The awards event for the 34th Reuben Rose Poetry Competition, held as usual via Zoom, took place on April 14th 2024. Over 50 people zoomed in: prize-winners, their guests, and Voices Israel members, from Israel and other countries including the UK, USA and Canada. To our delight, several of the winners of the preceding Bar Sagi Prize awards event stayed on to attend the Reuben Rose awards.
As usual, the competition’s administrator, Mark L. Levinson, gave us the facts and figures on this year’s entries. Our overseas judge, Yvonne O’Connor from Ireland, joined us from vacation in California and gave us her comments on the winning poems. David Silverman, of the U.S., was also with us and enlightened us with his comments, and although our third judge, Iris Dan of Israel, couldn’t come, she sent in detailed comments which Mark read for us.
Mark then conducted the highlight of the evening: the reading of the three winning poems, and the ten that gained an Honourable Mention, by the poets themselves. All three winners and most of the Honourable Mention winners were with us, and Voices Israel members proxy-read for the few who couldn’t make it. The texts of all the poems, and audio recordings of the three winners reading their poems, are on the 2023 Reuben Rose Competition page, accessible also from the list of winning poems year by year on the Winners and Poem Texts page.
We had time at the end for a short Open Mic session, where several of our members, including some from overseas, each read one of their poems.
We recorded the event via Zoom, including the Open Mic at the end, and have uploaded the video to the Voices Israel YouTube channel. We sent the links to all our members and everyone else who registered to attend. Feel free to share them with whoever you like!
Below are a couple of screenshots to give the feel of the evening.
Dina Yehuda reading her 1st-prize poem
Judy Koren reading her 2nd-prize poem
Voices Israel Group of Poets in English 