poetry of Creative Writing PhD candidate Claire Williamson has been receiving critical praise.

Her poem Rough was highly commended in this year’s The Bridport Prize for poetry at the recent awards. Established in 1973, the prize aims to encourage emerging writers and promote literary excellence. The anthology of winning entries is published in October each year.

This year Claire also took runner up in the Neil Gunn writing competition 2017.

Speaking about the inspiration for Rough, Claire said: “The poem recounts a night as a teenager when I decided to 'run away' and slept out all night on a bench. In writing the poem, I wanted the language to reflect elements of risk and safety and that a sense of potential rescue hovered, if only in my fantasy.”

Programme Leader for the UK’s only MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes, Claire is currently exploring Writing the 21^st Century Bereavement novel for her doctorate.

A writer of libretti, Claire Williamson has undertaken a number of commissions, from a commemoration for SS Great Britain to her latest work for St George’s Hall, Bristol. Her forthcoming poetry collection Visiting the Minotaur is to be published by Seren in April.