Judges' comments
Flatlands
Winner, poetry prize, EDP-Jarrold East Anglian Book Awards 2011
'Victor Tapner’s poems share the scouring, concentrated, tilting nature of the landscape they address. He simplifies the human presence, letting us focus on human relations. These are finely judged, rigorously constructed powerful poems that bind history to geography and animate rather than describe.'
Lavinia Greenlaw
Poetry judge, East Anglian Book Awards 2011
Flatlands
Winner, International Rubery Book Award 2014
'A themed collection which examines prehistoric society and settlements in the East of England. Many of the poems are tight, perfect miniatures, without punctuation, as fascinating and jewel-like as archaeological finds.'
Judging panel
International Rubery Book Award 2014
The Limitations of Artificial Intelligence
First prize, poetry collection, The New Writer competition 2008
'A series of very ambitious, really successful dramatic monologues. This
writer really plunges us into different historical moments whilst
wearing their research very lightly.'
Clare Pollard
The New Writer, No 97, July/August 2009
Winner, poetry prize, EDP-Jarrold East Anglian Book Awards 2011
'Victor Tapner’s poems share the scouring, concentrated, tilting nature of the landscape they address. He simplifies the human presence, letting us focus on human relations. These are finely judged, rigorously constructed powerful poems that bind history to geography and animate rather than describe.'
Lavinia Greenlaw
Poetry judge, East Anglian Book Awards 2011
Flatlands
Winner, International Rubery Book Award 2014
'A themed collection which examines prehistoric society and settlements in the East of England. Many of the poems are tight, perfect miniatures, without punctuation, as fascinating and jewel-like as archaeological finds.'
Judging panel
International Rubery Book Award 2014
The Limitations of Artificial Intelligence
First prize, poetry collection, The New Writer competition 2008
'A series of very ambitious, really successful dramatic monologues. This
writer really plunges us into different historical moments whilst
wearing their research very lightly.'
Clare Pollard
The New Writer, No 97, July/August 2009
Letters from Manuela
Joint runner-up, Keats-Shelley Prize 2021
'Beautifully paced and under-stated, this refined but accessible poem has succinct imagery and a precision that belies the difficulty of writing in such a slender form.'
Will Kemp
Keats-Shelley Memorial Association website
keats-shelley.org/prizes/keats_shelley_prize_2021
Meyndert Hobbema Measures the Density of Rhenish
Second prize, Peterloo open competition 2008
'I loved it because it made me see all the pictures that Hobbema didn't paint,
while leading me to discover the ones he did. It made me reach into its own background and I felt richer for having read it.'
Ann Drysdale
Peterloo Annual Open Poetry Competition Anthology 2008
Joint runner-up, Keats-Shelley Prize 2021
'Beautifully paced and under-stated, this refined but accessible poem has succinct imagery and a precision that belies the difficulty of writing in such a slender form.'
Will Kemp
Keats-Shelley Memorial Association website
keats-shelley.org/prizes/keats_shelley_prize_2021
Meyndert Hobbema Measures the Density of Rhenish
Second prize, Peterloo open competition 2008
'I loved it because it made me see all the pictures that Hobbema didn't paint,
while leading me to discover the ones he did. It made me reach into its own background and I felt richer for having read it.'
Ann Drysdale
Peterloo Annual Open Poetry Competition Anthology 2008
Five Hundred Cuts
Third prize, Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition 2007
'An assured, beautifully paced poem in which the subject and style complement and reflect each other perfectly. We loved the inhabiting of the speaker's voice, the suppressed desire and anguish beneath the careful, meticulous language. The poem also re-invigorates the names and descriptions of the plants and flowers, and in so doing, releases what could be everyday language, investing it with a powerful metaphoric charge.'
Owen Sheers and Kathleen Jamie
Literature Wales website
Jacqueline Kennedy's Guided Tour of the White House
Third prize, Poetry London competition 2006
'Built on a striking idea and written subtly in the voice of a character from recent history...[the poem] establishes its voice from the first line, and has telling (and sometimes chilling) details throughout. Recent history is hard to write about, but in this poem the former First Lady's strong sense of her place in history, her role as a custodian, and the undertow of anxiety come through strongly.'
Michael Symmons Roberts
Poetry London, No 55, autumn 2006