Jonathan Edwards (born 16 October 1979) is a Welsh poet, who was born in Newport and grew up in

Crosskeys Crosskeys ( cy, Pont-y-cymer) is a village, community and an electoral ward in Caerphilly county borough in Wales. Etymology The village was originally named Pont-y-cymer and this remains the official Welsh name for the village. The name ...

. His debut poetry collection ''My Family and Other Superheroes'' won the Costa Book Award for Poetry in 2014.

Biography

Edwards first came to prominence as the winner of the Terry Hetherington Award in 2010, before picking up prizes at both the Cardiff International Poetry Competition and the Basil Bunting Poetry Competition in 2012. His first book, the poetry collection ''My Family and Other Superheroes'', won a £1,000 first-place prize at the Ledbury Poetry Festival's International Competition in 2014, and the Costa Book Award for Poetry in 2014. Edwards described the collection as reflecting a sense of Welsh pop culture and its relation to broader Western culture, history, family, and the lives of ordinary people. According to coverage of the Costa Award by ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'', ''My Family and Other Superheroes'' saw "celebrities and fictional characters such as Sophia Loren and

Evel Knievel Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel (; October 17, 1938 – November 30, 2007) was an American stunt performer and entertainer. Over the course of his career, he attempted more than 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps. Knievel was inducted into the Motor ...

collide with reflections on the social architecture of working class Welsh valleys." Edwards holds a BA in English and American Literature and an MA in writing from the

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (2020� ...

. After winning the Terry Hetherington Award in 2010, he later went on to judge the award, and also edited the award's ''Cheval'' anthology between 2013 and 2017. He currently teaches English at a secondary school in Monmouth.

Publications

Poetry

* 2014: ''My Family and Other Superheroes'', Seren *2018: ''Gen'', Seren

As editor

* 2013: ''Cheval 6: The Terry Hetherington Award Anthology 2013'' (ed. with Alan Perry), Parthian * 2014: ''Cheval 7: The Terry Hetherington Award Anthology 2014'' (ed. with Alan Perry), Parthian * 2015: ''Cheval 8: The Terry Hetherington Award Anthology 2015'' (ed. with Alan Perry), Parthian * 2016: ''Cheval 9: The Terry Hetherington Award Anthology 2016'' (ed. with Rose Widlake), Parthian * 2017: ''Cheval 10: The Terry Hetherington Award Anthology 2017'' (ed. with Glyn Edwards and Rose Widlake), Parthian

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, Jonathan 1979 births Welsh male poets People from Caerphilly County Borough Alumni of the University of Warwick Welsh schoolteachers 21st-century British male writers 21st-century Welsh poets Living people