Mslexia Poetry Competition

 

The Magma 2020/21 Poetry Competition is now open for entries in both categories, the Judge’s Prize for poems of 11 to 50 lines and the Editors’ Prize for poems of up to 10 lines. Award-winning poet Theresa Lola is the judge for the Judge’s Prize here are no sifters. The Editors’ Prize is judged by a panel of Magma Editors. The prize money for both competitions is the same, so double your chances and try your luck at both. First prize for the Judge’s and Editors’ Prize is £1000, second prize £300 and third prize £150. The six prize-winning poems will be published in Magma and there will also be five special mentions for the Judge’s Prize and for the Editors’ Prize. Winning and commended poets will be invited to read their poems at a Magma Competition Event in Spring 2021.


CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE

5 words Poetry Competition - O'Bheal

Every Tuesday at midday (UTC) from 14th April 2020 – 26th January 2021, five words are posted on this competition page. 

Entrants will have one week to compose and submit one or more poems which include all five words given for that week.

Prize
A prize of 750 euros will be awarded to the winner, plus 500 euros for second place and 250 euros for third place. These three, if available will be invited to read at Ó Bhéal’s fourteenth anniversary event, on Monday the 12th of April 2021. An additional travel fee of 100 euro plus B&B accommodation will be provided for this. The overall winner also receives a physical award, hand-crafted by acclaimed glass artist (and poet) Michael Ray.

The shortlisted poems and winning entry will also be published in Five Words Vol XIV – the next annual anthology of five word poems, to be launched at the same event. A shortlist of twelve poems including the overall winner will be announced by the first week of March 2021.

The 2020/21 judge is Grace Wells.

Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition

Get writing – the Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition is open until 12 June 

Adults and children alike can get creative and enter a poem or poems to the Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition.  

The competition takes place annually and uses the arts to raise awareness about the leading global justice issues of our time. The deadline has been extended until 12 June, with the competition open to published and unpublished poets. 

  

Adults and children, through their schools, can enter the competition. Poems in English or Irish are welcome in all six categories, with spoken word pieces actively encouraged as well as poems. 

The competition is always free to enter

The attractive prizes on offer include for the adult categories: a choice of a two-week stay at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, or a tablet or time in a recording studio to the value of €300 (for spoken word poets) plus a year’s subscription to Poetry Ireland Review. 

Winners of the post-primary and primary categories win a Kindle Fire plus a visit by an author to the winner’s school (to be scheduled post-Covid 19 restrictions).  

This year, the competition explores the theme ‘Standing Her Ground’, inspired by the extraordinary stories of hardworking women who are holding their families together, battling enormous odds, including threats like violence, intimidation and drought, to provide food for their children and are battling to keep their children, and the earth, safe from harm.  

Poets of all ages are encouraged to explore the theme, from a local to global perspective. Each year, the winning poems are published in booklet form and presented to the winners at an awards ceremony.  

For more information and to enter, visit https://www.poetryireland.ie/education/trocaire-poetry-ireland-poetry-competition/ 

 

Fingal Poetry Prize

Fingal Poetry Festival, which will take place from Sept 4^th – 6^th 2020 in lovely Skerries, are delighted to announce the Inaugural Fingal Poetry Prize.
Our judge is esteemed poet and writer, Mary O’Donnell
Deadline 30th June
First Prize €500
Second €300
Third  €200
Five additional short-listed poets will also be invited to read at an awards ceremony in Skerries and receive a reading fee of €100 each.
Our generous sponsor for the Fingal Poetry Prize 2020 is DHL Ireland.
For rules and details of how to enter please visit https://poetryatskerriesmills.com
Because I am so good to you, here are the highlights

•  Entry fee is €6 per poem. Paypal.
• Poems must not exceed 40 lines and be the original work of a living writer
• All entries must be submitted, on one continues document, as an attachment to
  poetryatskerriesmills@gmail.com with the title: Competition Submission as your Subject Header.

THE MOTH NATURE WRITING PRIZE

Richard Mabey, one of the UK’s foremost nature writers, will judge the inaugural Moth Nature Writing Prize. The Prize will be awarded to an unpublished piece of writing – prose fiction, non-fiction or poetry – which best combines exceptional literary merit with an exploration of the writer’s relationship with the natural world. The prize is open to anyone over the age of sixteen, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished. The winning piece will be published in the winter issue of The Moth, and the winner will receive €1,000 and a week-long stay at The Moth Retreat in rural Ireland. Closing date 15 September 2020.

LINKS:
ENTER ONLINE: https://www.themothmagazine.co.uk/mothnature/story1.asp
DOWNLOAD ENTRY FORM: http://www.themothmagazine.com/a1-page.asp?ID=8539&page=27
THE MOTH RETREAT: http://www.themothmagazine.com/a1-page.asp?ID=8148&page=28

IN SHORT:
1st prize €1,000 plus a week at The Moth Retreat in rural Ireland. The Moth Nature Writing Prize is open to anyone (over 16) as long as their piece is previously unpublished. The word limit is 4,000 and there is an entry fee of €15. This year’s judge is Richard Mabey. Closing 15 September 2020. See www.themothmagazine.com for details.

iYeats International Poetry Competition

The iYeats International Poetry Competition 2019 is now open for entries! Hosted by Hawk’s Well Theatre since 2009, the annual event has won a prestigious reputation for the calibre of both entrants, and judges. 

The competition is open to all those who are sixteen years of age and upwards, with an prize of €500 for the winner of the General Category, and €300 is awarded to the winner of the Emerging Category for those aged between 16-25 years of age. 

Launched a decade ago, the poetry competition was initiated by the Hawk's Well Theatre to mark the 50th Yeats International Summer School, and the 70th anniversary of the death of W. B Yeats.

Following in the tradition of the previous years’ lauded panels, the judges for this year’s iYeats Poetry Competition are highly respected poet John F. Deane, and spoken word artist Rafeef Ziadah.

Reflecting the truly global impact of the competition, 2018’s winning entry ‘New York, It Had a Ring To It’ was written by Sighle Meehan from Galway, while the emerging category saw ‘Helen’ by Sarah Ang of Singapore, take the top prize. All the previous award-winning poems are available to read on the Hawk’s Well Theatre’s website.

The closing date for entries into the 2019 iYeats International Poetry Competition is Wednesday 3rd July, at 11am (GMT). As this is an online poetry competition, entrants can visit the Hawk’s Well website for further information on the competition terms and conditions and to upload and submit their entries.

Visit www.hawkswell.com/iyeats/poetry for further details.

Padraic Colum International Gathering - Adult Poetry Competition 2019

Prizes for this year’s Adult Poetry Competition are: 1^st prize €250, 2^nd prize €75 and 3^rd prize €50. Winners will be announced at our Padraic Colum Commemorative Concert on Friday, May 17^th – all welcome!

Poems For Patience

Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust is seeking entries again for its annual poetry competition. The poetry competition is run in conjunction with the Poems For Patience series as part of Cúirt International Festival of Literature which runs from April 8th – 14th in Galway. 

Deadline: Friday February 22nd. 

The prize as part of the annual poetry competition includes: the winner will have his/her poem published and displayed on the Arts Corridor of University Hospital Galway as part of the 2019 Poems For Patience series. 

The poems, after exhibition on the Arts Corridor, are then displayed in waiting areas throughout Galway University Hospitals. 

The winner will also be invited to read his or her winning poem at the launch of the 2019 Poems For Patience at Cúirt International Festival of Literature in April 2019;  given a copy of their poem printed and framed as a Poem for Patience poster and invited to submit six poems for consideration to be a Featured Reader at the Over The Edge: Open Reading series in Galway City Library.

The aim of Poems for Patience is to provide access to poetry for patients, their families, staff, visitors and the wider hospital community. Waiting areas are used by patients and their loved ones on a daily basis, in outpatient clinics, going for scans, x-rays and other tests as inpatients.

The competition judge is Kevin Higgins. 

Poems entered in the competition should be no more than 32 lines long.

ENTRY FEE


To enter one poem the fee is €10. If you enter two or more poems the entry fee is €7.50 per poem i.e. to enter two poems it costs €15, to enter three poems €22.50 and so on.

Details here

Strokestown International poetry Competition 2019

The Deadline for the annual Strokestown Poetry Festival competition is fast approaching. Get your entries in soon and make it a good one!

1st Prize € 2,000
Plus a week-long residency at Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat

2nd Prize € 700

3rd Prize € 500
Reading fees of € 300 for 7 shortlisted poets

Deadline:7th December 2018

The 10 shortlisted poems will be published in the Strokestown Anthology 2019

Judges:

Jo Shapcott & Gerard Smyth

Padraig Colum Gathering Poetry Competition

Brexit in Poetry Competition

We’re inviting you to send us a poem that deals with any aspects of the Brexit process. We're not interested in whether you are for or against leaving the EU but it’s about how you’ve put the poem together: your use of language, rhythm, sound, imagery, etc. We want to be touched, inspired or even frustrated by your poem. The actual word Brexit does not have to appear, but the poem needs to be inspired by Brexit, for example by throwing a new light on being in or out of the EU, or by expressing something that hasn’t been voiced before, but make sure to stay away from clichés. 
Prize: £200 and publication in the Holland Park Press online magazine
Length: 50 lines or less
Entry fee: none
Deadline: 31 December 2018
Eligibility: poems written in English by writers over 18 from any country
To submit: email your poem as a Word, Text or PDF attachment to submissions@hollandparkpress.co.uk
Organizer: Holland Park Press
Webpage: complete guidelines are available from https://www.hollandparkpress.co.uk/magazine_detail.php?magazine_id=459&language=English

James Tate Prize

International Poetry Chapbook Contest 2018

Deadline: Friday 31st August 2018, midnight.

SurVision Magazine (http://survisionmagazine.com) hosts the chapbook contest open to new, emerging and established poets from any country writing in English. We prefer innovative, experimental, surrealistic poetry to mainstream. To learn more about our preferences in poetry, please read SurVision Magazine. 

Prizes: 1st Prize: €200; 2nd Prize: €100.

Both winners of the James Tate Prize will win a chapbook publication and 20 complimentary copies. 

We will also arrange the winning poets' reading in Dublin.

Up to ten finalists will be publicly listed as "highly commended". Finalists may be offered publication at SurVision Books' discretion.

All the poems must be the original work of the entrant. Manuscripts can be between 20 and 29 pages of poetry in length, in the English language. This does not include the table of contents, title page and the list of acknowledgements, if any. 

Prose poems and translations of poetry are also eligible; all translations must be accompanied by the same work in the original language. 

Individual poems may be previously published.

  

There is an entrance fee of €18 for each manuscript. 

The winners will be selected by the editor of SurVision Magazine.

They will be offered for sale internationally through our own website and in selected independent book sellers. 

More information on how to submit at http://www.survisionmagazine.com/jamestateprize.htm

Waterford Poetry Prize

The Waterford Poetry Prize is open to all writers currently living on the island of Ireland.
This prize has emerged from the influence of the late Waterford writer Seán Dunne whose poetry still continues to inspire.
It is a condition of entry that prize winners will attend the announcement of the winning poems at a Festival event at the Waterford Writers Weekend on the evening of Friday 26^th October 2018 in Waterford city. Accommodation will be provided for the prize winners in a 4 star city hotel.

• A line limit of 40 lines applies
• There is no entry fee. 
• No more than one entry should be submitted by any individual.
• Deadline 4th August 

First prize is  €400 plus attendance at a designated writing course at the Molly Keane Writers Retreat, Ardmore in 2019 (This prize valued €500 is non transferable and no cash alternative will be awarded in lieu).
Second prize €300                     Third prize €200.

The judge for the Waterford Poetry Prize 2018 is the poet Grace Wells.

Link here

Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition 2018

Some people are fools for love, others are fools for poetry.

1st Prize: €1,000; 2nd Prize :€500
The winning poets are also offered a reading and three nights' accommodation at the Cork 2019 International Poetry Festival (March 27th-30th, 2019) (www.corkpoetryfest.net)

The competition is open to new, emerging and established poets from any country. One of these winners will be the highest scoring manuscript entered by a debutant poet with no solo collection (full-length or chapbook) previously published.
Up to 25 other entrants will be publicly listed as "highly commended". 
Manuscripts can be between 16 and 23 pages in length, in the English language and the sole work of the entrant with no pastiches, translations or 'versions'.
The poems can be in verse or prose.
There is an entrance fee of €25 for each manuscript.
Entrants may enter more than one manuscript.
The winners will be selected by a panel of renowned poets including Mary Noonan, Matthew Sweeney, Thomas McCarthy, James Harpur and Leanne O’Sullivan.
The winning chapbooks will be published by Southword editions in March 2019 and will be launched at the Cork International Poetry Festival (March 27-30, 2019). It will be offered for sale internationally through our own website and in selected independent book sellers.

Deadline: Saturday 30th of June, Midnight
Link here 

Both winners will win a chapbook publication and 50 complimentary copies. The published chapbooks will be reviewed in Southword Journal and elsewhere.

Bread and Roses Poetry Award

Culture Matters is pleased to announce that the second Bread and Roses Poetry Award, sponsored by Unite, is now open for entries. It is part of our mission to promote a socialist approach to culture. The purpose of the Award is to create new opportunities for working class people to write poetry, and encourage poets to focus on themes which are meaningful to working class people and communities.

Submission Guidelines and Award Rules

1. You may enter up to three original, previously unpublished poems in English, each no more than 50 lines long.

2. You must be resident in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland.

3. Entry is free, and open to anyone regardless of trade union membership.

4. There will be five prizes of £100 each.

5. Entries should broadly deal with themes relevant to working class life, politics, communities and culture.

6. Entries should be sent to info@culturematters.org.uk by midnight on Friday 8 June, or by post to Culture Matters, c/o 8 Moore Court, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE15 8QE, to arrive on Friday 8 June. No entries will be accepted after that date.

Winners will be invited to an award ceremony in Durham on 13 July, linked to the Durham Miners’ Gala, with travel and accommodation costs paid. The best poems will be published in an anthology later in 2018.

Copies of the Bread and Roses Poetry Anthology 2017 are available to buy here.

Wigtown Poetry Competition

The competition closes on 8 June, with a prize-giving at Wigtown Book Festival (21-30 September 2018).  

Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition

This is the 12^th year of the Competition, which is widely respected and forms a major part of the Festival year.   

From the entries received about 35 poems are chosen for the long list and these are published in an anthology; copies are available from the Festival Office.  A shortlist of poems is then selected and from these the winners are chosen.  

The Competition is generously supported by the School of English at the University of Kent who donate the University of Kent Prize of £200 for the winner, £100 for second and £50 for third places, £25 for the People’s Choice and the Best-Read Poem receives a bottle of sparkling wine courtesy of the Wine Room, Tankerton.  

So send in your poems of all types, long, short, tragic, funny, whatever you are moved to write and you may find yourself crowned the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year 2018.

The Competition deadline is Monday 18 June 2018.  

The fee for entry is £5 per poem and please don’t forget to attach an entry form which can be downloaded here.  

The poem or poem sequence may be on any subject and in any style but must not exceed 60 lines in length excluding title and line breaks.  

Entries are judged anonymously 

The Terms and Conditions can be downloaded here. 

McLellan Poetry Prize

Part of the McLellan Festival 31st August - 9th September 2018

​

This year's judge is Sinéad Morrissey.

​

 1st prize £1500     2nd prize £300     3rd prize £150

6 commendations of £25

The competition closing date is 21st June 2018

Fee £6 for the first poem and £5 for each subsequent poem submitted on the same form.

Poems should be of no more than 80 lines (excluding title), in English and your own original work (no translations).

Link here

Bridport Prizes

This is one of the most prestigious writing contests in the British literary calendar.

Do you have a really good poem or short story? Or a few? I mean, really REALLY good?

• poem - no more than 42 lines
• short story - no more than 5,000 words.   
• flash fiction category - stories of up to 250 words 
• First Novel - 5,000 to 8,000 words

This year’s judges are Daljit Nagra, & (poems) Monica Ali (flash fiction and short stories) and Kamila Shamsie (First novel).

    Closing: 31st May (postmarked)

Prizes: 

In each of the main categories (Short Stories, Poems) - £5,000, £1,000, £500.  There are also ten runners-up prizes of £100.  These are called ‘supplementary prizes’ to make you feel less like an also-ran.  The top four poems will be submitted to the Forward Prize. 

Prizes in the Flash Fiction category are £1,000, £500, £250, plus three supplementary awards of £100.

Note: Entries must never have been published, self-published, published on any website, blog or online forum, broadcast nor winning or placed in any other competition.

    Entry Fees have increased:Poems - £9.  Short Stories - £10.  Flash Fiction - £8, Novel - £20
 
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Frogmore Press

The people at Frogmore Press make it difficult to enter - post only, UK cheque - so I suspect the entry numbers will be lower ...so a greater chance of success!

The winner of the Frogmore Poetry Prize for 2018 will win two hundred and fifty guineas and a two-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers. The first and second runners-up will receive seventy-five and fifty guineas respectively and a year’s subscription to The Frogmore Papers. Shortlisted poets will receive copies of selected Frogmore Press publications. 

Adjudicator: Janet Sutherland

• Poems should be typed and no longer than forty lines.
• Any number of poems may be entered on payment of the appropriate fee of £3 per poem.   Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to The Frogmore Press.
• The following methods of payment are acceptable: cheque drawn on UK bank; British postal order; sterling.
• The winner, runners-up and shortlisted poets will be notified by post. All shortlisted poems will appear in number 92 of The Frogmore Papers(September 2018), which will be available at £5.00 from the address below, and on the Frogmore Press website.
• Closing date for submissions: 31 May 2018.
• Entries should be sent to: The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1PJ.

Link here