The Second Bar Sagi Young Poets Prize awards event was held on May 2nd 2021. As before, it took place virtually via Zoom, together with the awards event for the 2020 Reuben Rose competition. This was partly because Corona was still with us as the time came for the ceremony, and we didn’t want to delay it as we had last year; and partly because so many of our young winners came from abroad, and Zoom was the only way of enabling them to participate in the event
This year we had many more entries: 43 young poets, from Israel and overseas, submitted a total of 71 poems; and the quality was so high that we awarded, apart from the three prizes, no less than six Honorable Mentions – two of them to the same poet! One of them went to last year’s second-prize winner, who this year as last, was one of our youngest contestants. Congratulations to all of them!
We had a truly international attendance at the ceremony. All the winners of prizes and Honourable Mentions were with us, except for our first-prize winner who was only just out of hospital. Most of the thirteen prize- and Honourable-Mention winners of the Reuben Rose also attended. We opened the Bar Sagi event with 57 attendees, and several of the young winners plus their families stayed for at least part of the Reuben Rose section.
Professor Anthony Joseph, Bar’s grandfather and the sponsor of the prize, gave an interesting introductory talk and showed, as last year, another lovely video based on Bar’s work: a poem of hers set to music and sung, with selections of artwork (Echoes of Bar – Teenage Girl), which is viewable via YouTube.
The competition administrator, Susan Bell, gave an overview of the competition and its judging, and judge Amiel Schotz spoke of the quality of the poems and gave some helpful tips to young poets.
The highlight of the event was of course the readings of their poems by the young poets. Our first prize winner’s poem was read, by proxy, by the Reuben Rose Competition’s first prize winner, Ricky Friesem; all the other young poets were present and read their own poems.
To read the three winning poems and the six that received Honourable Mentions, click here (PDF file).
We ended the long event with a short Open Mic. After it we received several appreciative emails from the families of the Bar Sagi winners.
We recorded the event via Zoom and you can view it here on our Voices Israel YouTube channel.
A couple of screenshots from the Zoom event
From the video “Teenage Girl”: artwork example, and Bar Sagi
Voices Israel Group of Poets in English 