‘Hermit Crab in a Doll’s Head’ by Poetry Society Member Cindy Botha is the winner of this year’s Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition judged by Pascale Petit. Fellow Society Members Jo Peters and Jemma Borg were Highly Commended. Cindy Botha began writing poetry in late 2017 as a relief from being sole-carer for her […]

Culture Matters, sponsored by Unite, have awarded Bread and Roses Poetry Awards to Poetry Society Members Jenny Mitchell and Antony Owen. There’s a prize of £100 each and an anthology of the poems of around a further 20 entrants will be published later in the year. The judges, Andy Croft of Smokestack Books and Mary […]

Poetry Society Member Vic Pickup is the winner of Hedgehog Press’s second annual Cupid’s Arrow Love Poetry Competition for her poem ‘Him, building me a bookcase.’ As well as being a poet, Vic is a writer and reviewer based in Hampshire. Her writing has found its way into anthologies, magazines and webzines, earned her top […]

Poetry Society Members finished first, second and third in this year’s Segora Poetry Competition, judged by Martyn Crucefix. Jenny Mitchell was awarded first prize for ‘Encountering a Slave Girl Held’. Jenny was joint winner of the Geoff Stevens’ Memorial Poetry Prize 2019, and winner of the Fosseway Poetry Competition 2020. Her debut collection is Her […]

CONGRATULATIONS to Poetry Society Members Pat Winslow and S Niroshini, second and third in this year’s Poetry London Prize, judged by Ilya Kaminsky. The winner is Eleanor Penny, who has won multiple prizes with The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network. Pat won second prize for her poem ‘1971, Northaw’. She was the winner of The […]

CONGRATULATIONS to Poetry Society Member Sheila Aldous, winner of the 2020 Welsh Poetry Competition, judged by Sally Spedding. Sheila had two other poems Highly Commended too! Sheila is a North London girl with Devon in her soul. Living on the banks of the River Teign she is inspired by life generally, but also the natural […]

Poetry Society Member Tim Kiely is the co-winner of this year’s Indigo First Pamphlet Competition, alongside Lauren Colley. Tim is a criminal barrister and poet living in London. His work has appeared in South Bank Poetry, Lunar Poetry, The Morning Star, Spontaneous Poetics, and Ink, Sweat & Tears, as well as the Emma Press anthology […]

Poetry Society Member Lawrence Illsley has been chosen by Glyn Maxwell as one of three winners of the 2020 Live Canon Collection Competition and will be offered publication. Lawrence’s collection A Brief History of Trees was described as: “brilliantly arboreal in both form and matter, a psychologically acute odyssey through grief and history, with its […]

The 2020 Frogmore Poetry Prize has been awarded to Ron Scowcroft for his poem ‘Greylags in Fog’. He receives two hundred and fifty guineas and a two-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers. The judge this year was Maria Jastrzębska. Poetry Society Member Simon Maddrell was first runner-up for his poem ‘The Snow Leopard Bites Its […]

Ellora Sutton (left), winner of the Artlyst Art to Poetry Award adult prize and Elsie Hayward (right), winner of the youth prize Ellora Sutton and Elsie Hayward have been announced as the inaugural winners of the Artlyst Art to Poetry Award, a new international ekphrastic poetry competition, run by Artlyst in association with The Poetry […]

Poetry Society Member Tina Cole has won this year’s Yaffle Prize, winning £200 for ‘Nothing but the strength of names’. Here are the opening lines… Tina was born in the Black Country and now lives in rural Herefordshire. She likes to write about people and relationships good or bad. Her collection – I Almost Knew […]

Poetry Society Member Michael Grieve is on a shortlist of seven for the biennial £20,000 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, given by the Edwin Morgan Trust and judged by Kathleen Jamie and John Glenday. Michael lives in Fife where he works as a bookseller. He is a graduate of the Universities of St Andrews and Cambridge, […]

All five recipients of this year’s Northern Writers’ Awards for Poetry are Poetry Society Members: Fokkina McDonnell, Polly Atkin, Suzannah V Evans, Jennifer Lee Tsai and Hannah Hodgson. Established in 2000 by New Writing North, the Northern Writers’ Awards supports work-in-progress by new, emerging and established writers across the North of England. The Awards support […]

Moyra Donaldson and Naomi Foyle have chosen Poetry Society Member Alan Weadick as the winner of the fourth Mairtín Crawford Poetry Award. Alan receives £1,000 and a 3-night stay at the wonderful writing and reading retreat ‘The River Mill’. The award, organised by the Belfast Book Festival, is aimed at writers working towards their first […]

Glyn Maxwell has selected his winners of this year’s Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition. First prize goes to ‘Curling’ by Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan is the Editor of Poetry Wales and runs poetry feedback sessions – Poetry Surgeries – on behalf of The Poetry Society and you can book online sessions with him now. Second prize […]