Partridge Boswell has won this year's £5,000 National Poetry Competition with his poem The Gathering, chosen from more than 21,000 entries submitted by poets in 113 countries. The poem explores language, love and the emotional toll of processing distressing world events, including state violence and war.
Boswell said he 'followed the media for a long while, writing elegies, parodies and rants' in an attempt to make sense of his 'discomfort and disbelief'. The judges praised the 'emotional stakes' of the work, adding: 'The speaker reflects on the tensions of personal grief against the backdrop of state violence in Gaza and elsewhere. How do we maintain language's potency amid the anaesthetising relentlessness of the news cycle?'
Boswell, author of the collections Levis Corner House and Some Far Country, described the recognition as 'a humbling and massively affirming flame in a dark winter'. He also co-founded the Bookstock literary festival in Vermont.
Runner-up Damen O'Brien received £3,000 for his poem Axe, while Zoe Dorado took third place and £2,000 for Badminton. The top three poems will appear in the spring 2026 issue of The Poetry Review. Seven commended poets each won £500: Jim McElroy, Kate Wakeling, Alex Mankowitz, Mark Fiddes, Jane Ord, Jade Angeles Fitton and Lindsey Forster-Holland.
This year's judging panel comprised Susannah Dickey, Ian Duhig and Denise Saul, who read all entries anonymously. The competition, founded in 1978, counts Carol Ann Duffy, Sinéad Morrissey, James Berry and Tony Harrison among its past winners.
