Mary Shelley theme for Keats-Shelley poetry competition
The 2025-26 Keats-Shelley competition has been launched, with prizes for essays and poems and the Young Romantics Prize, also for essays and poems, open to those aged 16 to 18. The theme for the prizes has been chosen to mark the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s dystopian novel, The Last Man, which was published in January 1826. Entries are free, and entrants are welcome from around the world a...
13th September 2025
Deadline nears for Morecambe festival competition
The deadline is nearing for Morecambe poetry festival’s competition, which is open to poets worldwide, for poems of no more than 50 lines on any subject. The winning poets will be invited to read their poems at Morecambe poetry festival and will also be included in this year's festival anthology.
...25th July 2025
Fiona Benson to judge Winchester poetry prize
Fiona Benson will be judging this year’s £1,000 Winchester poetry prize. The deadline is 31 July. More details
18th July 2025
National Poetry Competition is open for entries
The 2025 National Poetry Competition, run by the Poetry Society, is open for entries. This year’s judges are Denise Saul, Ian Duhig and Susannah Dickey. The first prize is £5,000. The entry fee is £8 ...
21st June 2025
Mike Jenkins to judge Welsh poetry competition
Mike Jenkins will be judging the £500 Welsh poetry competition. The deadline is 29 June. More details
6th June 2025
Helen Mort to judge £1,000 Rialto Nature and Place competition
Helen Mort will be judging the 2025 Rialto Nature and Place poetry competition. First prize is £1,000, and the deadline is 1 April 2025. More details
2nd February 2025
Rory Waterman to judge £600 Ver Poets competition
Rory Waterman will be judging the £600 Ver Poets competition. The deadline is 30 April. More details
2nd February 2025
Dancing in the street? You might be if you win this Motown poetry competition
Clevedon LitFest is now open for submissions for its Motorcitysixty poetry competition, which marks the 60th anniversary of the first Motown Revue tour outside the US in 1965.
Entrants worldwide, a...
2nd February 2025
Deadline nears for £1,000 Kent & Sussex Poetry Society competition
Kit Fan will be judging the £1,000 Kent & Sussex Poetry Society open poetry competition. The deadline is 31 January 2025. More details
29th January 2025
Chris Hardy to judge South Downs Binsted prize
Chris Hardy will be judging the £250 South Downs Poetry Festival’s Binsted prize. Poems must be previously unpublished and not exceed 40 lines. The deadline is 31 March. More details
16th January 2025
Poems on exile sought to mark Byron bicentenary
The £1,000 Keats-Shelley prizes for essays and poems have opened for entries. The theme for this year’s prizes is ‘Exile’, to mark the bicentenary of Byron’s death.
Entrants to the Keats-Shelley p...
1st January 2025
