I’m delighted I have recently had a poem selected for the shortlist of the Janet Coats Memorial Prize at Paisley Book Festival: https://paisleybookfest.com/prize/
The theme for 2020 is ‘Radical Voices and Rebel Stories’, with a focus on the young people who have been making their voices heard on the climate crisis over the past two years. My poem was written in response to the eeriness and sadness I felt as I watched our local woods alter over the course of a long hot summer. I was disturbed by the previous winter, where the winds blew for weeks from the East rather than the South-West – a small detail, but when the clouds blow ‘the wrong way’ across the sky for days, I find it deeply unsettling.
The result is my poem, ‘In Elegant Green’, which you can read on the Paisley Book Festival website (link above).
Larissa Reid 