The 2025 Katrina Collins Poetry Prize 

Katrina Collins (28 October 1967 – 9 February 2001) was my mother and features in much of my writing. I am often struck by a poem's ability to reify what haunts us, to take our ghosts and give them a form on the page. Over the years, Katrina has taken many forms. First, a brilliant, copper-haired archaeologist who wore muddy boots and old woollen jumpers. Then, in the pleas behind my first poetry pamphlet, Blame it on Me, in which I hoped to rediscover what it meant to not just have a mother, but to be a daughter. Now, she has many bodies outside of her own, which has been long-buried in the earth she once dug through for secrets and history. She is sonnets and couplets, odd experimentations, lines straying into margins... Through poetry, I feel as though I have found a relationship with her, and that she has taken the shape of something living again. This is why I have decided to launch this competition. Poetry has immense power, and means something different to each of us. I use it to find myself and to connect. What do you use it for? I'd like to know.

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– Briony Collins, owner of Atomic Bohemian