The Writing Seminars congratulates Michael Lavers, MFA ’10, the winner of the Bridport Prize poetry competition.

Poetry enables Michael Lavers, winner of the £5000 Bridport Prize poetry competition to create “little time capsules for my children when they’re older.”

Michael, from Provo, Utah wrote Low Tide about his young son hunting for animals at low tide “an experience that struck me so much because I’ve never seen him so happy.” Michael’s mum died from cancer when he was 18 and his dad died suddenly of a heart attack when Michael was 28, so he is very aware there is no time to waste. 

Michael teaches poetry at Brigham Young University. He is the author of After Earth, published by the University of Tampa Press. His poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, 32 Poems, The Hudson Review, Best New Poets 2015, TriQuarterly, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. He has been awarded the Chad Walsh Poetry Prize and the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize. He lives in Provo, Utah with his wife, the writer and artist Claire Åkebrand and their two children