2023 Open Poetry Competition
First Prize £1000! Second and third prizes – £500 and £250 respectively. Plus £100 for a local poet.
To be judged by William Sieghart, founder of the Forward Prizes, the UK’s biggest poetry prizes. William also instigated National Poetry Day which is now celebrated in the UK every October.
Last year William joined our anniversary Festival prescribing the audience with poetry to heal all ills. He has spent most of his adult life promoting poetry and its beneficial powers and has been dispensing poetry prescriptions since his Poetry Pharmacy began in 2014. As someone who has listened to thousands of problems and prescribed poetic remedies for all of them, he will make an excellent judge for this year’s Open Poetry. His many books include The Poetry Pharmacy and The Poetry Pharmacy Returns as well as 100 Prized Poems – twenty five years of the Forward Books.
Make a note: Competitions open on 1 April, and close at midnight on 30 June 2023.
Prize Giving and Poetry Reading takes place on Monday 30 October 2023 as part of the Festival.
Competitions Archive
Winners of our previous Competitions