Merton graduate student wins 2022 Jon Stallworthy Poetry Prize

History graduate student Alexander Peplow was announced as the winner of this year's Jon Stallworthy Poetry Prize at an award evening held online on Tuesday 18 January (Jon Stallworthy's birthday), with all five shortlisted poets attending.

The judges described Alex's poem, A Quick Lie, as "a brilliantly ghoulish evocation of the first ‘year or two of an eternal rest’ in the grave, reminiscent of the opening of Great Expectations (or of the Irish novel Cré na Cille by Máirtín Ó Cadhain, translated as Graveyard Clay)."

Not only did Alex take the prize itself, he was also named as one of two runners-up for another of his poems, Munsalvaesche - and to cap it all, this was the second time he had won the prize, having done so in 2018.

Alex commented:

"I'm delighted to have won the prize, and am amazed not only to have been awarded it a second time, but to have also been considered joint runner-up with EL Hallesy (New College)'s poem Charm for Not Knowing. It was a privilege to be considered alongside the other shortlisted poets, and to hear their work. I'm very grateful to the English Faculty and Wolfson College for establishing and supporting the Prize, which is a great tribute to the memory of Jon Stallworthy, and to the judges, Bernard O’Donoghue and Alice Oswald."

The competition, open to graduate students at the University of Oxford, was set up in memory of the late Professor Jon Stallworthy (1935-2014), poet and Fellow of Wolfson College. The prize is worth £1,000, and this year's subject was 'Sleep-cycles'; there were 82 entries this year, more than twice that of any previous year.

Alex was named as winner by Professor Bernard O’Donoghue, Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, and Alice Oswald, the current Oxford Professor of Poetry, whose accolades include the TS Eliot Prize in 2012 and the 2017 International Griffin Poetry Prize, which she won for her seventh collection of poems, Falling Awake.