Cardiff International Poetry Competition

2012 Competition Now Open

Is your poetry worth £5,000?

The 2012 Cardiff International Poetry Competition is now open for entries. The First Prize-winner will walk way with a cheque for £5,000 for just one poem. Further prizes available are £500 for second place, £250 for third plus five runners up will receive £50 each. The competition is accessible to all; it doesn’t matter if you are an established poet or just dabble with verse now and then. All entries to the competition will be judged anonymously, so this is a great opportunity to have your poetry judged on its own merits.

The hard tasking of judging the 2012 competition is down to poets Sinéad Morrissey, Patrick McGuinness and filter judge Samatha Wynne-Rhydderch.

If you think you have what it takes to delight the judges and get your hands on the top prize of £5,000, then send us your poems now. Just make sure your poem is no longer than 50 lines long, is unpublished, in English and is not a translation of another author’s work then send it, along with your entry form and payment, to Literature Wales.

The closing date for entries is: Friday 2 March 2012

To download an entry form, click here. To receive an entry form through the post send a stamped, self addressed envelope to: Literature Wales, CIPC12 Entry Form, Mount Stuart House, Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 5FQ.

For further details contact Literature Wales:
029 2047 2266 / post@literaturewales.org

The Cardiff International Poetry Competition is administered by Literature Wales with the financial support of Cardiff Council.

The Judges:

Sinéad Morrissey is a multi-award winning author and has published four collections of poetry including, There was Fire in Vancouver (Carcanet, 1996), Between Here and There (Carcanet, 2002) and The State of the Prisons (Carcanet, 2005). Her most recent collection Through the Square Window (Carcanet, 2009) was a PBS Choice, was shortlisted for both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize for Best Collection and was awarded the Irish Times Prize for Poetry. In 2007 her poem ‘Through the Square Window’ took first place in the UK National Poetry Competition. Sinead is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University, Belfast.

Patrick McGuinness’ collections of poetry include, The Canals of Mars (Carcanet Press, 2004) and Jilted City (Carcanet, 2010), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and appeared on the 2011 Wales Book of the Year Long List. He is a frequent contributor to The London Review of Books and his work has appeared in a variety of journals and magazines including, Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales and Agenda. Patrick’s debut novel, The Last Hundred Days (Seren, 2011), was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford.

Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch has published two collections, the second of which, Not in These Shoes (Picador, 2008) was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2009. Her work has been published in Poetry Wales, Poetry London, Poetry Ireland, The Independent and the Forward Anthology 2002 and 2009 as well as broadcast on BBC Radio Wales and Radio Scotland. Samantha grew up in New Quay, Ceredigion where she still lives.