A local couple have won a major poetry award — again.

Cookworthy Forest residents Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling have again been awarded the ‘Ted Slade Award for Services to Poetry 2023’. 

Organiser of the award, Jim Bennett, said: “The recipients of the Ted Slade Award for 2023 are the first people to win this award for the second time. Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling. who run the Indigo Dreams series of books and magazines, were also the first joint winners back in 2015 but such has been their prominence in the fields of poetry publishing that many in the poetry community have been putting their names forward in the years between. 

“The award was established in 2005 to honour those who have given their time and energies over an extended period to become a major influence in the continuance and development of poetry. 

“Those who have pursued a vision and have published and developed new poets as well as established. For all that they have done and continue to do we are pleased to award them jointly the Ted Slade Award for Services to Poetry 2023’

Ronnie works solely for Indigo Dreams; Dawn divides her time between this and working for the NHS as the Media Officer for local surgeries in the Bude and Holsworthy area. They told us: “We feel very proud to win this again, and set two records whilst doing so.”

The last two winners were from London and New Zealand, so it’s good to bring it home to our rural community again - people will be getting their maps out to see where we are!”

Ronnie and Dawn’s joint poetry collection ‘Forest, moor or less’, published in 2020 and endorsed by Sir Elton John and Gyles Brandreth, was their best-selling title and also won a national award for ‘Best Collaborative Work’ that year. 

It is available from their website www.indigodreamspublishing.com