“Wales Poetry Award, a national competition to discover the very best international contemporary poetry.”
After 56 years of publishing contemporary poetry in 200 issues (and counting) of its magazine, Poetry Wales hosts its third year of Wales Poetry Award, a national competition to discover the very best international contemporary poetry. Wales Poetry Award is open to single poem entries from new and established poets from Wales and beyond, with 3 awards and 10 highly commended prizes to be won.
An entry fee of £5 applies for each poem submitted and you may submit up to 5 poems. This competition is free to enter for writers of low-income backgrounds residing in the UK, from households earning £16k or less per year.*
To submit your entry, read our rules, then use the buttons below to pay your entry fee and upload your entry.
Scroll down to find our online entry forms.
To submit by post, download our postal form:
The year’s competition will be judged by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch whose work has been shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award (2014), the Roland Mathias Prize (2013) and Wales Book of the Year (2009) and highly commended in the Forward Prizes in 2009 and 2013. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, the Financial Times and been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. In 2012 she won a Leverhulme Writer in Residence Award and in 2015 an Arts Council Creative Wales Award. Samantha is currently studying French at the Sorbonne and in her spare time rewilding a field on a cliff edge in west Wales.
Rules
- Wales Poetry Award opens for entries 1 July 2021 and closes 26 November 2021 at 9pm (British Standard Time). Any entries received after this time will not be considered.
- Wales Poetry Award is open to poets worldwide aged 17 or over at the time of submission.
- Poems should be submitted primarily in English, with a key or footnotes for any words translated.
- You may submit up to 5 poems online at poetrywales.co.uk/award or via post.
- Unless visual effects/font variations are part of a poem’s composition, entries should be typed, single-spaced, in 12pt Arial font and printed in black ink.
- All entries must be accompanied with an entry form.
- Entries will not be returned so please keep a copy for your own records.
- Poems may not be edited once they have been submitted.
- Poems must not exceed 70 lines (excluding title).
- Each poem must be sent as a separate .doc or .docx document.
- If a poem exceeds one page, please number the pages with the title printed on each page.
- Your name must not be visible on entries as poems are judged anonymously.
- Poems will be judged on quality, style and poetic impact.
- Prizes may not be awarded if we do not receive a minimum number of entries.
- A submission fee of £5 must accompany every poem submitted, with the exception of those entitled free entry.
- *Entries are free for UK residents of low-income backgrounds, from households earning £16,000 or less per year. There is no need to declare or prove your income threshold.
- Simultaneous submissions are not permitted.
- Poems may not have been previously published.
- Poems submitted must be entirely your own work.
- Entry fees may be paid online using the links below or via post using our postal form.
- By entering Wales Poetry Award, authors of shortlisted, winning and highly commended poems grant Poetry Wales the unrestricted rights in perpetuity to publish and broadcast their poem in print, online, audio, performance and video. Winning poems may not be published elsewhere until March 2023.
- Your contact details will be used to inform you about the status of your entry and about current and future rounds of Wales Poetry Award.
- Poetry Wales reserves the right to disqualify entries for any reason.
- Shortlisted poets will be notified of their shortlist status by the end of March 2022.
- The winner is entitled to a residential course at Literature Wales’ Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre of their choice or a 4-night stay at their Nant Writers’ Retreat Cottage in 2022 subject to availability, and not including courses that are awarded through a competitive application process. Prize cannot be exchanged for a monetary prize.
- Entrants must be contactable via email or phone.
Awards
1st Award Winner
£500 & a place on a residential course of your choice at Literature Wales’ Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in 2021
Seren Book Bundle
Publication in Poetry Wales
2nd Award Winner
£100
Seren Book Bundle
Publication in Poetry Wales
3rd Award Winner
£50
Seren Book Bundle
Publication in Poetry Wales
and 10 Highly Commended Prizes
How to enter
If you are eligible for free entry, please bypass the payment portion of the entry process and skip to submitting your entries. For all other entries:
If you are submitting via email or Google form, please first pay your entry fee by clicking the ‘Pay entry fee for Google or email entries’ button, then submit your individual poems by clicking ‘Submit paid and free entries via Google Form’. Please upload each poem as a separate document and entry.
If you are submitting via Submittable, our entry fee is included when you submit a poem. Submittable will ask for a £5 fee per entry. Please upload each poem as a separate document and entry.
If your upload is rejected through our forms, please email info@poetrywales.co.uk with the subject line WALES POETRY AWARD 2021 by 9pm 26 November 2021 with YOUR PEN NAME; YOUR ADDRESS; YOUR PHONE NUMBER and YOUR SUBMISSION TITLE and we will follow up about any other details as required. Include your poem entry as an individual .doc or .docx attachment only. Do NOT paste your poem into the email. Do NOT place multiple poems in one document. You may include multiple individual attachments, but ensure each poem is correctly titled to avoid confusion. By submitting an entry via email, you accept our rules, terms and conditions.