Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2009

The competition is now open for entries!

Enter online  or  Download an entry form

Find your voice

The Poetry Society has made a viral film to advertise their poetry competition for young people, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. The Poetry Society is one hundred years old this year, and this is our first viral!

CREDITS
Creative: Tori Flower
Camera: Richard Wood
Illustration: Nick Hayes
Sound: Warwickshire School of Arts

Judges 2009

Lemn Sissay

Lemn Sissay is the author of four poetry collections and his poems have appeared in many anthologies. 

He is also an editor, writer of stage plays, creator of a television series on jazz and presenter of the 2004 National Poetry Slam and The New Brit for the BBC.

His work has appeared in some unusual places including the streets in Manchester as public art, the short film The Elevator, featuring Gary Lewis, and on various albums including Leftism by Leftfield. According to the Independent on Sunday: ‘His poems are the songs of the street, declamatory, imaginative, hard-hitting ...’
 

Selima Hill

Poet Selima Hill was born in  London in 1945, and grew up in rural England and Wales. She read Moral Sciences at New Hall, Cambridge.

She regularly collaborates with artists and has worked on multimedia projects with the Royal Ballet, Welsh National Opera and BBC Bristol. She is a tutor at the Poetry School in London, and has taught creative writing in hospitals and prisons.

Her 1997 collection, Violet, was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award. Her book of poetry, Bunny (2001), a series of poems about a young girl growing up in the 1950s, won the Whitbread Poetry Award.

Her most recent books, The Hat and Selected poems: Gloria, were published last year.

Rules

FYP is about what you want to write. So you can enter poems written in class, or poems you've written at home, from exercises or from your own imaginings!

You can enter poems on any theme, and of any length, and in any shape you like. Entry is completely free and you can enter as many poems as you like.

You'll need to be aged 11-17 on or before the closing date in order to enter.

The competition closes on the 31st July 2009.

Prizes

  • Fifteen overall winners aged 11-17, including up to three international winners, will have their poems printed in the winners' anthology
  • Five 11-14 year olds will win a short residency to their school by a leading poet
  • Fifteen 15-17 year old winners will attend a week-long residential course at one of the prestigious Arvon Centres.
  • All 100 winners will receive a copy of the current issue of  Young Writer magazine
  • Overall winners aged 11-14 will win a year's subscription to Young Writer magazine
  • The three schools who inspire the most entries will receive a special selection of books from  Faber & Faber, Bloodaxe Books and Salt Publishing for their libraries

All of the one hundred winners are invited to the prize-giving ceremony, and win prizes including books published by Faber & Faber, Bloodaxe Books, Salt Publishing, and new for 2009, tall-lighthouse, posters and one year's Youth Membership.

Previous winners have gone on to be published in books and anthologies from Carcanet and tall-lighthouse, as well as magazines such as Acumen and on the Poems on the Underground project. You can also catch some of the winners reading at festivals across the UK, such as the Torbay Festival.

Teachers

Teachers may enter many pupils' work at once with our postal Class Set Entry Form. Remember: the four schools to enter the most poems will receive a free library set of poetry books.


Launch

This year's competition started with a bang at the launch party at the Sage Gateshead on 3rd March with readings from poet W N Herbert and previous Foyle winners Caroline Bird and Richard O'Brien. Everyone is hugely excited as submission of entries commences.

Press Release
 

Young Poet Pages

Don't forget that we are always gathering poems, reviews and interviews for our Youth Members'  Poetry Pages. The second issue is available now, called Our Daily Bread, edited by former Foyle Young Poet of the Year, Richard O'Brien.

Remember, you'll need to be a youth member to submit to the youth pages (but not to submit to FYP!)

Other Young People's Competitions

Over 17 years old? Don't despair you can still discover your potential with the National Poetry Competition 2009.

Would you like the opportunity to win £500 worth of Walker Books for your school AND have your poem featured in The Children's Trust book of favourite poems? Click here for more details.

If you live in the Barnet area, another competition you may be interested in is the Barnet Open Poetry Competition.

History

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2008
You envied the Stars Their Height, the anthology containing poems from 2008's top fifteen winners is now available. Please contact us for more details.

Click here to see 2008's winning top 15 poems and a list of commended winners.

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2007 
The Wouldbegoods featured poems from 2007's top fifteen winners. You can also listen to some of the poems in our Audio Archives


Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2006
Radio Seventeen, featured poems by the fifteen top winners and three international winners.

Radio Seventeen

Radio Seventeen Image © istockphoto/Kamruzzaman Ratan

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2005
Featuring poems by the fifteen winners in the anthology When the Thunder Woke Me

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2004
Featuring poems by the fifteen winners in the anthology And The Air Sang

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2003
Featuring poems by the fifteen winners in the anthology Passport Pictures

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2002
Featuring poems by the fifteen winners in the anthology The floor would tremble if your feet could touch it..

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2001
Featuring poems by the fifteen winners in the anthology New Life.

Simon Elvin Young Poets of the Year Award 2000
Featuring poems by the fifteen winners in the anthology Fairy Tale Matches.

Simon Elvin Young Poets of the Year Award 1999
Featuring poems by the fifteen winners in the anthology Hypothesis.

Simon Elvin Young Poets of the Year Award 1998
Featuring poems by the thirteen overall winners in the anthology The Small Plastic Things in Life.

FYP logo designed by Siavash Pournouri