Mingled Voices 8

MINGLED VOICES 8 contains the work of fifty-seven poets. The one hundred plus poems were selected from those entered for the International Proverse Poetry Prize in 2023, the eighth such annual international competition administered from Hong Kong.

The International Proverse Poetry Prize was jointly founded in 2016 by Dr Gillian Bickley and Dr Verner Bickley, MBE, in association with the annual international Proverse Prize for unpublished book-length fiction, non-fiction or poetry, submitted in English, which they also founded, in 2008.

Poems could be submitted on any subject or topic, chosen by each poet, or on the subject selected for 2023 by the Administrators, “Space” (interpreted in any way each writer chose). There was a free choice of interpretation, form and style.

Included in the anthology are the poems that won the first, second, and third prizes. Selection to appear in the anthology was also awarded as a prize by the judges. This year, special mention is additionally made of three of these poets.

Poems were submitted from around the world by writers with a variety of previous writing experience.

Brief biographies of all of those whose work is represented in Mingled Voices 8 are included in the anthology as well as authors’ background notes on their work.

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"Mingled Voices 8 shows the creative urge pulsing like a heartbeat. The international contemporary voice that the Proverse Poetry Prize attracts is shown engaged in cultural dialogue and navigating through time and space. Ranging from discoveries of the ordinary through to reflection, intimacy and celebration, with thematic and tonal variety, the volume presents a vibrant tapestry of texts. Immaculately edited, Mingled Voices 8 offers much to interest and delight readers everywhere.”

“Lovingly each poem renders a line of the self when the ‘dreamer and words’, as Bachelard muses, “are paradoxically united in the dialogue of their solitude.”

“Many of the poems in this cracking anthology take us vast distances; many of the best … travel much further than the satellite that Rena Ong describes as ‘night-time’s silver eye’. I hope you will get as much pleasure as I did from reading their many, varied journeys through deep history and distant eras.”