A poet who once wrote in secret has been awarded the University of Leeds Poetry Centre’s 2024 Brotherton Poetry Prize by a panel of judges including Poet Laureate and Professor, Simon Armitage.
Designed to nurture poetry’s newcomers, the Brotherton Poetry Prize is open to anyone over the age of 18 who has not yet published a full collection of poems.
This year’s winner is Dillon Jaxx, a queer, disabled writer who mostly wrote in secret until they first took a poetry course in 2011 after undergoing cancer treatment.
The poetry class helped form a community that kept meeting each week, and Jaxx also went on to join an online writers’ circle that they still attend. Jaxx said the support, encouragement, feedback and inspiration from other poets has been “incredibly important to me.”
I'd encourage emerging poets to enter the Brotherton Poetry Prize, as being shortlisted and attending the prize-giving evening was such a beautiful experience.
Since then, Jaxx has had work published online and in print, won the Wolverhampton Poetry prize in 2024, and the Rebecca Swift prize for writing in 2022.
Jaxx, who is based in Sussex, said: “I'd encourage emerging poets to enter the Brotherton Poetry Prize, as being shortlisted and attending the prize-giving evening was such a beautiful experience.
“Winning the prize feels like a milestone and I hope the awards ceremony has brought together a new community of poets who will stay in touch. I think my next goal is to get a collection published.”
Awarded by a panel of acclaimed poets on behalf of the University of Leeds Poetry Centre, the judges this year were: Poet Laureate and Professor of Poetry at Leeds, Simon Armitage; Malika Booker, former Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow in Poetry; Professor of Poetry, Kimberly Campanello; Zaffar Kunial, former Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow; Lecturer in Creative Writing, Dr Caitlin Stobie; and Professor John Whale, Director of the Leeds Poetry Centre.
Image caption: (left to right) Malika Booker, Zaffar Kunial, Adam Panichi, Lucy Holme, Professor Hai-Sui Yu, Dillon Jaxx, Professor John Whale, Dr Caitlin Stobie, Professor Simon Armitage, Jam Kraprayoon, David Brotherton, Will Fleming and Professor Kimberly Campanello.
Candidates submit mini collections of up to five poems or 200 lines for the chance to win. As well as receiving prize money, all five shortlisted poets will have their submissions published in the next edition of the Brotherton Poetry Prize Anthology in the coming year.
The four runners-up were Jam Kraprayoon, an Oxford and LSE alumnus from Bangkok who is now based between there and London; Lucy Holme, a postgraduate researcher and creative writing teacher at University College Cork; Will Fleming, a poet and researcher from County Wicklow in Ireland with a PhD from UCL; and Adam Panichi, a University of Leeds alumnus who lives between Italy and the UK.
With more than 250 entries this year of a very high quality, it’s humbling and incredibly satisfying that so many people want to submit to this prize. It’s a huge responsibility for poets to judge other poets, and choosing a winner was difficult.
The results were announced on Tuesday 14 May at a dinner and poetry reading attended by Interim Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Hai-Sui Yu, who is a published poet, as well as David Brotherton, the great-nephew of the famous University benefactor Lord Brotherton, who the prize is named after. The Brotherton Poetry Prize is generously supported by the Charles Brotherton Trust and the University of Leeds Libraries.
Honouring poetry on the page
The page is like a telepathic mediator between the poet and the reader, and the Brotherton Poetry Prize is designed to honour and promote that telepathy.
Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate and Professor of Poetry, said: “Poetry on the 2D surface of the page can still do things that other forms of poetry can’t. The page is like a telepathic mediator between the poet and the reader, and the Brotherton Poetry Prize is designed to honour and promote that telepathy.”
Professor John Whale, Director of the Leeds Poetry Centre, said: “With more than 250 entries this year of a very high quality, it’s humbling and incredibly satisfying that so many people want to submit to this prize. It’s a huge responsibility for poets to judge other poets, and choosing a winner was difficult.
“This is an excellent developmental opportunity for the poets, who are delighted with the prospect of being recognised as they reach for their first full collections.”
At the prize-giving, Jaxx also paid tribute to a late friend, the poet Kathryn Bevis. “I want to mention Kathryn Bevis because she’s very well-loved in the poetry community and she has been a key person who has cheered me on and pushed me at times, and I feel like she’s been with me all day and all evening.”
Earlier this year, the Government pledged £5million of funding for the new National Poetry Centre, led by Professor Armitage, which will be based on the University’s campus. Although this registered charity is separate from the University, the Leeds Poetry Centre and School of English are already collaborating closely with the national organisation, and members of the National Poetry Centre attended the ceremony.
Read ‘trans substantiation’, one of the poems in Jaxx’s winning submission, below.
trans substantiation by Dillon Jaxx
this particular Sunday lined up as usual
hands cupped one inside the other or tongues
out the less inhibited stand open mouthed
to receive a limb of god
when they announce that there is nothing
left today we have eaten god in his entirety
and each of us are asked to donate a part
of ourselves to recreate him
i almost run to the front bunching
my long hair in readiness they lay me out
arrange my tangled shock behind me
hanging it over the marble edge
of the altar one swing of the cleaver
and I am free frankincense clouds
wafting from metal kettles swung by
ministrants as we are given our new god’s
blessing and permission to leave I am first
at the vast carved doors running into my fresh
life hoping that whoever’s eyes god has can see
me but whoever’s hands he has can’t reach
Further information
For media enquiries, please contact Mia Saunders in the University of Leeds press office on m.saunders@leeds.ac.uk.
Top image caption: Dillon Jaxx, winner of the 2024 Brotherton Poetry Prize, with Poet Laureate and Professor Simon Armitage.