Applications are open for Winchester Poetry Prize 2021. Entrants do not need to be residents in the UK to enter, but please note, travel expenses to read at the prize-giving in Winchester are not covered. The decision of the judge is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Winchester Poetry Festival Trustees, employees or associates, or members of their families, may not enter.

The winners of Winchester Poetry Prize will be contacted by email or post by mid-September 2021 and the result will be announced on Saturday 9 October 2021. Your entry into the competition indicates acceptance of these rules.

Prizes

Winchester Poetry Prize has the following prizes

• First Prize: £1,000
• Second Prize: £500
• Third Prize: £250

Rules

• The competition is open to anyone aged 16 or over
• Entries may be submitted via email or by post
• Poems may be on any subject and in any form or style
• They must be typed and not longer than 40 lines (excluding title)
• Poems should be in English, must be the entrant’s own work and should not have been published or accepted for publication elsewhere (including online), should not have won another poetry competition or be the translated work of another poet.
• Entry fee: £5 for first poem, £4 for subsequent poems in a single submission.
• 10 free entries are available for poets to whom an entry fee would be a barrier. [Thanks to the 2020 winner Lewis Buxton who is supporting this initiative]
  Closing date: midnight on 31 July 2021. Entries received after this time will not be considered.
  All poems are judged anonymously and should not bear your name, or any other form of identification.
  The judge will read all qualifying entries.
  No person may win more than one prize, though more than one poem may feature in the list of Commended and Highly Commended poems.
  No changes can be made to a poem once it has been submitted.

Download an entry form here