PRESS RELEASE For immediate release 8 June 2017

The National Poetry Competition 2017 is now open for entries

Total prize money £9400. Deadline 31 October 2017.

Above: Artwork by Jonathan Burton

Left: The judges from L-R: Andrew McMillan © Urszula Soltys, Hannah Lowe © Hayley Madden and © Kitty Sullivan

The National Poetry Competition 2017 has now been launched and is open for entries. The judges are Andrew McMillan, Hannah Lowe and Pascale Petit.

One of the biggest and most prestigious single poem competitions in the world, the National Poetry Competition attracts around 13,000 entries each year, from all around the UK and beyond. Judged anonymously, the competition puts established and emerging writers on a level playing field.

Winning the competition has been an important milestone in the careers of some of today’s leading poets such as the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, , Philip Gross, Colette Bryce, Helen Dunmore, Tony Harrison and Jo Shapcott.

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For further information The Poetry Society Page 1 of 4 Contact Oliver Fox 22 Betterton Street, WC2H 9BX Tel: 020 7420 9886 Tel: 020 7420 9880 Fax: 020 7240 4818 Email: [email protected] www.poetrysociety.org.uk PRESS RELEASE ctd

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The total prize money available is £9400. First prize is £5000, second £2000, third £1000 and seven commended writers win £200 each. As part of the prize, all the winning poems are published in an anthology and the top three appear in The Poetry Society’s internationally acclaimed quarterlyThe Poetry Review. All the winners are also invited to read at festivals and events around the country.

Stephen Sexton won last year’s competition with his poem ‘The Curfew’. He explained how important the competition was in making him feel heard and understood:

“It’s an outrageous honour to have this poem recognised by the judges and perhaps the most exciting thing for me is the plain old fundamental feeling of being understood. Even if I’m not sure what is lingering behind the poem, there is pure joy in thinking that whatever is being transmitted arrived at its destination intact.”

This year we have also launched the Peggy Poole Award, a new programme running alongside the National Poetry Competition, helping emerging writers in the North West of England develop their craft by giving them the chance to win a year of mentoring from a leading poet. The Peggy Poole Award has been founded in memory of the poet and broadcaster Peggy Poole, who died in 2016 aged 91. It is made possible thanks to the generosity of Peggy’s extended family and many friends. The first poet mentor, who will also choose this year’s award winner, will be Deryn Rees-Jones.

The closing date for the National Poetry Competition is 31 October 2017 and the winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Spring 2018.

TO ENTER Enter online at poetrysociety.org.uk/npc Request an entry form by writing with an SAE to: Closing date: NPC (Press) 31 October 2017 22 Betterton Street London WC2H 9BX

For younger writers aged11-17, The Poetry Society also runs the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, which is currently open for entries up until the deadline 31 July 2017. For more information, visit www.poetrysociety.org.uk/fyp.

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For further information and/or to interview judges Andrew McMillan, Hannah Lowe or Pascale Petit, or last year’s winner Stephen Sexton, please contact Oliver Fox: Tel: 020 7420 9886 Email: [email protected]

Notes to Editors National Poetry Competition 2017 Judges Andrew McMillan was born in South Yorkshire in 1988. His debut collection physical (Jonathan Cape, 2015) won First Book Award (2015), the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize (2015), an Eric Gregory Award (2016), a Somerset Maugham Award (2016) and a Northern Writers Award (2014). Shortlistings included The Dylan Thomas Prize, The Costa Poetry Award and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. He lectures in Creative Writing at LJMU and lives in Manchester.

Hannah Lowe’s first poetry collection Chick (Bloodaxe, 2013) won the Michael Murphy Memorial Award for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the Forward, Aldeburgh and Best First Collection Prizes. In September 2014, she was named as one of 20 Next Generation poets. She has also published three chapbooks, and a memoir Long Time No See (Periscope, 2015), which featured as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Her latest poetry collection is Chan (Bloodaxe, 2016). She is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Brunel University. Continues over

For further information The Poetry Society Page 2 of 4 Contact Oliver Fox 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX Tel: 020 7420 9886 Tel: 020 7420 9880 Fax: 020 7240 4818 Email: [email protected] www.poetrysociety.org.uk PRESS RELEASE ctd

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Pascale Petit was born in and lives in Cornwall. Her seventh collection, Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe, 2017) is a Poetry Book Society Choice. Her sixth, Fauverie (Seren, 2014), was her fourth to be shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and five poems from it won the 2013 Manchester Poetry Prize. Pascale was one of the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation poets in 2004 and has had three collections selected as Books of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement, Independent and Observer. Her books have been translated into Spanish (in Mexico), Chinese, French and Serbian. In 2015 she received a Cholmondeley Award.

The National Poetry Competition Established in 1978, the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition is one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious poetry contests. The prize currently recognises three winners and seven commendations annually. Winners include both established and emerging poets, and for many the prize has proved an important career milestone. Previous first prize winners:

2016: Stephen Sexton, ‘The Curfew’ 2015: Eric Berlin, ‘Night Errand’ 2014: Roger Philip Dennis, ‘Corkscrew Hill Photo’ 2013: Linda , ‘Bernard and Cerinthe’ 2012: Patricia McCarthy, ‘Clothes that escaped the Great War’ 2011: Allison McVety, ‘To the Lighthouse’ 2010: Paul Adrian, ‘Robin In Flight’ 2009: Helen Dunmore, ‘The Malarkey’ 2008: Christopher James, ‘Farewell to the Earth’ 2007: Sinéad Morrissey, ‘Through the Square Window’ 2006: Mike Barlow, ‘The Third Wife’ 2005: Melanie Drane, ‘The Year the Rice-Crop Failed’ 2004: Jon Sait, ‘Homeland’ 2003: Colette Bryce, ‘The Full Indian Rope Trick’ 2002: Julia Copus, ‘Breaking the Rule’ 2001: Beatrice Garland, ‘undressing’ 2000: Ian Duhig, ‘The Lammas Hireling’ 1999: Simon Rae, ‘Believed’ 1998: Caroline Carver, ‘horse underwater’ 1997: Neil Rollinson, ‘Constellations’ 1996: Ruth Padel, ‘Icicles Round a Tree in Dumfriesshire’ 1995: James Harpur, ‘The Frame of Furnace Light’ 1994: David Hart, ‘The Silkies’ 1993: Sam Gardiner, ‘Protestant Windows’ 1992: Stephen Knight, ‘The Mermaid Tank’ 1991: Jo Shapcott, ‘Phrase Book’; John Levett, ‘A Shrunken Head’ (joint winners) 1990: Nicky Rice, ‘Room Service’ 1989: William Scammell, ‘A World Elsewhere’ 1988: Martin Reed, ‘The Widow’s Dream’ 1987: Ian Duhig, ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’ 1986: Carole Satyamurti, ‘Between the Lines’ 1985: Jo Shapcott, ‘The Surrealists’ Summer Convention Came to Our City’ 1984: Tony Curtis, ‘The Death of Richard Beattie-Seaman in Belgian Grand Prix, 1939’ 1983: Carol Ann Duffy, ‘Whoever She Was’ 1982: Philip Gross, ‘The Ice Factory’ 1981: James Berry, ‘Fantasy of an African Boy’ 1980: Tony Harrison, ‘Timer’ 1978: Medbh McGuckian, ‘The Flitting’ 1978: Michael Hulse, ‘Dole Queue’

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For further information The Poetry Society Page 3 of 4 Contact Oliver Fox 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX Tel: 020 7420 9886 Tel: 020 7420 9880 Fax: 020 7240 4818 Email: [email protected] www.poetrysociety.org.uk PRESS RELEASE ctd

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The Peggy Poole Award The Peggy Poole Award is a new programme helping emerging writers develop their craft, which runs alongside the National Poetry Competition, and gives poets in the North West of England the chance to win a year of mentoring from a leading poet, who also judges the prize. The award is in memory of the poet and broadcaster Peggy Poole and made possible thanks to the generosity of her extended family and many friends. To be eligible for the Peggy Poole Award, poets should enter the National Poetry Competition following all of the associated rules and be living in one of the following postcode regions of the UK: BB, BL, CA, CH, CW, FY, IM, L, M, OL, PR, SK, SN and WA. poetrysociety.org.uk/peggypoole

Peggy Poole was a passionate advocate for the ongoing vitality of poetry in the North West, and championed new and emerging poets in the region. Peggy’s work for Radio Merseyside’s First Heard programme provided a platform for new voices, as did the events which she co-ran for Jabberwocky, which also attracted established poets such as Ted Hughes, Stephen Spender and Ursula Fanthorpe. She was a consultant for BBC North West, and an honorary member of Liverpool’s Dead Good Poets’ Society and Ver Poets. Her collections include Never a Put-up Job (1970), Cherry Stones: And Other Poems (1983), Hesitations (1990), Trusting the Rainbow (1994), From the Tide’s Edge (1999), and more. Her Selected Poems was published in 2003. She edited Poet’s England 17: Cumbria (1995), her anthology of railway poems Marigolds Grow Wild on Platforms (1996), and Perceptions (2000), a collection of poems by women.

The Peggy Poole Award Judge Deryn Rees-Jones was born in Liverpool with family links to North , where she later studied. She won an Eric Gregory award in 1993 and The Memory Tray (Seren,1995) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her other works are Signs Round a Dead Body (Seren, 1998), Quiver (Seren, 2004) and a groundbreaking critical study of twentieth-century women’s poetry, Consorting with Angels (Bloodaxe, 2005), which was published alongside her accompanying anthology Modern Women Poets (Bloodaxe, 2005). In 2004 she was named as one of Mslexia’s ‘top ten’ women poets of the decade, as well as being chosen as one of the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation poets. In 2010 she received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors. Burying the Wren was published by Seren in 2012; it was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and a Times Literary Supplement book of the year. A regular collaborator with contemporary artists, her most recent works are And You, Helen (Seren, 2014), a book and animated poem made with the artist Charlotte Hodes about the wife and widow of the poet Edward Thomas, and What It’s Like to Be Alive: Selected Poems (Seren, 2016). She is Professor of Poetry at the University of Liverpool, and is the editor of the new Pavilion Poetry series for Liverpool University Press.

The Poetry Society The Poetry Society was founded in 1909 to promote a “more general recognition and appreciation of poetry”. Since then, it has grown into one of Britain’s most dynamic arts organisations, representing British poetry both nationally and internationally. With innovative education and commissioning programmes and a packed calendar of performances, readings and competitions, the Poetry Society champions poetry for all ages. It publishes the magazine The Poetry Review, runs the National Poetry Competition, the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award and the youth performance poetry championship SLAMbassadors UK. www.poetrysociety.org.uk

For further information The Poetry Society Page 4 of 4 Contact Oliver Fox 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX Tel: 020 7420 9886 Tel: 020 7420 9880 Fax: 020 7240 4818 Email: [email protected] www.poetrysociety.org.uk