Just to confirm this year's Eric Gregory award winners:

Emily Berry, Rhiannon Hooson, James Midgley, Adam O'Riordan and Heather Phillipson

The judges have once again changed the judging process (a good thing I think) - three 'sifting judges' each choose 5-10 shortlisted poets from three piles of 80-100 or so.

Three further judges meet to decide the winners from the 25 or so who have got through to the second tier.

This year's winners read last week at RADA in London, at a packed event hosted by me - a good batch I think.

They will be represented at the Ledbury Festival and, I believe, in a feature in Magma later in the year.

I agree - I'm familiar with all of these poets' work except Heather Phillipson (though I do vaguely remember a single poem from the Magma issue you edited) and they're a bunch of excellent - not to mention suitably varied - writers.

What I always wonder, though, is who it is that judges the Gregory? I know it's a panel of judges as you say, staying on side for a number of years, but names never seem to be publicised (although I might not be looking hard enough/in the right places). A mixture of younger and older poets, I assume?

The current judges are Cary Archard, Moniza Alvi, John Greening, Owen Sheers, Sophie Hannah and Maura Dooley.

All but Archard do, I think, four years and move on. That was Sophie's last year, for example, and Maura's first. Other judges in recent years have included Jamie McKendrick, Jo Shapcott, Jackie Kay and Lawrence Sail. Archard, the Chairman of Seren, who is associated with the SOA, is a permanent member of the panel, and always helps the sifting.

Here's the poem which was in Magma. There's quite a buzz about Heather at the moment.

James Grieve

Golden-cheeked, it glided in above a scarf
of the kind worn by men who play chess:
I saw your apple before I saw your face.
And marvellous how you could make it last
strategically, it seemed, by eating less
and talking more, as though each bit by bit that passed
your lips were a course in some slowed repast –
your restraint! I was ravenous, riveted to my place.

My Braeburn I bite at eight o’clock – you lovely thing,
you made me do it. The window suspends
the creases of the evening sky, my clothes fold to the floor
like hot towels. Vivid as the crimson curtains, I sing
canticles from the second storey as if all flesh depends
on the sinking of teeth through air: premise of our rapport.

I'm going to be meeting with the SOA later this year to look into the possibility of some high profile events to mark the 2010 fiftieth anniversary of the first Gregory awards.

Meanwhile, whoever takes over the Laureateship can expect to be mightily badgered by me and others about leading the charge to top up the trust fund so that the Eric Gregory awards can flourish and continue to be a life changing experience for the winners. When I won one in 91, the amount given out to five poets was £30k, this year just £20k.

Good to hear, Roddy - I was concerned when I first heard the trust fund was running low and the awards might be discontinued or, at the very least, scaled down. Looking through the list of previous winners and the success that so many of those poets have gone on to is obvious testament to the awards importance and their lasting value - it would be a huge shame if they stopped. And of course, on a more trivial and shamelessly selfish note, I'd like them to continue as I do still hope to perhaps win one someday! They must have always been (and still remain) a great encouragement to young writers who, without such, may not have dedicated themselves so fully - or in some cases, at all - to producing the poetry they have.