Closing Date – 30th April 2026
First Prize: £100, Second Prize: £50, Third Prize: £25
Catherine Fenerty Humour Prize: £25 (Put H in top left of page)
Guest Judge – Kemal Houghton
Kemal Houghton is Chair of the Wirral Poetry Festival and was a Finalist in the Liverpool City Region’s Borough of Culture ‘Star of the Year’ in 2024. He is a co-presenter at First Thursday, Heswall’s long standing poetry group and has chaired the Chester Poets for many years. He has run numerous workshops for people of all ages and abilities and presented “Poetry Roundup” on the community station Vintage Radio for 10 years.
He has a diverse body of work that has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines.
His poem Northwich: Four Bare Miles was shortlisted for the 2020 Cheshire Award for Literature and was published in their anthology Unlocked. His pamphlet There Will Be Dancing is available on Red Squirrel Press. Other poems have appeared in Chester Poets’ Anthologies since 1981, Purrfect Poems Dream Well Writing (2020), Coed Cybi Poets Publishing (2021), Poetry Scotland, Poetry Cornwall, The Jabberwocky Green Book, and on-line in Three Drops of the Cauldron.
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- Must be the original, unpublished work of the entrant (previous publication includes via internet or independent press).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 30/04/26. 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.
- Refunds for any breach of these rules are discretionary.
- 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