Tuesday 13 January 2009

Strokestown Poetry Competition


Time is moving on to enter the Strokestown competition.

What: poem in English not exceeding 70 lines. (I've often wondered does this include stanza breaks or titles?) All poems must be the unpublished, original work of a living author. Poems must not have been previously published, self-published, published on a website or broadcast...blah, blah, usual conditions
Deadline: 22nd January
Fee: 5 Euro or £4 (Cheaper) per poem
Prize: €4,000 (approximately £3,000 sterling), €2000 and €1000. In addition up to seven commended poets will be invited to read at the festival for a reading fee and travelling expenses totalling €450 (about £380)

Judges: John F. Deane, Penelope Shuttle, Joseph Woods

The judges' shortlists will be announced in mid March, and the prizes will be announced and awarded during the Strokestown International Poetry Festival, Co. Roscommon, Ireland, which will take place over the weekend of May 1-3 2009.

Shortlisted competitors are expected to attend the prize-giving, and each will be invited to read a selection of his/her work at the festival for a fee of €300 plus €200 travelling expenses. (Contradicts above...?)

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Time to send off my money into the void again ;)

The line count does not include breaks; lines or otherwise :)

Emerging Writer said...

Sorry BArbara, do you mean title and blank lines between stanzas aren't counted? (Not that many of my poems get close to the limit but you never know)

Leon1234 said...

Hello fellow writer! How are you doing? Would love to speak to you sometime.

Peter Goulding said...

Personally, I love Strokestown, So many different voices in such a confined space and time, though admittedly by the end, I'm poeticised out.
Don't forget the Gaelic prize and the Humorous verse prize. I actually won the latter last year, which was the high point of my not very brilliant career so far.

Emerging Writer said...

Congrats Peter. Is there a link anywhere to your winning poem? I've often wondered what type of a creature wins the humerous category. Humour is so individual

Peter Goulding said...

This is the link to the poem

http://politicalverse.blogspot.com/2008/05/poverty-trap.html

They've actually changed the category this year from "Political or Social Satirical Verse" to simply "Humorous Verse" so I imagine the entry will be higher. Still, I had my day in the sun!

Ossian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Titles & blank lines aren't counted :)

Congratulations Peter, that is very heartening for us tryers!

Unknown said...

Peter, that's some piece of work; I like all the digs you got in at Bertie you sang it, you say? You're a mightly man!

Ossian said...

i deleted my comment above because it looked utterly crass in the light of day.

i think i was raving about having to pay to enter poetry competitions or something. it's not clear, frankly, what i was on about but i wasn't sozzled - honest, i just needed some sleep.

here's a bit of it, with the worst rubbish removed.

somebody said that publishing a volume of poetry and waiting for the response was like dropping a feather into the Grand Canyon and listening for the sound.

i'd like to set a zoo condor free over the grand canyon, or might settle for a bumblebee from a jamjar.

Emerging Writer said...

Did get shortlisted again. Only one Irish poet writing in English Louise C. Callaghan, Dublin. (Do I know you Louise?)

Charnita said...

I wish I had read this post earlier!