Surabhi naik

Surabhi Naik is the first prize winner of the 2023 Wingword Poetry Prize in the English language category for her poem ‘Architectural Education’, receiving a cash prize of ₹ 1,00000.

Born and raised in the Konkan region of India, Surabhi Naik is a poet, designer and story gatherer. She is interested in poetry as a tool for thought, documentary and transmedia expression.

Her work centers on media design and storytelling-based collaborations with artists, social impact entrepreneurs, cultural and educational institutions to facilitate creative expression of community-based narratives both in her hometown of Karwar, India and New York City.

Lawrence Fray

Lawrence Fray is the second prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2023 in the English Category for his poem ‘Theme with Variations’, receiving a cash prize of ₹ 50,000.

Mr. Fray is a teacher who has travelled extensively and now divides his time between Ranikhet and Gurugram. Born in England and raised in Ireland, Lawrence has taught in both countries before being School Principal in Africa, Abu Dhabi and in India.

He is thankful for his award in India’s Wingword Poetry Competition 2023 and hopes it proves that we are all creative and able to produce work of some merit in our later years.

Hema NaYAK

Hema Nayak is the third prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2023 for her poem ‘Dressing native normalcy in modern absurdity’. She is a poet who grew up in Karnataka, currently based in Meghalaya for work.Her poems in Kannada and English have been shortlisted and longlisted respectively for TOTO Award in Creative Writing. She is the author of 'Novigoo ide chalane', a poetry collection in Kannada. Three of her poems have been published in ‘Peacocks in a dream: an anthology of contemporary Indian English Verse’

Deepak Ahuja

Deepak Ahuja is the first prize winner in the regional category of Wingword Poetry Prize 2023 for his poem ‘ग़ुलामों की बस्ती’ receiving ₹ 30,000. He is a former corporate professional and is now an entrepreneur. Fortunately, the voices of his mind go beyond these tags and call him a poet. That's what he identifies most of his personality and character with.

He believes poetry is not a mere expression of thoughts and feelings through words.

dr. shailesh shivakumar

Dr Shailesh Shivakumar is the second prize winner in the regional category of Wingword Poetry Prize 2023 for his poem in Kannada ‘ಎನ್ನ ಒಮ್ಮೆ ತಾಯಾಗಿಸು’, receiving ₹ 20,000.

Dr Shivakumar is a technologist by profession and poet by passion. He is currently working as a software architect in Bengaluru. He loves reading literature and is pursuing his second PhD in Kannada.

Anand pandey-raj

Anand Pandey-Raj, third prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2023 in regional category for his Hindi poem ‘सड़क’, receiving INR ₹15,000. He brings a compelling narrative of resilience and passion to the forefront in his journey. He graduated in Science from ECC Allahabad University and further attained his Post Graduate degree from MAISM Jaipur. He worked as an Assistant Professor at MCMSR Visnagar and is also a professional trainer by vocation.

nandana dev sen

Nandana Dev Sen is the first prize winner of the 2022 Wingword Poetry Prize in the English language category for her poem ‘Daybreak’, receiving a cash prize of  ₹ 50,000. Click here to read the poem.

Nanadana is a writer, child-rights activist, and an award-winning actor. She is the author of six children’s books, translated into more than 15 languages globally, and two collections of her translations of the poetry of her mother, Nabaneeta Dev Sen. She grew up in India, England and America, and has starred in 20 feature films from four continents (and in multiple languages). Nandana’s first book Kangaroo Kisses was selected by 320 UK nurseries as a “Book of Excellence”.

bibhusha rai

Bibhusha Rai is the second prize winner of the 2022 Wingword Poetry Prize in the English language category for her poem ‘Darjeeling Tea’, receiving a cash prize of  ₹ 25,000. Click here to read the poem.

She hails from Darjeeling, she holds a BA and MA in English Literature from Delhi University. Having worked on a research project with the Confluence Collective on Darjeeling’s tea gardens for the past year, she gained a renewed understanding of tea’s significance in regard to the Darjeeling Gorkha identity. Most of her work speaks on the intersection of food and identity, like the poem “Momos for Dinner” on the Alipore website. 

navjyot kaur

Navjyot Kaur Vilain is the third prize winner of the 2022 Wingword Poetry Prize in the English language category for her poem ‘Barren’, receiving a cash prize of  ₹ 15,000. Click here to read the poem.

She is a poet of Indian origin, born in the UK and living in rural France. She writes poetry that digs deep within the individual to shine a light upon and reveal one's inner landscape, bringing the sub-conscious into the conscious mind. Her spiritual path is her guiding compass to bring transformation of the Self and deep-seated change into the world. This is is profoundly felt within her poetry.

suniti kumar maiti

Suniti Kumar Maiti has been conferred as the first prize winner of 2022 Wingword Poetry Prize in Regional Languages category for his poem ‘অভিসার’, receiving a cash prize of ₹ 30,000. Click here to read the poem.

The little magazine "পতঞ্জলি"published one of his Bengali poems along with a poem of the great Bengali poet Jay Goswami.One of his English poems "The Twilight tryst" had been published in America in an online journal "Indian Periodical" in its 13th June 2021 number. It's a unique coincidence that the very poem was also written on the same subject, the same solitary peepal tree.

sibu kumar das

Sibu Kumar Das has been selected as the second prize winner of 2022 Wingword Poetry Prize in the Regional Languages Category for his poem ‘ମହାନଦୀକୁ ବିଚିତ୍ର ସମୟର ଡ଼ାକ’, receiving a cash prize of ₹ 20,000. Click here to read the poem.

Sibu (b 1956) is a 1978 Post-Graduate in English Literature from Utkal University. After a brief stint as a lecturer in colleges in Odisha, he joined a Public-sector bank as a Probationary Officer. He retired from his service in bank in 2016 and has been spending his time in reading and writing. He reads and writes in English, Odia, Bengali and Hindi.

spondon ganguli

Spondon Ganguli has been chosen as the third prize winner of 2022 Wingword Poetry Prize in the Regional Languages category his poem ‘তুমি আমার প্রভু’, receiving a cash prize of ₹ 10,000. Click here to read the poem.

He is presently working as an educator in M. C. Kejriwal Vidyapeeth, a renowned and reputed English medium school in Howrah and Kolkata under CISCE affiliation. He started his career as an educator in ICT in 2000 and worked in various schools, both ICSE and CBSE, across the country.
He is a lifelong learner with a zest for experimenting and learning new things.

NEAL HALL

Neal Hall is the recipient of Wingword Poetry Prize 2020. He received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University. After earning an M.D. from Michigan State University, he took his surgical subspecialty training in ophthalmology at Harvard University’s Medical School.

Dr. Hall’s poetry speaks not just to the surface pain of injustice and inhumanity but deep into that pain, we label and package into genteel socio-political-economic-religious constructs to blur the common lines of cause, that is our shared story.

ZARIN VIRJI

Zarin Virji is the second prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2020. She is a graduate of the creative writing programme from the University of Sheffield, UK. For over three decades she has played the role of a teacher, teacher trainer and head of school. 

Teaching and writing are her twin passions. From 1996 to 2006, she served as the executive editor of the journal, ‘Classroom’, a safe space for all matters related to education. At present, she heads an international school called ‘The Universal School’ in Mumbai.

GOPI KOTTOOR

Gopikrishnan Kottoor is the third prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2020. He has has also been awarded major prizes for poetry such as the All India Poetry Prize (Poetry Society, India) and the All India Special Jury Prize (Poetry Society, India, and The British Council). His poems have appeared in magazines of repute both in India and abroad such as The Illustrated Weekly of India, Opinion , Debonair, Kavya Bharati, Chandrabhaga, Economic and Political Times, The Hindu, Thought, Quest and others.

BHAVYA MALHOTRA

Bhavya is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2020. She has been writing since the young age of thirteen. She likes to incorporate a theme of understanding and change in her writing. She has been previously published in “50:1”, an Anthology by Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Currently, Bhavya Malhotra is pursuing her Master’s in Applied Psychology (Clinical and Counseling) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Karishma Padia

Karishma Padia is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2020. She is a 25 year old lawyer. Writing poetry her way of introspecting and exploring her feelings. She writes to put into tangible forms, the feelings that she does not want to forget. She loves reading fiction and truly believes that reality mirrors fiction as opposed to the other way round and compassion is the panacea for all maladies of the world.

Dyondra Wilson

Dyondra is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2020. She is wanderlust writer who currently teaches English in South Korea. She struggled to move my three and a half suitcases from New York City to the small quaint city she lives in now, but she wouldn't have it any other way. Adjusting through life and its many growing pains, she chose to navigate her mid 20's in a foreign land.

ADITYA VIKRAM

Aditya Vikram is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2020. They are a poet and spoken word artist from Lucknow, India. They spend the day doing chores or thinking about poems, and divide the night between writing, dancing, and plant parenting. Most of their work is about filial love and its negotiations, queerness and its freedom.

Keya Bergeron-Verma

Keya Bergeron-Verma is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2020. She is a sixteen year old high school student in Mumbai. For her, writing is a way of expressing ideas that conversation can't.

She also loves reading, baking and playing golf.

Rhea Johnson

Rhea Johnson is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2020. She is an Electrical Engineer based in Mumbai, who writes in her spare time. She finds inspiration in the quotidian and fleeting passage of life. Her works have been published in the Indian Poetry Review, ASP Magazine and Drawn to the Light Press.

Rhea Gupta

Rhea Gupta is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2020. Rhea was born in Bangalore and has been brought up in New Delhi. She went on to acquire a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi in 2019 and is currently in her final year of Masters in English in the University of Delhi.

Ipsita Banerjee

Ipsita Banerjee is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2020. She is a lawyer, primarily practicing in the High Court at Calcutta who is still getting used to the mantle of 'poet'. In a world struck silent by the COVID 2019, poems are her way of expressing herself. Her poetry has been published in several journals both in India and abroad and she lives in Kolkata with her family.

Nila Lenin

Nila Lenin is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2020. She holds a master’s degree in English from University of Delhi. She likes to be defined as a free-spirited soul who seeks magic in the mundane. Creative splurge is as essential to her sustenance as food, clothes and shelter. One might say that she is obsessed with paintings and poetry.

Eshna Sharma

Eshna Sharma is the recipient of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is an eighteen year old from Lucknow. Her writing traces her personal growth as she matures, crossing the threshold from teenager to adult. Girlhood is a collection of twenty ripe poems written by Eshna Sharma and illustrated by Manisha Naskar. Published by Wingword Publications, Girlhood is due to be released in October 2020. Eshna recently started pursuing an undergraduate degree at Ashoka University, Sonepat.

Anurima Mukherjee

Anurima Mukherjee is the First Prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s junior category for her poem ‘Through Calcutta’s Streets’. She is a student of Class 8 in Asansol, West Bengal. Writing poetry has been a subtle pleasure to her heart which is inexpressible. Her poems are mostly based on nostalgia, existential crisis, mental health and current affairs. By winning the competition, she hopes from the guidance of the esteemed panel of judges to further excel in writing.

Meenakshi Yalachure

Meenakshi Yalachure is the Third Prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s junior category. She studies in Grade 7 of Delhi Public School in Hyderabad. She is multi-talented. Her interests range from academics, writing, drawing, singing and clay modelling.

PRUSHTI GOSWAMI

Prushti Goswami is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s junior category. She is a student of Class VI in Navrachna Vidyani Vidyalaya, Vadodara. Prushti is motivated by God’s creations and nature, which always lead her to writing about something new.

SANA ABRAHAM

Sana Abraham is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s junior category. She is 12 years old and goes to Sharada Mandir School in Goa. She enjoys reading fantasy and mystery books.

UNMESH SINGH

Unmesh Singh is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s junior category. He loves to spend time creating stories around his toys. He is a poet by heart and a very passionate drummer. Unmesh lives in Gwalior.

Katyayani Malhotra

Katyayani Malhotra is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s junior category. She is a 10 year old who lives in New Delhi. Writing has a big impact in her life. It is a daily exercise for her to stay fit. She writes about nature, animal and trees which motivate her.

ANANYA KARN

Ananya Karn is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize’s juniot category. She is a 14 year od from Basti, a town situated in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh. She is a 10th grader at Saint Basil's school. For her, writing is a ritual which connects her to the world in a deeper sense.

ANJALI MUNDRA

Anjali Mundra is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s junior category. She is a 15 year old from Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh who studies at Samta Shiksha Niketan. When her sister heard Anjali composing a short rap, she encouraged her to write poetry & songs.

VARDAAN PANDEY

Vardaan Pandey is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. He is a 17 year old aspiring filmmaker from Noida. He likes to write about themes like existentialism and morality, alternating between humour and sadness.

Karmishtha Krishna

Karmishtha Krishna is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a 19 year old product design student from Pune. She is a strong believer in the power of empathy and design to be able to to bridge existing gaps - between people, entities and the world as a whole.

NAINA KASHYAP

Naina Kashyap is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a Delhi based poet on a quest to fill out gloomy gaps of life through her verses. A Greek mythology and fantasy fiction enthusiast, she often finds respite in reading tales describing parallel worlds.

YASHIKA DAS

Yashika Das is a student of Class 8 of the Amity International School, Saket, New Delhi. She is academically oriented with a creative streak. She also loves painting, craft and drawing.

ANURADHA GOSWAMI

Anuradha Goswami is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is freshly out of high school, at 18 as she stands on the threshold of adulthood, she finds herself more and more drawn towards the intricacies of consciousness and human psyche.

DIA BHOJWANI

Dia Bhojwani is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s junior category. She is a student of Class IX in JCBN International School, Mumbai. She has a love for complex female characters and magical realism.

RASHI CHOUDHARY

Rashi Choudhary is a Top 10 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s junior category. She is from Raniganj, a small town in West Bengal. She studies in Grade 9 at Loreto Convent, Asansol.

UPASA BORAH

Upasa Borah is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a spoken word poet from Guwahati, Assam, currently studying in Miranda House, Delhi. She is a core member of a growing poetry collective operating in Northeast India called East India Poets.

MONALISHA GOGOI

Monalisha Gogoi is a Top 20 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s regional category. Born in the city of Guwahati, Monalisha is an undergraduate student pursuing a triple major course in economics, political science, and sociology from Christ University, Bangalore.

Asma Tariq

Asma Tariq is the third prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize’s regional category. She is a 20 year old graduate from Aligarh Muslim University. She is passionate about art and India’s diverse culture. Her writing revolves around the challenges faced by millennials and coping mechanisms to tackle them.

Deepali Tiwari

Deepali Tiwari is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a postgraduate student at Allahabad University. Deepali is a theatre enthusiast and a lover of all forms of storytelling. She is also the recipient of the Damodarshree National Academic Excellence Award 2019.

ShREYA DESHPANDE

Shreya Deshpande is the third prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a 24 year old Architect and Ecologist from Pune. Shreya writes in three different languages- Marathi, Hindi and English. She wants to change the ideas of material consumerism and wants to portray the beautiful aspects of living minimally, keeping sustainability in mind.

SUKANYA SHAJI

Sukanya Shaji is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a Delhi based poet on a quest to fill out gloomy gaps of life through her verses. A Greek mythology and fantasy fiction enthusiast, she often finds respite in reading tales describing parallel worlds.

ELLORA KOTHARE

Ellora Kothare is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a 23 year old Psychology Graduate from the University of Toronto. Ellora is a Kathak dancer at the Beej Dance Company in Mumbai and is currently exploring different forms of storytelling.

Prashant Bebaar

Prashant Bebaar is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. Born in Mathura, Prashant is a 29 year old Air Traffic Control Officer. His keen interest in society, culture and activism is deeply rooted in his compositions.

TIALILA KIKON

Tialila Kikon is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is an educator and author based in Dimapur, Nagaland. Her first book of poems Paper Cranes published in 2016 was selected to be shelved at the Library of Congress. Her poems were also displayed at the Moberley Arts & Cultural Centre in Vancouver.

Tabish Ahmed

Tabish Ahmed is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. He is a classic nerd from the 80’s, Tabish is a data-scientist, poet, and a musician who spends his time writing songs about his umpteen heartbreaks and poetry on human experiences. Wingword has reinforced his confidence to write after a hiatus of two years.

Anusree Balakrishnan

Anusree Balakrishnan is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She hails from Kozhikode, Kerala. Anusree is a researcher at Pondicherry Central University. She has completed her MA and M.Phil in English Literature from Pondicherry University and Gandhigram Rural Institute respectively.

RISHABH YADAV

Rishabh Yadav is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. He is a 20-year-old final year Zoology student at Sri Venkateswara College, University Of Delhi. His prime motivation behind writing is to shine the metaphorical spotlight on neglected subjects to appreciate their beauty without masking any flaws.

divjot kaur

Divjot Kaur is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a Delhi based poet on a quest to fill out gloomy gaps of life through her verses. A Greek mythology and fantasy fiction enthusiast, she often finds respite in reading tales describing parallel worlds.

Soorya Menon

Soorya Menon is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is an edtech professional and educator residing in Vadodara, Gujurat. She loves poetry, painting and puns. Soorya performed at the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters 2019.

Cherime Sangma

Cherime Sangma is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a Delhi based poet on a quest to fill out gloomy gaps of life through her verses. A Greek mythology and fantasy fiction enthusiast, she often finds respite in reading tales describing parallel worlds.

Johnny ahmed

Johnny Ahmed is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a Delhi based poet on a quest to fill out gloomy gaps of life through her verses. A Greek mythology and fantasy fiction enthusiast, she often finds respite in reading tales describing parallel worlds.

ANUSHKA NAGARMATH

Anushka Nagarmath is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is a 20 year-old student living in Mumbai, majoring in English Literature in Ramnarain Ruia Autonomous College. Anushka enjoys learning about different languages and cultures. She is currently at intermediate level of Japanese and beginner level of Korean.

CHANDRIKA CHANDRAN

Chandrika Chandran is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She has a Bachelors in Neuroscience and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California, following which she graduated with a Masters in Film Production from New York University, Tisch Asia. She has assisted directors like Mani Ratnam, Soundarya Rajnikanth, Sujoy Ghosh & Anjali Menon.

Dr dwaita Hazra Goswami

Dr Dwaita Hazra Goswami is the first prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s regional category. She is a published Bengali author from Murshidabad (West Bengal). Dwaita is a graduate of Sanskrit from Lady Brabourne College, Kolkata. She has a post-graduate degree in Vedic Studies and PhD in Cultural Studies from Jain University, Bangalore. She is the editor of a Bengali children web magazine Magic Lamp.

MANDAR NAIK

Mandar Naik is the second prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019’s regional category. Based out of Mumbai, he works as a project manager at an IT company Atos. He has self-published two books and maintains a Marathi poetry blog. His works have been published in eFiction India magazine, Rathalla Review & The American Journal of Poetry. Mandar cherishes writing whenever and wherever he can.

PROBAL BASAK

Probal Basak is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. He is 31 years old and started his career as a journalist working with Press Trust of India, Business Standard covering socio-political issues. He has been published in The New Verse News, Dissident Voice, Setu, Spillwords, Piker's Press, Asian Signature, Rust+Moth.

SHIVANI ANIL

Shivani Anil is a Top 30 prize winner of Wingword Poetry Prize 2019. She is from Kerala but finished her schooling in Saudi Arabia. She is currently in her final year of BA (Psychology, English Literature, Journalism). Wingword is her first major achievement in writing. She hopes to one day live near the mountains and own a bookstore.

Vancouver Shullai is the recipient of the Wingword Poetry Prize 2017. A fervent artist from Shillong with a master’s degree in English with Communication Studies from Christ University, Bangalore: Vancouver was also a musical prodigy as he received the National Child Award for Singing in 2010. The young writer’s scintillating prowess is showcased exquisitely in his critically acclaimed collection of poems How to Love a Broken Man published by Wingword.