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(the sea within) by Kara Barlow & Karen Downs-Barton, Morag Anderson & Nasim Luczaj and Linda France & Rona Luo
Winners of the DIRT Plantable Poetry Competition 2026, Kara Barlow & Karen Downs-Barton, Morag Anderson & Nasim Luczaj and Linda France & Rona Luo, have collaborated to write (the sea within).
"Most editors don’t choose a pair of poets to set up on what is, effectively, a blind date. For only six weeks, we asked three pairs of writers who’d never met each other to create an entirely new poem, based on a prompt which we gave them. From the same starting point, our three pairs of poets forged totally different voices, forms, and worlds. The science prompt spoke of ‘body axes’, double mouths, ‘embryonic organisers.’ Alice and I saw a cloud of ideas floating around the article including translation, motherhood, co-dependence, and hubris, although we couldn’t predict how our winning poets would respond.
In our early calls, Rona and Linda expressed a deep revulsion at the idea of the human scientist shuffle-playing DNA across many organisms. Karen and Kara found in blastopores their shared love of tango, the intoxicating play of two bodies becoming one body, two voices becoming one poem. Nasim and Morag’s poem worked from a point of alienation towards the primal cry: mother. You can see their poem starting from two isolated poles, and thinking itself towards the somatic centre. Each poem has a different logic and a different game; each poem demanded a different kind of editorial input. It was a great joy to see their progress over such a short time. ” Guest judge, Joe Wright.
Each purchase includes a packet of seeds. Cover price for (the sea within) includes postage & packing.
Kara Barlow is a trilingual poet with an MA in Poetry from Queen’s University Belfast, where she received the Seamus Heaney International Scholarship. She considers her work a translation exercise between trauma, resilience, and longing. Her poems are published in Letters Journal, Ragaire, and the Silver Press Tendrils anthology, among others.
Karen Downs-Barton is a neurodiverse working-class writer from a multiracial background. Her collection, Minx (Chatto and Windus), won the John Pollard International Poetry Award. Didicoy (Smith|Doorstop) was a Poetry Book Society pamphlet recommendation. She is widely anthologised and featured on Radio 4's The Verb, Ledbury and Edinburgh International Book Festivals.
Morag Anderson is a Scottish poet. Her second chapbook, And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound (Fly on the Wall Press, 2024), won the Aryamati Prize and was nominated for a Sky Arts Award. Her poems appear in Mslexia, Butcher’s Dog, & Gutter. She is a student on Arvon’s Advanced Writing Programme.
Nasim Luczaj is the author of Hind Mouth (Earthbound Press) and Ultraviolet with Landing Marks (Oblique House). Her debut collection, Tang, is forthcoming from Faber & Faber in 2027. Raised in Subcarpathia, she lives between London and Glasgow. She edits the magazine Wet Grain and works as a translator.
Linda France, FRSL, has published ten collections of poetry – the latest include Startling (Faber & New Writing North 2022) and The Knucklebone Floor (Smokestack 2022), which won the Laurel Prize. Linda was Environmental Poet of the Year 2022-23 in the Michael Marks Awards and won the 2013 National Poetry Competition.
Rona Luo is a queer, neurodivergent poet and acupuncturist. Her visual poetry has been exhibited at the Southbank Centre, and her writing has appeared in Magma, Propel, fourteen poems, The Massachusetts Review, Black Warrior Review, and more. She received the Creative Futures Gold Prize in Poetry in 2024.
This collaboration was funded by the DIRT Plantable Poetry Competition 2026, we are very grateful to everyone who submitted poems. Shortlisted poems are available to read on Notes From The Edge: www.dialect.org.uk/blog
Winners of the DIRT Plantable Poetry Competition 2026, Kara Barlow & Karen Downs-Barton, Morag Anderson & Nasim Luczaj and Linda France & Rona Luo, have collaborated to write (the sea within).
"Most editors don’t choose a pair of poets to set up on what is, effectively, a blind date. For only six weeks, we asked three pairs of writers who’d never met each other to create an entirely new poem, based on a prompt which we gave them. From the same starting point, our three pairs of poets forged totally different voices, forms, and worlds. The science prompt spoke of ‘body axes’, double mouths, ‘embryonic organisers.’ Alice and I saw a cloud of ideas floating around the article including translation, motherhood, co-dependence, and hubris, although we couldn’t predict how our winning poets would respond.
In our early calls, Rona and Linda expressed a deep revulsion at the idea of the human scientist shuffle-playing DNA across many organisms. Karen and Kara found in blastopores their shared love of tango, the intoxicating play of two bodies becoming one body, two voices becoming one poem. Nasim and Morag’s poem worked from a point of alienation towards the primal cry: mother. You can see their poem starting from two isolated poles, and thinking itself towards the somatic centre. Each poem has a different logic and a different game; each poem demanded a different kind of editorial input. It was a great joy to see their progress over such a short time. ” Guest judge, Joe Wright.
Each purchase includes a packet of seeds. Cover price for (the sea within) includes postage & packing.
Kara Barlow is a trilingual poet with an MA in Poetry from Queen’s University Belfast, where she received the Seamus Heaney International Scholarship. She considers her work a translation exercise between trauma, resilience, and longing. Her poems are published in Letters Journal, Ragaire, and the Silver Press Tendrils anthology, among others.
Karen Downs-Barton is a neurodiverse working-class writer from a multiracial background. Her collection, Minx (Chatto and Windus), won the John Pollard International Poetry Award. Didicoy (Smith|Doorstop) was a Poetry Book Society pamphlet recommendation. She is widely anthologised and featured on Radio 4's The Verb, Ledbury and Edinburgh International Book Festivals.
Morag Anderson is a Scottish poet. Her second chapbook, And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound (Fly on the Wall Press, 2024), won the Aryamati Prize and was nominated for a Sky Arts Award. Her poems appear in Mslexia, Butcher’s Dog, & Gutter. She is a student on Arvon’s Advanced Writing Programme.
Nasim Luczaj is the author of Hind Mouth (Earthbound Press) and Ultraviolet with Landing Marks (Oblique House). Her debut collection, Tang, is forthcoming from Faber & Faber in 2027. Raised in Subcarpathia, she lives between London and Glasgow. She edits the magazine Wet Grain and works as a translator.
Linda France, FRSL, has published ten collections of poetry – the latest include Startling (Faber & New Writing North 2022) and The Knucklebone Floor (Smokestack 2022), which won the Laurel Prize. Linda was Environmental Poet of the Year 2022-23 in the Michael Marks Awards and won the 2013 National Poetry Competition.
Rona Luo is a queer, neurodivergent poet and acupuncturist. Her visual poetry has been exhibited at the Southbank Centre, and her writing has appeared in Magma, Propel, fourteen poems, The Massachusetts Review, Black Warrior Review, and more. She received the Creative Futures Gold Prize in Poetry in 2024.
This collaboration was funded by the DIRT Plantable Poetry Competition 2026, we are very grateful to everyone who submitted poems. Shortlisted poems are available to read on Notes From The Edge: www.dialect.org.uk/blog