“Aviva Dautch’s poems are characterised by a beautiful fluency and precision of image. The subject matter of many of them is a mother and daughter relationship affected by the emotional disorder of hoarding. Thus, the poems are ‘hoards’ themselves, of words, objects and images, but what struck us about them is the way in which the poems provide order in the face of such chaos.

What further stood out to us as readers, judges and editors, is their instinctive and distinctive feel for the way language can contain or capture these complex and often messy emotions and experiences.”

Primers 2017 Judges:

Hannah Lowe, Selecting Editor

Jane Commane, Nine Arches Press

Ali Lewis, The Poetry School