Ex-New York cab driver Lee Stockdale wins £5,000 after My Dead Father’s General Store in the Middle of a Desert beat 17,000 other poems

A poem of “beauty, wit and grace” that explores an encounter between the living and the dead has won the National Poetry Competition for a single poem in English.

Lee Stockdale’s My Dead Father’s General Store in the Middle of a Desert was chosen as the winner by judges Jason Allen-Paisant, Greta Stoddart and Michael Symmons Roberts from more than 17,000 poems entered into the competition from poets in 103 countries.

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