Michael Symmons Roberts: Ensuring that poetic justice is done

"It was when we all do it, when we're about five or six, and I suppose I never grew out of it," laughs the poet.

Despite holding various job titles – journalist, broadcaster, librettist, novelist, university professor – Symmons Roberts says that poetry lies at the heart of everything. "It always has done. We tend to shy away from the language of vocation, it sounds so portentous, but most artists, be they writers or painters or sculptors, will say that they have a sense of a calling in what they do." he says.

"People tell me it is unusual to have known with such clarity at such an early age what it was I felt I was meant to do, but when we wrote poems in the classroom, immediately I was hooked on the buzz of writing it and that never left me."

Roberts, who grew up in Preston, went on to study at Oxford University. The passion for poetry never abated and on graduation he decided to find a job which would allow him to indulge his passion.

"I suppose the companion professions for someone who wants to write are either journalism or broadcasting because they are both professions in which as a writer you can hone your skills. I went first into newspapers and then into broadcasting, but the feeling that poetry was my calling never left. I always had the sense of 'this is what I am'.

"The downside of knowing since I was very young what I wanted to do, it means you are never happy doing anything else. All the time you are trying to work towards a position where you can put that thing at the centre of your life."

In 1988, when he was 24, Symmons Roberts won the Eric Gregory Award. The award is given by the Society of Authors to a poet under the age of 30 and winning the prize paid him enough money to concentrate solely on his writing and his poetry for a year.

He has gone on since to win the Whitbread Poetry Award and been shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Forward Prize, and twice for the TS Eliot Prize.

It makes Symmons Roberts the perfect person to take on the role of sole adjudicator of this year's Yorkshire Open Poetry Competition.

It is also interesting to discover that the poet has mixed feelings about the nature of poetry competitions. Symmons Roberts concedes that the culture of competitions within poetry is a complex matter. "I think on the whole, they are a good thing," he says. "They serve to raise the profile of poetry, even if people are arguing about why a particular poem has won a particular prize, they are talking about it. I would rather poetry was argued about than ignored.

"With any prize culture there are going to be losers. How can you really judge one poem against another? In the end it is only the opinion of the judges, or in the case of the Yorkshire Open Poetry Competition, the judge."

While recognising the boost winning a poetry prize can give to a career, Symmons Roberts says that setting out to write a 'prize winning poem' is mistake.

"That way madness lies. A poem must start from something so central to you as a person that to try to contrive that will lead to something awful."

The Yorkshire Open Poetry Competition, sponsored by the Yorkshire Post, is in its 26th year. The competition attracts over 1,500 entrants annually from around the world. It was founded by friends who attended poetry workshops in York.

There are three main prizes, 15 runners-up prizes and a Yorkshire Prize named after a founder, Leslie Richardson, which is open to those living in Yorkshire.

Symmons Roberts speaks eloquently and with great passion when it comes to defending his favourite artform. "I think we have forgotten how to read poetry, because of the cult of the novel," he says. "We are so used to reading novels that we believe that is how poetry should be read.

"We need to be reminded that reading poetry is like listening to music. You might take certain things from a new album a first time, but it is on a second and third reading that you start to really take something

from it."

So what will the vocal advocate look for when he sits down to judge this year's competition, a task he calls 'daunting'. He says: "You're looking for a mixture of things when you are judging a competition.

"You are looking for something that's going to surprise you. I'm looking for something where I can see the thinking that was going on while the poem was being written.

You can tell when someone has had an idea and they decide they will write a poem about it, as opposed to a poem emerging during

the writing and something which has surprised the writer as much as it will the reader."

To see last year's winning poem, Burnham-on-Sea by Richard Lambert, log on to www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

HOW TO ENTER

The first prize is 500, plus publication in the Yorkshire Post. Second prize is 250, third 100 and a Yorkshire Prize is named after the founder of the competition Leslie Richardson.

Symmons Roberts will announce the winner and run a workshop on February 26 in York.

Any number of poems up to 80 lines can be entered.

All poems must be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope and an entry fee of 5 first poem, then 4 each, or 15 for four poems. Cheques should be made payable to The Yorkshire Open Poetry Competition.

The entrant's name and contact details must not appear on the poems, but should be given, along with the titles of the poems, on a separate sheet of A4 paper sent with the entry.

Competitors who live or work in Yorkshire are eligible for the Yorkshire Prize and should mark their poems with a Y in the top right hand corner.

To submit your poem to the YOPC send them to YOPC 2010, 32 Spey Bank, Acomb Park, York, YO24 2UZ.

The YOPC deadline is November 30.