With just over a week to 2023 Troubadour International Poetry Prize closing date, here are some details for those poets who might be interested.
Poems on any subject by Sunday 10th December.
Prizes of £2,000, £1,000 & £500, plus 20 commendeds, & a chance to read online alongside judges Mona Arshi & Tom Sleigh, & fellow prize winners, at the fabulous Bedford Park Festival 'Yeats Birthday' event in Chiswick in June '24...
...which will be a superb poetry evening with drinks on the lawn beforehand & your chance to catch up with the poetry world (online too for anyone who can't make the event). Proceeds from this year's prize submissions go towards completing the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork project... which has created the dazzlingly Yeatsian artwork & unique Yeats/Bedford-Park smartphone tour that you can see/experience on prizegiving evening, if you've not already done so.
troubadour international poetry prize 2023
(supporting WB Yeats Bedford Park Project, Reg. Charity 1172224)
judged by mona arshi & tom sleigh
- first prize £2,000
- second prize £1,000
- third prize £500
- plus 20 commendeds
- plus – winners & commendeds will be invited to read with judges (live & online) at the Bedford Park Festival ‘Yeats Birthday’ poetry event in June 2024.
poems on any subject
submit via email by sun 10 dec 2023
results announced wed 28 feb 2024
submission rules & payment options on www.coffeehousepoetry.org/prizes
(Check out winners, winning poems & judges’ reports, 2022 & prior, on our previous-winners’-poems page.)
Judges:
- Mona Arshi worked as a Human Rights lawyer at Liberty before starting to write poetry: her collection, Small Hands, won the 2015 Forward Prize, her poems have featured in Poems on the Underground, was recently commissioned to write a programme on The Odyssey for BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week & she is Visiting Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge. Her latest poetry collection Dear Big Gods (Pavilion Poetry, 2019), was followed by her debut novel, Somebody Loves You, in 2021.
- Tom Sleigh’s ten poetry collections include House of Fact, House of Ruin, Station Zed &, just published, The King’s Touch (Graywolf, Feb 2022): he is the author of the essay collections The Land between Two Rivers & Interview with a Ghost. A Distinguished Professor in the MFA Program at Hunter College (City University of New York), Tom lives in Brooklyn, & during the last ten years, has also worked as a journalist in Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Kenya, Iraq, & Libya.
judges read all poems submitted
rules
- Poems: Poems may be submitted from any country, may be on any theme, & must be in English, must each be no longer than 45 lines, must show title & poem only, must not show poet’s name, must be the original work of the entrant (no translations) & must not have been previously published; no text alterations accepted after submission; no limit on number of poems or number of subsequent submissions.
- Submission: Email only, no postal entries: email your poems as attachments (.doc, .docx, .pdf, .rtf only) to poems@coffeehousepoetry.org ; include in email: Poet’s Name & Address, Phone Number, List of Titles, Number of Poems, Total Fees, & PayPal Receipt Number.
- Fees: £6/€7/$8 per poem (Sterling/Euro/US-Dollars only); pay online (see below, PayPal account not required).
- Timeline: Submit by midnight (your local time) on Sun 10 Dec 2023; prize-winners will be contacted in week commencing Mon 19 Feb 2024.
- Acknowledgement/Results: Submissions acknowledged within 14 days of receipt; results posted on website after Mon 28 Feb 2024; judges’ decision is final; no correspondence entered into.
- Email Address: By including email address you agree to receiving emails regarding annual Troubadour International Poetry Prize.
All proceeds from this year’s poetry prize go to ongoing development at the recently unveiled/launched Yeats #EnwroughtLight artwork & visitor experience (details here) celebrating Yeats’s Nobel-Prize Centenary 1923-2023: closing date for submissions is Sunday 10th December, the date on which Yeats received his Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm!
