18th. Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award

Trophy and Cash Prizes

1^st Prize is the Ledwidge plaque (a keepsake) inscribed with the winner’s name & cash prize. Cash prizes and books for Second and Third and merit certificates for finalists.

The first 3 poems will be entered in the Forward Prize UK

In addition, the winner will be invited to read at the annual Francis Ledwidge Commemoration at the National War Memorial Gardens in July 2017

Rules

Poems must be the competitor’s own work

not previously published or broadcast.

Poems should not exceed 40 lines of type

Entry fee: €4 per poem, 3 for €10.

Max. 6 poems (€20) payable to the Inchicore Ledwidge Society

Name and address and telephone number on a separate sheet.

Deadline: 5^th November 2016 

The Francis Ledwidge International Poetry Award 2016,

C/o 20, Emmet Crescent.

Inchicore, Dublin 8

Winners will be notified and results will be announced at our annual awards night 

Check out the Facebook page: InchicoreLedwidge Society

New writing courses

There's a new term on the horizon and the whiff of back to school is in the air. It's always worth checking out what's going on in your local community school or library. Or check at your library.

The Irish Writers' Centre always has an innovative catalogue that covers a wide range. And there's the Big Smoke Writing Factory.

Recently I was told of a new course given by writer David Keane at SEDA College, Capel Street. Here's the blurb

This Creative Writing Course is for those who are ready to begin their journey of creative writing in fiction and need a little guidance. If you don’t know where to begin or don’t know what to do next then this is the course for you.

The course will focus on starting points, characters, structure, plot, theme, and point of view as well as many other aspects of writing fiction. Over the six week period participants will be encouraged to develop their writing skills based on coursework.

This course is for adults only and is facilitated in a positive and encouraging manner. All participants will be invited to share their work. This is not compulsory but is recommend in order to gain the most benefit out of the course. A textbook will be provided for each participant- this will be a guide and reference point, as well as a good read. The course will help build your writer’s toolbox and develop your existing skills.

Classes last 90 minutes and participants are also expected to make time to write during the week.

Date: Starts 13 September 2016 @ 7pm. Runs every Tuesday for 6 consecutive weeks.

Venue: SEDA College, Capel Street, Dublin 1.
Capacity: 12 maximum.
Fee: € 75 (includes textbook).
Info & Booking: www.davidkeane.net/creative-writing-course/

David Keane is a Dublin based writer. He is currently involved in several areas of writing, including fiction, poetry, and scriptwriting. These include several scripts (stage and screen) and a novel. His short screenplay, Lacewing, was runner up at the Waterford Film Festival 2015 and his treatment for a contemporary Irish screenplay, Grand, won him a place on a script development workshop run by Working Title Films. He has been included in several writing anthologies and came runner up in the unpublished poet category in the Poetry Ireland/Trócaire Poetry Competition 2016.

Abridged 0 – 48: Mercury Red Submission call

The submission calls for Abridged magazine, a poetry and art publication, are always a good read.

This is the age of the inspirational. We wake up each morning to a torrent of messages on social media informing us that if we ‘be ourselves’ and ‘believe in ourselves’ we can achieve the impossible. Transformation will be quick and painless. A screen full of medicine men (and women) selling easy answers with beautiful backdrops. Conversely when we do achieve something there are legions of ‘trolls’ ready to lay siege to us. The age of the inspirational is an age of extremes. Love is public and anger is quick to surface. We search for the impossible and when it can’t be found we want to scorch the earth. Our loves, our hates, are quick. Our fear is now public domain.

This fear remains in the ether, an indistinct agent in our psychological lives, both invisible and disturbing as hypothetical warfare. When we feel under attack it solidifies and we name it.  It is in naming the thing that should be feared that it comes into focus, even merely as mirage or red herring. By naming it, mythologizing it, adorning it with colours and connotations so as to turn it into a child’s villain, we cast it from ourselves and make it temporarily stable enough to identify: a tangible enemy.  A named fear is a catalyst for all that frightens, within and beyond ourselves. Telling a story of good and evil, of black and white masks the problematic complexity of these qualities incestuous and changeful relationship. Light can obscure as much as darkness, and on each the other depends for definition.

Red Mercury is a mythical explosive. Abridged in 0 – 48: Mercury Red explores our need for immediate public affirmation, our virtual emotional lives and our search for the impossible personally and as a society then the anger when we realise our Nirvana is unattainable. 

Submissions may be up to three poems and can be sent to abridged@ymail.com preferably in Word format or as part of the email. Art should be up to A4 landscape in size and 300 dpi or above. 

Please note this is a landscape format issue rather than our usual portrait. 

Deadline is 23rd September.

Resurgence Poetry Prize 2016 - Ecopoems

Do you have a true ecopoem or two?

The Resurgence Poetry Prize is the world’s first major ‘ecopoetry’ award. Three prizes will be awarded each year for original and previously unpublished ecopoems in English (or any dialect of English). Poets may submit as many poems as they wish but each poem must not be more than 54 lines in length..  

Poems do not need to address a specific theme, but to be eligible a poems will in some way – thematically, structurally, linguistically or formally – investigate the interrelationship between human culture and the natural world.  A poem’s spoken quality – its suitability for being read and recorded aloud – will form part of the judging criteria. 

All details are on the Rules page.

With a first prize of £5,000 for the best single poem embracing ecological themes, the award ranks amongst the highest of any English language single poem competition. Second prize is £2,000 and third prize £1,000.

Deadline: 1st October

Head Judge: Jo Shapcott. The judges will read all eligible poems

The previous year's winners are on this page where you can also navigate to how to enter.

Cornwall Contemporary Poetry Festival Open Poetry Competition 2016

Prizes: 1st prize: £600    2nd prize: £150    3rd prize: £50

Entry fee: £5 per poem, £3 per poem thereafter

Closing date: 3 September, 2016

Judge: Alison Brackenbury. The judge will read all poems submitted to the competition. There will be no sifting of entries.

Poems must be typed and no longer than 40 lines

Fee £5 for the first poem and £3 for each additional entry

More information here

Kubla Khan / Imaginary Worlds Poetry Competition

In this the bicentenary of the first publication of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, the Friends of Coleridge invite poets to enter poems for a prestigious celebration of this visionary poem under the theme, “Imagined Worlds”.

Winning poems will be published in The Coleridge Bulletin, the internationally distributed publication dedicated to furthering the understanding of Coleridge and his powerful influences on poetry and thought. 

The Awards Night will be held at CICCIC Taunton on Coleridge’s Birthday, 21st October 2016.

Fee: Adult (18+), entries £5.00 for first poem. £3.00 for up to two subsequent poems.

Young Person’s (10-17), entries free of charge for up to three poems.

 You can enter up to three poems. The length of each must not exceed 40 lines.

Prizes

Adult First Prize £500. Two Runners up: £200 each

Young Person’s First Prize £75. Two Runners up  £25 each

Judges

Gregory Leadbetter. Gregory is a well-known poet and lecturer, and Vice-Chair of the Friends of Coleridge.

Liz Cashdan. Liz is a poet who has written a sequence based on Coleridge and his circle.  Her most recent collection is Things of Substance: New and Selected Poetry (Five Leaves 2013).

Ian Enters. Ian is a poet with three publications to his name; translator of Anglo-Saxon poetry and performer at the British Museum; novelist with two novels published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson; and dramatist of musicals and opera. He was until recently Chair of the charity Reading Matters.

Deadline for entries: 5pm Wednesday 31st August
Enter online only. Full details, rules and how to enter can be forund on the Friends of Coleridge website here: www.friendsofcoleridge.com

Manchester Review Submissions

The Manchester Review publishes two issues per year in Spring and Autumn. During their submission period they welcome unpublished fiction, poetry and essays from both established and new writers. 

Please make no more than one submission per issue. 

Simultaneous submissions are permitted. They only accept Word documents. 

In the subject line, please include your name and the category (Fiction/Poetry/Art/Non-Fiction) and make sure that identifying details are also on your submission.

Prose Please send only one piece of fiction or non-fiction. Very rarely do we publish works longer than 6,000 words.

Poetry Please send no more than 3 poems.

Art Please email a link to your online portfolio. Unfortunately, they cannot accept music, visual art, or video submissions by post or as email attachments.

They strongly encourage online submissions to manreviewsubmissions@gmail.com.