Here it is: the much-awaited shortlist of the York Literature Festival / YorkMix Poetry Competition 2017.
The competition’s sole judge, Antony Dunn, has selected 60 poems from a record-breaking entry of 1,110 submissions.
A total of 471 poets from throughout the British Isles took part in this year’s event, competing for a top prize of £500.
Winners, Highly Commended and Commended poets will be informed of their success on Thursday (March 16).
The results will be revealed at a prize-giving event at The Friargate Theatre, York, on Sunday, March 26, where winners will be invited to read their entries.
Antony will also give a short reading of his work, including poems from his brilliant 2016 collection Take This One To Bed.
Here are the titles of the poems selected for the 2017 shortlist. The letter Y in brackets after some titles denotes that the entry is also eligible for the York Prize.
2016 Shortlist
Andromache
Animal Sightings
Beverley Station
Birdsong (Y)
Blood And Soil
Broken Umbrella
By The Big Creek
Carol (And Her Wing Girl)
Chemistry Lesson
Chicken Astronaut
Child
City Of Culture
Cure
Death Of A Herring Gull (Y)
Explanation (Y)
Extraordinary Robots
Film Noir
Fixation
Freeze-Frame Passion (Y)
Google Moves Into Genetic Forecasting
Grandpa Terry
Herring Gull (Y)
Home County
I Am Not Honest
I Saw A UFO (Y)
Ice And Recession (Y)
Iconoclast
Inventory
Kummerspeck
Leanne Brigg
Leonov’s Walk
Lines
Look At The Child
Memory Of Feathers
My Mother (Y)
Night, Launderette, North Street
Portrait Of The Artist
Production
Sarah’s Character
Semi-Detached
So Like
Stickleback
Still Married After All These Years
The Social And Economic Consequences
The Walking Wed
The Woman Who Married A Lego Man
The Woman Who Was Weather
Things He Needs
Today My Heart Is
Tortoise Missus
Troll
Unravelling
Urgent
Visions Of Angels At Mornington Crescent
Voyeur
What I Remember About Your Forgetting
Woodsman
You Comin’ Owt T’ Play (Y)