Creative Writer wins international award

Award-winning writer and academic takes top poetry prize for successive year

Creative Writing’s Robert Walton, author of Sax Burglar Blues, has won first place in the English Language Poem Competition at the North American Festival of Wales for his poem ‘On Clevedon Pier, June 2020’.

Long-standing in the Creative Writing team, Bob Walton works collaboratively in a number of creative collectives on both sides of the Bristol Channel including The Write Box, Track Record Arts, Rosebay Willowherb and Bristol-based The Spoke, regularly performing to packed houses.

Winner of the Welsh Arts Council New Poet Award with his debut collection Workings, his work includes the poetry narrative for BBC2 Wales drama-documentary, Fighting to the End: Sisley in Wales, which also featured in the National Museum of Wales Sisley in Wales exhibition. Bob also won the inaugural English Language competition in 2020 with his poem 'Alphabet'

The poetry composition competitions (Welsh and English language) are part of the festival’s Eisteddfod, taking the theme Hiraeth this year.

The winners were announced at the festival’s Opening Ceremony earlier this month.

The prizes honour David Llewelyn Williams (1937– 2021) of Vancouver, Canada, a former Trustee of the North American Festival of Wales. Originally from Prestatyn, Wales and highly knowledgeable of Welsh poets and poetry, Williams adjudicated numerous competitions in North America and Wales alike.