In recognition of this year’s Poetry Competitions and all of the fantastic poems sent our way, we asked Penny Sharman, winner of the International Poetry Competition, to share her experiences. This is her journey in poetry and with the Charles Causley Trust.

Finding a Voice

It has been an absolute delight to win the Charles Causley International Poetry Competition 2025 with my poem “Complaints about the pigeons and the loss of goldfinches”. I am now 76 and started writing poetry well over twenty years ago, so a late developer I guess. However, I always remember my childhood excitement with Walter de la Mare, William Blake and Christina Rossetti, and being entranced as a teenager by Shakespeare, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Chaucer.

My life until my fifties was filled with raising my three boys, experiencing an unmarried Mother and Baby Home in Surrey, sent away from home as a teenager, being a single parent, surviving on a low income. But one thing I always did was study, do courses, and expand my world knowledge. I think I inherited my ancestors’ love for the natural world, gardening, growing food and beloved birdsong.

My impetus to start writing poetry in my fifties came from walking the coastal paths in Pembrokeshire, one of my go-to sanctuaries. I often think it started in my menopause, a surge from my past to express emotions – sadness and joy that I’d held down for decades. I feel that by studying therapeutic healing subjects like reflexology, massage, counselling and shamanic philosophies, I had no choice but to heal past traumas. Some of my aids are writing, art and photography.

Sometimes I don’t know what inspires me to start a poem. At times, it’s the natural world, or another poet’s poem, or waking from a dream, or a real event like my winning poem. For two years now, my garden has been swamped with pigeons on the roof. Their noise and chaos cause havoc in a peaceful neighbourhood. I used to feed goldfinches and other small birds, but the pigeons scared them away. I let my pen expand to a much deeper unsettling of global events, the madness everywhere, in an attempt to bring back a simple joy of goldfinches feeding in the garden.
I have been writing poems for the Causley Trust’s poetry competitions and submitting my work for many years. I made the shortlist in 2019, which was amazing for me. I have followed some of the poets that have had a residency at Cyprus Well and always wished I could stay and write there. Now I have won a residency for a week to write and explore Charles Causley‘s world and hinterland, which I hope to set a date for soon. I am very excited about this.

I never imagined how much my poetry would expand to being published in magazines, having my own books, reaching longlists and shortlists of well-known poetry competitions. I have been lucky to study with many well-known poets such as Pascal Petite, Glyn Maxwell, Caroline Bird, and many others. I participate in workshops and courses, and was lucky to gain an MA in creative writing from Edge Hill University. I have been so grateful to be in stanza groups and other workshopping groups where different perspectives on poems can enhance anyone’s work in a supportive way. I have also been learning to edit a long running poetry magazine, Obsessed with Pipework, for over two years now, a practice which also expands my writing.

I read diverse poetry from around the world and it’s always a joy to discover a voice I’ve never read before. Kim Addonizio and Ada Limon are a couple of my favourite American poets at the moment. Reading different poets is one of the key things for learning and being inspired to write and develop, and to find one’s own voice within the art.

Penny Sharman

Read Penny’s winning poem on the Charles Causley Literary Blog, and to learn more about her books visit her website pennysharman.co.uk.