Woman nets fishing poetry prize

A city dweller with a love of fishing has landed top prize in a competition to find the best original verse about the sport.

Julia Casterton is the winner of a nationwide contest run by angling broadcaster Keith Arthur in conjunction with Magma Poetry Magazine.

The 54-year-old beat a host of other entries with her poem, entitled Senor Lobelinos, about fishing in Galicia, Spain.

Born in Nottingham and now living in London, Casterton is a creative writing tutor and her first full collection, The Doves Of Finesterre, was published in 2004.

The competition sought original, unpublished poems based on the word "fishing".

Arthur read out a selection of entries every week on his Talksport radio show, Fisherman's Blues.

He also presents a TV show on Sky Sports and writes a column for Angling Times.

"I was staggered at the amount of interest generated, and at the number and quality of the entries. I have read every single one and enjoyed what I read enormously," Arthur said.

"There was a huge diversity of entrants - from anglers exhibiting their love of the sport, to observers of all kinds of fishing, with rod or net, to those that used the term fishing as a cliche, even to some from what us anglers lovingly refer to as 'fishing widows'.

"I am sure that for several it was their first experience of formally writing down poetry. I plead with them to continue - their efforts are not in vain.

"To those more experienced poets that maybe had fishing enter their psyche for the first time, I plead with them to learn more of what I describe as 'the best excuse for loafing in the countryside'."

The runners-up were Dot Lubienska, from London, and Glenis Denley, from Plymouth.

The prize-giving ceremony will take place at the Magma 37 launch reading at the Troubadour in Earls Court, west London, next month, where the winner and runners-up will be invited to read their poems.

Casterton wins a luxury two-night stay at the famous Compleat Angler Hotel in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, and a day's fishing with Arthur.