Closing Date EXTENDED – 30th April 2024 31st May 2025
First Prize: £150, Second Prize: £75, Third Prize: £25
Catherine Fenerty Humour Prize: £25 (Put H in top left of page)
Guest Judge – Eleanor Rees (Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Liverpool Hope University)
Eleanor’s most recent publication is Portents and Portals: New & Selected Poems which gathers together a body of work spanning three decades, five collections and several pamphlets, along with a new sequence Five Breaths. It follows Tam Lin of the Winter Park (Guillemot, 2022),The Well at Winter Solstice (Salt, 2019), Blood Child (Pavilion, 2015), Eliza and the Bear (Salt, 2009), and Andraste’s Hair (Salt, 2007), which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Selections of her poems have been translated into Lithuanian, Slovak, French, German, Romanian and Spanish (Versopolis, 2016, 2019, 2024). Eleanor is the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and a Northern Writers’ Award, and holds a PhD ‘Making Connections: The Work of the Local Poet’ from University of Exeter.
Entry fee is £3 per poem or four poems for £10 (online rate varies due to handling fees).
RULES: Please read carefully
- A maximum of 40 lines per poem is allowed.
- No correspondence will be entered into regarding receipt of individual entries or payments.
- Poem submissions should bear no identification of the poet – Make sure details are separate.
- Must be the original, unpublished work of the entrant (previous publication includes via internet or independent press).
- Humour entries should be marked with an ‘H’ in the top left of the page. Humour entrants are not disqualified from also winning main prizes.
- Please enclose a separate sheet with your full contact details (address, email, phone number) and list of titles submitted. For online entries, this contact information should be put in the body of the email.
- All entries must be typed (on A4 paper for postal entries) in English (dialects allowable).
- If your work is published in any form after entry, please let us know. In some cases this may disqualify your entry and entitle you to a refund of your entry fee.
- For online entries, please include PayPal ref. number in body of email OR put the poem(s) names in the comments (information) box when paying.
- Please use basic formatting in any of .doc, .docx, rich text (.rtf) or .odf file types when attaching your file to the email. Any .pdfs, .pages, sidebars, headers, footers or unusual layouts may result in your electronic entry being rejected without notice.
- Do not paste your entries in the body of an email.
- The closing date for entries will be at midnight on the 31/05/25. Winners will be informed approx. June, general availability of results thereafter. There may be a delay publishing results and/or winning poems depending on circumstances and permissions.
- Any correspondence deemed to be an attempt to circumvent the judging process may cause your entry to be withdrawn. Any excessive representations may cause disqualification.
- Please keep a copy of your poem(s) as manuscripts will not be returned.
- Please do not contact us regarding bounced payments unless you are certain Paypal is not functional.
- The organiser’s/adjudicator’s decisions are final.
- Results will be available on this website following the Awards Evening.
- No application form is required.
For postal entries, Cheques/Postal orders should be in sterling and payable to: SOUTHPORT WRITERS’ CIRCLE.
Postal entry envelopes should be sent to:-
SWC Poetry Competition
5 Carrwood Park
Southport,
Merseyside,
PR8 5FA
Please DO NOT send entries by signed-for delivery or send any other material such as return/receipt postcards as these will be disregarded/destroyed.
Online entries CLICK HERE