The Free Verse Prize is back! Running alongside Free Verse: the Poetry Book and Magazine Fair the competition invites people to submit new poems on any theme with the chance for the winning poem to feature at one of the key events of the poetry calendar. The competition closes midnight 7 March.
This year’s competition is judged by Ali Lewis. The winner will receive £500, plus publication in Poetry News. The winning poem will also be printed in the official 2025 Free Verse programme, distributed to all attendees and publishers at the Fair.
Ali Lewis is a writer and editor. He received an Eric Gregory Award for his pamphlet, Hotel (Verve, 2020), and his poems and short stories have appeared in the London Magazine, the TLS, Poetry Review and the New Statesman, as well as in Poetry London, where he was Associate Editor. He frequently collaborates with composers and settings of his work have featured on Radio Three and Radio France Musique. He holds a PhD from Durham University. His first collection, Absence, is published by Cheerio.
Free Verse Prize Guidelines:
- The competition opens 8 January 2025 and the deadline for entries is midnight on 7 March 2025.
- Poems should be a maximum of 40 lines, including title and blank lines / stanza breaks. (This is to ensure the winning poem fits on the Free Verse programme)
- Poems may be on any theme. They must be the entrant’s original work, and should be previously unpublished. Entries must be written in English.
- You may submit up to eight poems. All poems should be in the same document, on separate pages. Please do not include your name anywhere on the poem document.
- Entries cost £5 for the first poem, and £4 for all subsequent poems.
- Poets may be based anywhere in the world. There is no age limit, but the competition is aimed at adult writers.
- Postal entries are not accepted. All entries must be via The Poetry Society’s Submittable.
- No current employee or Trustee of The Poetry Society is eligible to enter.
- The copyright of each poem remains with the author. However, the author of the winning poem, by entering the competition, grants The Poetry Society the right in perpetuity to publish and/or broadcast their poem. Use of the poems elsewhere for six months after 26 April 2025 is subject to permission from The Poetry Society.
Good luck to all entrants!
