National Poetry Competition

Entries for the National Poetry Competition (UK), Britain's top single poem competition, are at their highest on record for the 2009 competition with 4,200 poets entering 10,500 poems. The judges are Ruth Padel, Daljit Nagra and Neil Rollinson. The judges read all the entries as there is no preliminary judging stage in this competition. There is in many other competitions.

All winners and commendations will be notified shortly after 29 January 2010 and the winners will be officially announced on 30 March 2010 at a prize giving event at the Savile Club in London's Mayfair, on the Poetry Society website on the 31 March and in the Spring issue of Poetry Review.

I entered three poems in the competition. I wonder what the quality of the other 10,497 poems was like.

The artwork above by artist Tori Flower was commissioned for the National Poetry Competition 2009. It's called The Reading Man and is made out of the winning poems of 2008.