Winners - King Lear Prizes 2023

Congratulations to our King Lear Prizes 2023 winners!

Message from the Chair of King Lear Arts

Friday 17 November 2023

It is a pleasure to announce the winners of the King Lear Prizes 2023. After launching the King Lear Prizes during the first lockdown in 2020, this is the third time that we have run the competition and celebrated the enormous talent of our participants.

Unsurprisingly, the competition was fierce and we received thousands and thousands of entries across our three main competition categories and in the Chairman’s Prize. As you can see from our shortlists, selecting a winner was not easy! All of our winners are over sixty and are not professionals in the category which they entered. The quality of their work is outstanding, and it's truly wonderful to recognise the creative talent that often goes unnoticed or unacknowledged.

I want to thank our judges for their work, and extend our gratitude to the volunteer team that contributed to coordinating the King Lear Prizes.

At the King Lear Prizes, we believe in active participation rather than passive observation. Our awardees exemplify this ethos. I trust you will enjoy seeing their winning submissions, and that they serve as inspiration for your own creative endeavours.

Andrew Browning

Chair, King Lear Arts

ART

“The overall standard of the shortlisted entries was truly outstanding.

The remarkable talent displayed by the shortlisted artists, who work with diverse artistic mediums, made the judging process both challenging and inspiring. These artists, all of whom are aged 60 or above and are enthusiastic amateurs, have truly impressed me with their creativity.

Many of the entries thoughtfully explored themes related to landscape and animals, which really underscores the significance of the natural world to the majority of them.”
— Roma Piotrowska, King Lear Prizes Judge for Art

Roma Piotrowska is a curator at the Midlands Art Centre

Beginner: Steve Hawker, NO ONE TAKES THE BIN OUT QUITE LIKE YOU DO

Steve Hawker lives in the ancient and beautiful city of York. The city is vibrant, full of history and tourists, and as a bonus is surrounded by fantastic countryside in the form of the Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors, the Howardian Hills and the Yorkshire Wolds.

What Roma Piotrowska Said…

“This delightful and uncomplicated painting captures the essence of an everyday object - a humble bin.

Often overlooked and considered an eyesore, bins tend to be disregarded as we fill them with our waste, only to remember them on collection day. However, this is no ordinary bin; it's a recycling bin. In today's era of environmental emergency, this unassuming bin warrants special attention, prompting us to reflect on our collective responsibility for the amount of waste we generate.

I liked the minimal colour palette too, accentuating the elegance of the composition.”

Experienced Amateur: Paul R Beasley, Kiev Firefighter

Paul R Beasley lives in Moulton Northampton Northamptonshire.  

What Roma Piotrowska Said…

“What first captivated me about this painting is its semi-abstract portrayal of the ruins.

The texture and the sombre colour palette further enhance its appeal. Within the composition, a firefighter is depicted from behind, courageously navigating through the rubble. In today's world, we frequently encounter news of fires, many attributed to the effects of climate change. However, the title of this artwork suggests a different origin, one linked to conflict and war.

What resonates most with me is the painting's ability to engage with pressing contemporary issues, making a poignant commentary on our times.”

POETRY

Our poetry judges are:

Mina Gorji, an Associate Professor in English and fellow of Pembroke College.

“It was an honour and a pleasure to read the poems shortlisted for the King Lear Prize this year.

In particular I was impressed by the way the poets all, in different ways, worked to deftly surprise the reader, sometimes a shift of tone, sometimes a change of perspective, or a rhythmic shift - to unsettle or to affirm. The formal variety of this year's entries was especially striking - from haiku sequence to a range of freer forms, variations on a sonnet, rhyming stanza and free verse.

There was a real sense of pleasure in craft here, a tuning-in to in the resonances of  language, rhythm and cadence and a pleasing exploration of  poetry's reach and range.”

Roger McGough, a poet, performer and broadcaster. He has been called “the patron saint of poetry” and “the godfather of modern poetry”.

“I was delighted to be invited to judge this year's King Lear poetry competition, and not only did I find the process immensely pleasurable but felt privileged to witness the joys and tragedies unfolding before me.

I smiled, I cried, but I never yawned. I had hoped to discover poems I wish I had written, and I did. I did.”

Beginner: Dan Janoff, The Cherrywood Bowl

Dan Janoff lives in South Woodford, a suburban neighbourhood in the London Borough of Redbridge on the edge of the lovely Epping Forest.

What Mina Gorji Said… 

"Cherrywood Bowl" impressed me with its quiet confidence and the way it balanced the weight and texture of description with wider questions, moving from tactile, physical experience to a meditation on love, craft and loss in and across its free verse stanzas. 

The poem's focus is a cherrywood bowl, made from "something alive and imperfect". It offers a beautifully realised and weighted  description of a loved object, its shape and lived texture in the hand, the stories it tells of relationships and histories, of travel and origins, of its maker and its giver, of presences and absences, of love and loss, emptiness held, of the passage of time itself, as the bowl's shape recalls the shape of the  planet's orbit round the sun.

It gathers to an unexpected  and satisfying rhyme of "concavity" with "gravity" in the final stanza, but this is not the end of the poem;  like "something alive and imperfect", the poem unexpectedly swerves away, reminding the reader of the love and the loss its heart, exploring the limits of a crafted thing, a poem or a bowl, to hold and preserve what matters most.”

Experienced Amateur: Sue Marshall, Dancing to the Music of Time

Sue Marshall lives in Mayfield, East Sussex, a small village in the High Weald.

What Roger McGough Said… 

My winner, 'Dancing to the Music of Time' is a sort of Strictly Come Dancing for the seasons, as Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter each took to the page in a dazzling display of polkas, bossa novas, fox-trots and sambas. Not a step out of place, not a word out of time.

SHORT STORY

“Each shortlist was full of surprising voices, turns of phrase, narrative strategies, unique characters and points of view, from the interior life of a fish to a person stranded on mars; from a jilted and spurned lover to a prisoner who cannot face the risk of freedom. I was captivated by each tale and impressed by the skills of the writers with dialogue, description, and storytelling.

Overall the quality was impressive and refreshing, with many writers taking creative risks to produce exciting work. My congratulations to all those shortlisted, whose names I hope to come across again soon! ”
— Emily LaBarge, King Lear Prizes Judge for Short Story

Emily LaBarge is a Canadian writer and art critic living in London, where she teaches at the Royal College of Art. She has written for the Paris Review, Frieze, Granta, Bookforum, and the London Review of Books, amongst other publications, including artist monographs.

Beginner: Julian Fuller, The Ping-pong Script

Julian Fuller lives in the happy village community of Cockwood, South Devon.

What Emily LaBarge Said…

“It was an honour to judge the 2023 King Lear Prizes, an important platform that recognises emerging literary voices are unrestricted by age.

Julian Fuller's "The Ping-pong Script" by Julian Fuller, in the Beginner category, immediately captured me with its playful and evocative voice, filled with wry humour and movement. Its innovative structure added another layer of delight, sweeping me along from beginning to unpredictable end.

Experienced Amateur: Frances Knight, Evie, wonder of science

Frances Knight lives in Canterbury in a quiet street, from which she sometimes ventures forth to play gigs. 

What Emily LaBarge Said…

In the Experienced Amateur category, "Evie, the wonder of science," by Frances Knight, is a richly detailed portrait of one woman's inner world in turmoil: a collision of different characters and realities, sensitive and subtle in its portrayals and shifts of emotional register. A great pleasure to award these two stories winning prizes in their categories.”

CHAIRMAN’S PRIZE

“Judging the King Lear Prizes Chairman’s Prize is the highlight of my year.

In 2023, we had many entries across different art forms: music, drama, short stories, poetry, film and the visual arts. The overall standard was higher than ever, and I would like to thank and congratulate all our participants. In particular, those of you who were highly commended or shortlisted should be very proud - being selected from thousands of entries from across the UK.”
— Andrew Browning, Chair of King Lear Arts

David L. Barnard, The Custodian

David currently lives in Great Bookham, Surrey with his wife Sue. He enjoys walking in the Surrey Hills and finds that themes and ideas that he can use in his writing often come to mind whilst he is walking in the countryside.

What Andrew Browning Said…

“A gale blowing hard through the woods one dark night. Shelter can only be found in a mysterious old house. A charming but odd man welcomes you in. And the master of the house ends up getting his way without even being seen. What a gripping tale!

The winner of the Chairman’s Prize this year is The Custodian by David Barnard. The setting is evocative, and the human drama is thrilling. David takes us from the everyday to the supernatural and back again, while exploring the meaning of human relationships, duty, and hospitality.

This is a brilliant stage play, and we wish David our congratulations as a worthy winner."