The Maltese Poets Society recently held its prize-giving ceremony following the annual National Poetry Contest, at the Ġużeppi Despott Hall of the Education Division in Floriana.

Society president Alfred Massa expressed his satisfaction that the contest had evolved from being purely unilingual to trilingual, with the use of English, Maltese and Italian, with the standard improving year after year.

The ceremony was hosted by assistant secretary Joseph Axiaq.

This year's judges were Alfred Palma, Frances Arpa and Mark Debono, who judged the entries positively, particularly attention to detail and high standards. They did, however, point out a number of mistakes in prosody and orthography, which tended to spoil otherwise valid verse.

Qtar by Guido Lanfranco placed first in the Maltese poetry section, followed by Il-Bieaħ... Illum by Anthony Farrugia and Minjatura ta' l-Enimmi by Stefano Farrugia.

I wish by Miriam Camilleri placed first in the English section, followed by Love heals all wounds by Carmel Gatt.

Ondata di bombe su Baghdad by Omar Seguna took first prize in the Italian section, followed by Avanzi di un padre by Therese Pace.

The Mgr Buontempo prize went to Guido Lanfranco.

The members of the society's commission this year were Alfred Massa, Patrick Sammut and Alfred Calleja.