The Happiful Poetry Prize 2026: Celebrating the winning and shortlisted poets
updated on Apr 16, 2026
Prepare to be moved by the wonderfully inspiring 2026 Happiful Poetry Prize winning and shortlisted poems…
When was the last time you told someone how you really feel? Whether you’re anxious, elated, or something else entirely, expressing your emotions without holding back isn’t always easy.
Even though mental health awareness is shifting in many positive ways, we know that opening up about things like trauma, grief, loneliness, and depression can take courage. But more than that, sometimes, it’s a struggle just to find the words to explain how you feel.
Thankfully, poetry has served as a therapeutic and accessible tool for humans for millennia. From ancient healing chants and elegies of grief, to modern poems written in response to war, illness, and loss, people have long used the power of poetry to express what ordinary language cannot.
Poems can convey unspoken frequencies, a moment in time, and hidden experiences that connect strangers across space and time. In writing a poem, we get the chance to deliver our message to the world, and in reading one, we may feel seen by a complete stranger.
And it’s this human connection that is at the heart of the Happiful Poetry Prize, which has been running since 2023, giving our team the opportunity to read thousands of heartwarming and hard-hitting poems from entrants all over the UK.
We’re pleased to announce this year’s winner as ‘The F Word’ by Naomi Joseph. A firm favourite among our judging panel, Naomi artfully explores how finding the language to describe your mental state can feel like a ‘scrabble of the mind’, and why so many of us choose to settle for a familiar, two-word response instead.
On our shortlist, Minna Chang’s ‘I See You’ is an outpouring of understanding that offers comfort to those who are pretending to be well, when really they are anything but. Whereas ‘Concentric Circles’ by Daniel Bradford is a relatable snapshot of the anxious state many of us live in – along with a subtle shift that might inspire hope as you read. ‘When a Heart Lies in Creases’ by Jane Fuller documents the process of making a paper heart, using origami as a creative way to explore the fragile, yet temporary, essence of emotional pain. Meanwhile, Laurie Donaldson questions the nature of tics in his poem ‘Not a Fidget’, connecting the mind and body in mysterious ways, and driving home the constant internal negotiation and repetitive nature – offering insight to something many of us may not have experienced personally.
So, as you flick through the poems featured throughout this issue, take a moment to ponder the words that have been shared so generously. Because even in the quietest moments, there is always a poem that can sit with you in the silence.
The winner
Naomi Joseph
Naomi is an actor and writer who works across mediums and beyond expectations. She creates stories about big feelings in small moments of everyday life. Her writing spans across theatre and live performance, short films, spoken word, and corporate theatre.
Jelly legs and butterfly tummies.
Tingles in the extremities.
A shudder fluttering down the spine.
But I can’t find the words for the mind.
“Pile drive”
not heavy enough.
“Brain fog”
not…something enough.
How about crowded?
Distracted?
Or, maybe, consumed?
Busy.
Vibrating.
A compressed cacophony.
It’s easier when it’s
pit of stomach
or
pain in chest.
Where are the wise words for upstairs unrest?
For thunderous thoughts entwined?
A persistent scrabble of the mind.
Words don’t do it justice,
so we settle for
“I’m fine.”
The runner-ups:
1. Minna Chang
I wait. And sit with you. And wait.
I see the weight you carry, the mask pressed tight against your skin.
I feel the burden of it, the quiet labours it has born,
holding you together, protecting you, hiding you, silencing your story.
I will not pry it from you, but gently let you know
That I see you, behind the mask.
Gentle, like sunrays in the morning, tough, like a flower in a storm.
I feel the blizzard behind your eyes, the fierce ache, longing to be seen,
the quiet hope that someone might finally accept all of you.
And then, a flicker, a pause, a shift.
Piece by piece, your mask loosens, and piece by piece it falls.
I see you. Raw, trembling, alive.
The lines carved by years of hiding tell stories no one else has read.
The lines carved by years of hiding tell stories no one else has read.
You think you are fragile, but you are strong.
You think you are broken, but you are whole.
Here, in this quiet, in this space,
I wait. I sit with you. And we wait.
Nothing recoils, nothing judges.
Finally, you see that you are Accepted,
Loved and Valued,
Completely,
Exactly, as you are.
2. Laurie Donaldson
a companion, an opposition, internal voice of repetition.
This ventriloquist dummy body does not demarcate – but can obscure
shudders, quivers, jiggles and wriggles
– so that I am not just a jerk coerced into movement, begrudging, inadvertent.
Such alien presence cannot be defined and I won’t let it define me.
It won’t be pinned down, an angry trapped beast in tensed clavicle.
In moving through life, they remain, twitches that are infringements,
itches to be scratched. Shoulders have their quiet fluttering time of it,
shrugging at me with disdain, or is it contempt?
One shrug is not dismissive of others, just shoulders with a mind
of their own – or, rather, a part of the mind with shoulders of its own.
The annoying foot scuff brings stumble on sticky floors
when running it can be staved off with promises,
negotiating delay, postponing the inevitable, involuntary only to a degree.
Alone, the signature lip curl grimace can let loose
but looked better on Bogart.
Finger twisting to order, even when writing this,
a self-referential secret power kept from transgression
but not a craving for attention. This knowledge is all
call and response – a closed system
with no line of sight to what aches. I can’t take it or leave it,
3. Daniel Bradford
like a washing machine on the fritz.
The tea cup trembles in my grip, ripples
spreading outward like my fears – concentric
circles of what-if.
Still, weeds crack pavements with nothing but
persistence, grass grows through storm damage.
I whisper one small truth to myself: “You’ve
weathered storms before.”
4. Jane Fuller
The leaflet says
it should only take a minute
to make this paper heart.
You crease and uncrease,
fold and unfold,
but the seams won’t meet,
the shape can’t hold,
colour ends up on the inside.
Who needs paper? Throbs your flesh heart.
Don’t we ruffle along the bouncing arrows
plucking art from thin air?
Trembling into lotus petals,
pivoting toward strong-winged crane,
embracing the whimsy of boat-shaped hat
before making a reverse fold interior
to hide ourselves under Kitsune’s thick coat.
Your flesh heart will always be with you,
and if the seams don’t meet,
the shape won’t hold,
or red clings to the inside,
in time, we will uncrumple,
make our way back
to the smooth white sheaf.
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