30 December 2019
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More than £5,000 in prizes will be shared between the winners
Celebrating the bicentanaries of two landmark Romantic poems, John Keats' Ode to a Nightingale and Percy Bysshe Shelley's To a Skylark, this year's competition theme is 'songbird'.
Nightingales and skylarks are both now endangered species and the hope is for the competition to celebrate the glory of songbirds at the same time as participating as part of the cultural and artistic efforts to draw attention to the climate crisis.
In the adult competition, there are two categories. The poetry prize is for poems up to 30 lines on the 'songbird' theme. The entry fee for up to two poems is £10. The essay prize is for essays up to 3,000 words on any aspect of the Romantics and their circle.
In the Young Romantics competition for writers aged 16 to 18, enter poems up to 30 lines on the theme of songbirds and essays up to 750 words on how can the poetry of Keats and/or Shelley help us in our current climate crisis? The Young Romantics competition is free to enter.
The closing date is 14 January.
For full details see the website.
Inspired to create a songbird poem? Read advice from Keith Jarrett on how to write poems that change the world.