Awards and publications

March 2024

I’m very honoured to announce that I am the recipient of the 2024 Brian Nisbet Poetry Award. This means a great deal to me because I know how respected the award is and how hotly contested. My poem - Refuge - was inspired by a news story from August 2023 about the murals for children that had been painted over in a refugee centre because they were considered “too welcoming”. The judges liked the use of repetition in the poem that is used to reinforce that this is the experience of one child, and many children.

Refuge - by Dawn Mclachlan

This child’s hand rested in the hand of a mother

and felt the warmth of safety and comfort

This child’s hand reached for a grandparent

as they walked in summer fields under wide blue skies

This child’s hand traced the words of a teacher

and learned of a world huge with hope and adventure

This child’s hand gripped tight the hand of a mother

and felt it tremble with urgency and fear as they hid

This child’s hand tightened on the hand of a sibling

and felt their deep cold and the tight bones of hunger

This child’s hand stretched out into dark night

and felt there the chilling pain of salt water and terror

This child’s hand slipped from hand of another

and held only the icy embrace of the open ocean

This child’s hand reached desperately for strangers

and felt there a pull into a world of chaos and confusion

This child’s hand stretched up and traced the outline of an erased flower on a wall

and the over-painted ghosts of once cheery animals

edges of hidden images still raised

under new white paint

and this child felt small

and alone

helpless and afraid

This child’s hand is empty

I am beyond excited to announce that two new commissioned poems will be included in a new anthology of poetry which will be published by Macmillan in Sept 23. The official blurb for this book below and a link to the publisher’s information. I can’t wait to have a copy in my hands!

www.panmacmillan.com/authors/ana-sampson/gods-and-monsters-mythological-poems/9781035023011

“A stunning gift book drawing together mythological poems – classic and brand-new – from around the world, illustrated throughout in black and white by award-winning former children's laureate Chris Riddell. Compiled by bestselling anthologist Ana Sampson, with an introduction by Natalie Haynes, author of Stone Blind.

People all over the world have always told each other stories. And from the very earliest times, many of these stories were told in verse. This collection of 150 poems includes retellings and reimaginings of Roman, Greek, Ancient Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, Aztec, Mayan and Inca mythology.

You will meet gods, monsters, tricksters, heroes, magical creatures and objects, magicians and spirits including Medusa, Icarus, Loki, Osiris, the Minotaur, Pegasus, Bunyip, Kukulcan, Cerberus, Merlin, Beowolf and Mjolnir and there are asides and footnotes to shine a light on stories themselves.”

Published 14th September 2023 - Hardback £14.99