Maya

2026

Winners

1st Prize

Echoes of Silence:
Deborah Miller

Echoes of Silence
Artist and poet Debbie Miller

Debbie Miller is a UK-based interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, sound, installation, moving image, and text. Her practice explores material enquiry and sensory experience, translating psychological tension into form through a research-led engagement with space, perception, and contemporary installation practice.

Her work investigates thresholds between presence and absence, silence and sound, constructing immersive environments that invite slow, reflective engagement. Drawing on memory, affect, and fragmentation, she creates sensory experiences where meaning emerges through encounter, positioning her practice within contemporary interdisciplinary fine art discourse.

Website - click here.

2nd Prize

The Ice Sonnets:
Christopher James

The Ice Sonnets
Author & artist Christopher James

Christopher James, born in Paisley, Scotland, 1975, is a first prize winner in the National Poetry Competition, The Bridport Prize, Oxford Brookes and Crabbe competitions, and has also received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. He's also written three Sherlock Holmes novels, including The Adventure of the Ruby Elephants and a triptych of plays about Sir John Betjeman. A Graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, he's published several collections, including Farewell to the Earth (Arc, 2011), The Penguin Diaries (Templar, 2017), The Storm in the Piano (Maytree Press, 2022) and The Ice Sonnets (Dithering Chaps, 2026).

Purchase a copy of The Ice Sonnets

3rd Prize

Ten Thousand Nights:
Yvette Thomas

Ten Thousand Nights
Poet Yvette Thomas

Yvette Thomas was born in Los Angeles, California, and has lived most of her life in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has a Master of Creative Writing from the University of Auckland (2023). In 2022, she won the Caselberg International Poetry Prize for her poem ‘Not What You Wanted’, which featured in Landfall 244 (Spring 2022) and other anthologies. Her short story ‘The Lost One’ was published in JAAM 19 (2003) and Pendulum (Wishbone Press, Australia, 2003). Thomas is also the winner of the Kendrick Smithyman Scholarship in Poetry 2023 and the Shimon Weinroth Prize in Poetry 2023.

In Ten Thousand Nights, Yvette talks us through her world. She records the fluty praise of kōkako, the hiss of cats fighting on a roof, a mother’s song in Tagalog. She listens intently to the damaged, turning, murmuring earth—and doesn’t flinch, even when there was nothing to say / but everyone was talking.

This is a collection of hilarious love poems, gentle lyrics, raging polemics, blocky prose poems, laments and memorials, but also tyre-swinging poems, cloud poems, pepper-black night poems and neighbourly poems. Like a prickly creature curled up small, the poet looks death and worry in the face, tallies up her remaining days, and writes it all down.

Instagram - @yvettefirehorse

Children's Prize

Zog Zog and the Monsters:
Irene Edwards

Zog Zog and the Monsters
Children's Author - Irene Edwards

Irene Edwards is a retired teacher who now writes fantasy fiction for children. As an educator, she taught primary level in many parts of the UK; London, Essex, Coventry, the Midlands, Cardiff, Port Talbot, Swansea and Carmarthenshire. She then qualified as a Teacher of the Deaf at The Lady Spencer Churchill College, Oxford, working at first within unit settings and later moving to peripatetic work for schools and clinics.

Knowing how important literature and language are to the structure of speech and language development, on retirement, she began research into the imaginary minds of children, and their world of literature and writing.

Website - click here.

Press release

Press release – click here (For immediate release)

Our 2026 Judge

Dave Lewis

Dave Lewis is a Welsh writer, poet, and photographer based in Pontypridd. He has written content for BBC Wales and has been published in a number of literary magazines and websites all over the world.

In 2007, Dave set up the first-ever Welsh Poetry Competition, an international poetry competition that became the biggest in Wales. He also runs Poetry Publisher, a book publishing company that is seeking good poets who have been overlooked by the mainstream publishing industry.

He has self-published over twenty books on a variety of subjects, including the gritty Cymru noir thriller, The Welsh Man.

In 2020, he launched this competition - the Maya Poetry Book Awards.

Judge's Comments:

Thanks to everyone who entered this competition. This is our seventh year, the first with the new Maya branding, and my third as judge. It has also been our most successful yet, both in terms of the number of entries and the extraordinary multiplicity of subjects.

Whittling the field down to just twenty-five books proved tough, and there were easily another ten books that could have been included. There were also some beautifully crafted volumes and inspiring designs amongst those that didn’t make the cut.

Along the way, I've had to part with books about ghosts, Covid, immortal Gorgons, a lifetime of hard labour, and the heartbreaking loss of a son. There was so much grief, so much love of nature, and so much originality. We received books exploring the Black Country, QR codes and Christianity, rhyming satires on Trump, a futuristic Digi City, the River Severn, anti-fascist haiku, and even the ancient craft of London's bell-makers. I've met poets living in caves, travelled through the developing world, listened to Alice in Wonderland chatting with Buzz Aldrin, and been inspired by the wisdom of an eighty-year-old writer.

Finding just ten was even more difficult. I was stuck on twelve for weeks, and swapped over five or six constantly. Eventually, I said a reluctant farewell to Paul Hawkes and Becs Meredith - two superb collections.

Then, I had to pick the final three. In the end, it was easy, well, easy to get down to four – oh dear! Then I got stuck. Two collections were beautifully produced and very professional in their structure, language, and approach to poetry. The other two were raw. Pure, unadulterated passion. What should I do? All four talked of suffering, of human frailty, of survival, and then the strength to persevere, overcome, and succeed – to push on through to the other side. And for me, all four books would be worthy winners of many contests.

We also received a healthy number of children's poetry books, many beautifully illustrated. It's a genre that's often underestimated, but one that's remarkably difficult to get right.

Extra:

I would also like to mention ‘Relationships’ by Marc D. Goldfinger. A book that overflows with raw passion from a man who has certainly lived an interesting life. A confessed heroin addict, an editor, poet and jazz man. His poetry in this small, yet powerful volume is a tribute to his partner Mary Esther Rohman. If there were a 4th prize, Marc’s poetry would win it.

Also worth a mention are ‘Still Point’ by Beth Clapton and ‘Elegies Of Herons’ by Sarah Wetzel – both fantastic collections.

And lastly, I’d like to say a huge thanks to all entrants. Your work has been inspiring, and I’m so glad you took the time to enter. And whilst it would have been nice to reward more writers, the real winner here, once again, is poetry. Already, in just seven years, I feel we’ve discovered some incredible poetic talent. Long may it continue.

- Dave Lewis

1st Prize - Echoes of Silence by Deborah Miller

My overall winner is not for the faint-hearted. Deborah Miller's words and images are raw, open wounds from a lifetime of struggle for survival against overwhelming odds. I could even say that if this poetry doesn’t make you cry, then something is wrong with you! Talking about such difficult, harrowing experiences in such an honest, heartbreaking way is one thing, but crafting such mind-blowing metaphors and descriptions marks a true genius poet.

‘They tried to cauterise my worth’ 

‘feeding my name to shadows,

as if I were the wrong seed in their garden.’

‘they didn’t just wound.

They branded.’

From the opening poem, we know we are in for a rollercoaster ride. And things don’t get any easier. The poems, ‘Fractured Truth’ and ‘Born of Flame and Breaker Blood’ are modern, real, in your face. No Keatsian romanticism here. Instead of an ‘unravish'd bride of quietness,’ we have:

‘The first time I fractured

was without thunder.’

‘it split my skin like salt.’

As we move further into the book, we flick back and forth through time. To the time of a child:

‘I was ten, maybe eleven,

already fluent in fear.’ 

Two short lines that must make everyone sit up and gasp. It’s a hard read. This is raw, this is real. This is poetry that meshes with emotional trauma and engages directly with past suffering. This is what the term ‘lived experience’ was meant to describe. I’m reminded of Ann Sexton’s ‘Briar Rose’ and her insomniac heroine. In Miller’s straightforward approach, we see all too clearly the psychological confinement, dissociation, and unpreventable ordeals.

Later in the collection, despite hardships, the poet displays her capacity for love through the horror of miscarriage, in ‘Izzy, My Unfinished Lullaby’:

‘Then, blood…

‘I begged the universe to hold you a little longer.’

‘Each ache, each wave, tore pages from our story.’

Comparisons can be made to Sharon Olds and Maya Angelou’s writing, because Deborah Miller is also a fighter and spokesperson. Her poetry can be viewed as a document of hope for others. She is living proof that PTSD can be managed, even beaten, burdensome though it may be. She is an advocate for escape, for breakout, and within her words, there is also a voice of renewal:

‘sun spills golden ribbons through mist,

painting the world in warmth.’

And from ‘Thread Between Us’, you speak to the next generation:

‘You ask, does the grass sleep? And I pause.

Yes, I whisper, yes, it dreams of footsteps.’

For those unfortunate to experience assault or abuse, all you want to know is that one day you’ll be okay, that the feeling that you are damaged will abate. That you’ll eventually come back to yourself. In reading Miller’s searing words, I forgot I was judging a poetry competition. I was immersed in a world I know little about. This leaves no doubt in my mind that this collection is the 2026 winner.

2nd Prize - The Ice Sonnets by Christopher James

My second-place book is a little different. It grabbed me from the start and went straight into the ‘Yes’ pile. A beautifully crafted volume cataloguing the heroic polar adventures of Ernest Shackleton and his crew during their 1914-1917 expedition. Author and artist Christopher James makes a significant mark upon the blank canvas that is the frozen desert of Antarctica; a story told through the 14-line sonnet form and the poet’s own excellent pencil illustrations that help bring the narrative to life.

‘five emperor penguins on the march,

like sunburnt waiters sloping off…’

Using each crew member as a character, telling their own history as well as the story of the expedition’s famous escapes, is both inspiring and poignant. The human qualities of the individual sailors are highlighted, as well as the harsh environment they had to endure. The psychological adversities would have tested even the toughest souls of today, not to mention the physical trials, and this is what makes it such a great book – suddenly, these long-dead explorers are alive again.

The Welsh stowaway, Shackleton says:

‘… If anyone had to be eaten,

you’d be the first.’

From ‘Freeze Frame’, about Frank Hurley, the photographer:

‘…Ghost-maker, freezer of time,

on the trek you crossed the floes, which

cracked like negatives beneath your feet.’

In the poet’s own words, “The sonnet felt the right form for several reasons. It’s concise enough to demand compression and precision, while allowing for plenty of white space around it to breathe on the page.”

Hero Shackleton gets his men to abandon everything that will not aid their survival:

‘You scattered sovereigns on the ice

as if sewing a crop of gold.’

The cook, who kept everyone alive:

‘milk and seal, milk and seal…’

What moved me most about this collection was the fact that each individual was given equal billing. A democracy of sorts. Yes, Shackleton was, and is, one of our greatest heroes, and rightly so. Indeed, I have felt myself welling up in Greenwich, whilst simply gazing at his watch in the museum display, but this book gives us so much more. The lives of all these men were extraordinary. They certainly don’t make them like this anymore.

Christopher James has not only produced an outstanding piece of art but has also captured the humanity of a particular time and place perfectly. A fabulous poetry book.

3rd Prize - Ten Thousand Nights by Yvette Thomas

This is a book I kept going back to. There was something there that gnawed away at me. A great line, subtle image, incredible detail, or marvellous story. A superb debut collection that displays an urgency of sensation, a wanting to live a life well, to save the planet, to laugh, to love, to keep doing it, because the author knows that time doesn’t stop ticking for anyone.

The destruction of our environment is seen everywhere. In ‘Burst of Sorrow’:

‘knowing that this earth

is an overheated junkyard,

like a gang-raped woman left for dead.’

In ‘Homo sapiens In Charge’ we have:

‘Lovelock’s Gaia locked away

yellowed pages in a bottom drawer,’

The poem ‘Moontalk’ is simply sublime in its choice of imagery:

‘Above the Chrysler Building and Christ the Redeemer,

above rats in subways and antelopes brought down by tigers,…

‘Above scattered Dear John letters and the muffled cries of hostages,’…

The poor moon sees it all, but can’t escape our decaying world. Thankfully, though, some amongst us are awake and willing to see, hear and feel. As in the poem ‘What Ira Saw’. Sadly, there is the boy who ‘stifles a yawn’, but hope still, as her own godson ‘almost fell apart’ when learning of the Holocaust.

In ‘Falling Dreams’, the poet expresses a fear of losing control, of instability or anxiety, while the next section of poems, specifically about sex, love and longing are simply lush. Thick with sensory details and intense emotional reflection. ‘Transatlantic’ is a great example:

‘you traced the line of my caesarean scar,

even though it had not been your baby.’

The natural world, the human condition, the loves and losses, the family grief – it is all here. A deep focus on the planet, life’s beauty, mortality, and the power of imagination to reveal and heal. This collection is a masterpiece.

Children's Award - Zog Zog and the Monsters by Irene Edwards

Welsh writer and the creator of the 'Magic Islands series' of books for children, Irene is an ex-headmistress.

A peaceful community of Topknots sees its home threatened when two fierce tribes, the Scalplocks and Bagwigs, arrive and prepare for battle. Young Zog Zog comes up with a clever plan to restore peace and drive the invaders away. A colourful, rhyming adventure celebrating friendship, community and clever thinking, aimed at young children and perfect as a bedtime story.

Suitable for younger children, ages 6-10.

2026 Shortlist

The shortlist celebrates a wide range of voices and styles.

2026 Longlist

The longlist celebrates a wide range of voices and styles.

Results were announced on our website, Facebook Group, and X page. We have also informed the UK national press, Bylines Cymru, Literature Wales, Wales Online, and associated district newspapers, Nation Cymru, Buzz magazine, BBC Wales, and RCTCBC, as well as many organisations on our mailing list. Thanks to all those who entered, and we look forward to reading your work next year.

To enter your book, click here..

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