Young Poets Competition
Rap, hip-hop or Shakespeare – it’s all poetry and here’s a chance for young poets aged 16-22 to show off their word skills. Enter as many as three poems in the Young Poets Competition for a fee of £3 per poem. There is a top prize of £200, with second and third prizes of £150 and £100. Winners receive a year’s membership to The Poetry Society. Competitions open on 1 April and close on 30 June.

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.
Competitions open 1 April 2025
Competitions open 1 April and close at midnight on 30 June 2025.
The Prize Giving and Poetry Reading will take place on Monday 20 October starting at 2pm as part of the Festival.
Please read the rules and terms and conditions before submitting your entry.