Introduction “It is an honour and privilege to be judging the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2016... this is the most exciting prize for young poets.” Malika Booker, 2016 judge Welcome to the anthology of the commended Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2016. Since 1998 The Poetry Society have been finding, celebrating and nurturing the very best young poets from around the world through this prize. The award has been supported by the Foyle Foundation since 2001 and is firmly established as the key competition for young poets aged between 11 and 17 years. This year we received over 10,000 poems from more than 6,000 young poets from across the UK and around the world. Writers from 76 different countries entered the competition, from as far afield as Nicaragua, Kuwait, Ethiopia and Uzbekistan. From these poems this year’s judges, Malika Booker and W.N. Herbert, selected 15 top poets and a further 85 commended poets. The scale and global reach of the competition demonstrates the huge achievement of our winners. Judge W.N. Herbet says: “this was a year of film poems, poems bringing obscure words to vivid life, poems about the body, about the turbulent relationships between us and our partners, our parents, our ancestry... In short, it was a bumper year, providing ample evidence that the poem can do almost anything with the utmost economy, intensity, and, for the reader, engagement and delight. The judges hope everyone will enjoy reading these poems as much as we enjoyed choosing them.”
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Poems by the Commended Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2016