Ware Poets Competition
Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition
Open now until June 30th
Welcome. We’re delighted to announce the 26th annual Ware Poets competition, open to all. Since 1998 we have been committed to offering poets an opportunity for your way with words to resonate with our judge and win a prize. The competition also offers the chance for your work to reach a wider public by being featured in our anthology, which includes all winning and commended poems. Each year, our judge provides an expert assessment and offers critical feedback in an introduction to the anthology.
The competition has become well known and well regarded. It has attracted judges with a high profile in the poetry world, and poems from poets both established and previously unknown have been included in the anthologies. Entries are received from throughout the United Kingdom and abroad. Winning poems are entered for the Forward Prize.
Some copies of previous competition anthologies are still available: please contact the competition secretary for details.
Prizes
1st prize £600
2nd prize £300
3rd prize £150
plus The Ware Sonnet Prize of £150 awarded for the best sonnet submitted
2024 Adjudicator
Our adjudicator for the 2024 competition is Paul Stephenson.
Paul is himself a regular prizewinner in competitions. He has published three pamphlets: Those People (Smith/Doorstop, 2015), which won the Poetry Business pamphlet competition; The Days that Followed Paris (HappenStance, 2016), written after the November 2015 terrorist attacks; and Selfie with Waterlilies (Paper Swans Press, 2017). His debut full collection Hard Drive was published by Carcanet in June 2023. In 2013/14 he took part in the Jerwood/Arvon mentoring scheme and the Aldeburgh Eight, before completing an MA in Creative Writing with the Manchester Writing School.
He currently helps curate Poetry in Aldeburgh. He is a university teacher and researcher, and lives between Cambridge and Brussels.
Previous judges
Sophie Hannah
Ken Smith
Anne-Marie Fyfe
Michael Laskey
Mimi Khalvati
Martyn Crucefix
Judi Benson
George Szirtes
Tamar Yoseloff
John Mole
Pat Borthwick
Robert Seatter
Carole Satyamurti
Dean Parkin
Susan Utting
Roddy Lumsden
Carrie Etter
Philip Gross
Hannah Lowe
John Greening
Maggie Butt
Glyn Maxwell
Kim Moore
Jonathan Edwards
Greta Stoddart