Welsh writer/poet Mick Evans will judge the awards in 2024.
Born in London, Mick Evans grew up in rural Hertfordshire. He read English at Oxford, where he gained a Violet Vaughan Morgan Prize. He pursued a career in teaching on Kent’s London fringe, in Cheshire, and finally Carmarthenshire, which has been his home for many years. The move to Wales was prompted by the desire to re-establish the family’s Welsh roots.
With origins in London and now surrounded by landscapes steeped in myth, and the dramatic scenery of the Black Mountains and Towy Valley, the tensions of urban and natural worlds are a constant source of inspiration. His work reveals a fascination with the interplay of lyricism and rhetoric, and the historical, mythological, and literary cross-currents underpinning feelings about experience.
A founder member of the Dinefwr Poets group, he has been published in several anthologies, was runner-up in the Cinnamon single poem competition, and was winner of the Welsh Poetry Competition in 2015 with his poem Map makers. In a subsequent year, four of his poems made it into the final twenty. Published by Cinnamon Press, his debut collection, ‘Burlesque’, came out in 2019, followed in 2021 by ‘Light Airs’. Both works were reviewed in Agenda. His latest collection, of short prose pieces, ‘Short Cuts’ (2022), has been described as ‘written with a dagger masquerading as a pen’.
Mick performs at spoken word events in Carmarthen, has run workshop sessions with Cinnamon Press, and read selections from his work at the Llandeilo Literary Festival.
Praise for Mick Evans:
‘Clever and moving poetry. He deserves to be much better known.’ | ‘Extraordinarily sophisticated.’ | ‘It is a ballet of a work.’
Check out some of Mick’s work:
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