Christopher James wins National Poetry Competition

Poet Christopher James won this year's National Poetry Competition for his piece "Farewell to the Earth." Judges included Brian Pattern, Frieda Hughes and Jack Mapanje.

The winning poem chronicles the burial of a friend's father, who is placed in the ground with a potato in each hand, on New Year's Day. Patten remarked that the poem has "a deadpan humor" that is "rather at odds" with the themes of death and grief. However, this is one thing the judges appreciated, because the piece completely shies away from sentimentality, the Grim Reaper of good poetry.