Welcome to The Blue Nib Anthology 1, Poetry, June - December 2017. Dave Kavanagh and Shirley Bell are delighted to present this book, which will be the first of a series collecting together the best of the magazine. It features the work of 53 Blue Nib poets.The Blue Nib only began in June 2017 and they are both very proud of its progress to date and look forward to producing further chapbooks, and the January - June, July - August anthologies from 2018 onwards. The magazine has been a great success, so they want to thank all their readers, their poets and writers, and of course their subscribers. Without them, they would not be able to run competitions and award prizes and publish chapbooks and anthologies (and other books that are in the pipeline).This feast of a book contains poems from the winners and runners-up of their first Chapbook Contest - Summer/Autumn 2017, judged by the poet Michael Blackburn. Dave and Shirley have also chosen a selection of poems from the other contest entries and poems chosen from Issues 1 - 18 of The Blue Nib.