Three highlights of our well-attended meeting at the Royal Wells Hotel last night: the handover of a cheque from the Tunbridge Wells & District Writers’ Circle (TW&DWC), the results of our annual members’ Folio competition, and a reading of her own poetry by our Folio judge, Cheryl Moskowitz.
Tunbridge Wells & District Writers’ Circle
Our Chair, David Hensley, welcomed three members of the TW&DWC, Amanda Lynch, Caroline Auckland and Catriona Robb. Following a recent decision by the TW&DWC to wind up their organisation after 50 years, its members had been absorbed into the Kent & Sussex Poetry Society. One of the final acts of the Writers’ Circle, after lodging their archives with the Amelia Scott Centre in Tunbridge Wells, was to allocate their remaining financial reserves to support the K&SPS. A cheque for £300 was duly handed over and received with enormous thanks by the society. The cheque was accompanied by a card with the following message.
“Dear Kent & Sussex Poetry Society,
We give you this sum of £300 from the former Tunbridge Wells & District Writers’ Circle, in the hope that you will use it to inspire and to write even greater and more memorable poems than ever before!
With all best wishes and kindest regards, from Amanda Lynch, on behalf of the TW&D Writers’ Circle.”
We are immensely grateful for this contribution, and we accept the challenge! We look forward to welcoming the ex-TW&DWC members in our future activities.
Folio Competition
Cheryl Mokowitz, our 2024 Folio judge, announced the poems that she had selected, each of which was read in turn by the submitting poet.
Cheryl prefaced each poem with warm words of critical appreciation, and the full house (plus members attending on zoom) was treated to a reading of high quality poetry.
This ceremony culminated in the award of First Prize to Susan Wicks, who received a book token for £30 and the Keith Francis Bowl for her poem Flying into Charlotte. David thanked Cheryl for her judging duties and Janice Warman for having so successfully organised this year’s competition, as well as all members who had submitted their work. The selected poems will appear later this year in our annual Folio, alongside Cheryl’s report and the winning poems from our 2024 Open Competition. We’ll also post Cheryl’s report and the winning poem here in the coming days.
Cheryl Moskowitz
Last but by no means least, Cheryl – a multi-award winning poet herself – read a selection of moving, thought-provoking and beautifully crafted poems, drawn from her published collections as well as some newer work.
All those who attended the meeting will have been inspired by her poems, by the support of our new TW&DWC members, and by the high quality of poems Cheryl has chosen for the Folio this year.
The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society 