There are just under four weeks left to enter the internationally renowned Foyle young poets of the year award, which celebrates some of the most talented young wordsmiths across the globe.
Now in its 18th year, the prize is increasingly coming to represent an early career landmark for many rising poetry stars of both page and stage. Past winners include Faber New Poet Annie Katchinska and Amy Blakemore, winner of the 2014 Melita Hume Poetry Prize. More recently 17-year-old Isla Anderson, a prizewinner in the 2014 competition, has gone on to win the acclaimed Christopher Tower poetry prize, judged by Ian McMillan, Peter McDonald, and yet another former Foyle poet, Helen Mort.
Foyle young poets continue to make their mark on the poetry landscape, with former winners going on to enjoy poetry adventures with the Southbank Centre, the Ledbury Poetry Festival, the BBC Proms and World Book Night.
100 winners of the 2015 awards will be announced at an awards ceremony at Royal Festival Hall in October. All will receive prizes, including one year’s youth membership of the Poetry Society.
Fifteen overall winners aged 14 – 17 years-old will have the opportunity to take part in a week-long Arvon creative writing retreat led by competition judges Liz Berry and Michael Symmons Roberts. The top 15 poems will also be published in an anthology which goes out to more than 24,000 people across the world!
You can go here to get a flavour of winning entries from past Foyle Young Poets, now collected in the anthology How to Swim and Stay in Place, and check out the Young Poets Network to find inspiration and tips for writing your own poems.
Teachers can go here to download a class set entry form and gain access to lesson plans and other poetry resources for pupils.
How to enter
The competition is free to enter. Poems must be written in English, but otherwise you can submit poems of any theme and length. Read the full rules and enter online here. The closing date for submissions is midnight GMT on the 31 July 2015.
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