Young Poets Competition
Young poets aged 16-22 flexed their word skills with exciting and varied entries in this year’s competition.
A top prize of £200 goes to the winner, with second and third prizes of £150 £100.
All the winners receive a year’s membership to The Poetry Society.
We are delighted to announce the 2025 Young Poets Shortlist
2084 (Tick Tock) – Gabriella Adams
A Field Guide to Focus – Benjamin Foxcroft
An Ode to Mosh Pits – William G Marshall
first hunt – Freya Beer
Funeral Cake – Rose Schierig
Girls’ Holiday Nearly – Madeleine Oliver
He gets away with it – Freya Beer
Insatiable – Mitra Javadpour
In which dying Hector speaks to Achille – Freya Beer
On reading that the world has 3yrs to cap global warming
at 1.5C – Dawn Sands
Outside the Club – Freddie Machin
Puzzled us For Our Lives – William G Marshall
Someday My Prince Will Break Me – Piper Laksari
The Death of Antinous – James Mulihill
Tiger Tiger – Ariel Zhang
Twelve Pounds a Dream – Benjamin Foxcroft
Prize Giving and Poetry Reading take place on Monday 20 October starting at 2pm as part of the Festival.
Tickets to this event are free but seats can be reserved through Cedars Hall.
Young Poets Judge 2025
Sanah Ahsan
Sanah is a writer, liberation psychologist and educator. Her work has been awarded the Out-Spoken Performance Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, the White Review Poet’s Prize and the Bridport Prize. Sanah has also been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition and Frontier Poetry Prize.