How to enter

The Women Poets' Prize is now CLOSED. The next Prize is due to run in 2024.

Selection Criteria

The Women Poets’ Prize supports creatively ambitious practitioners – poets who are making or are capable of making a significant contribution to the UK poetry landscape. It gifts freedom and inspires potential, embracing excellence in poetic practice. Applications are open to women poets of all ages, at any stage in their development; emerging or more established, who are resident in the UK/Northern Ireland. The Rebecca Swift Foundation is invested in ensuring a culturally and creatively diverse shortlist and warmly encourages applications from individuals who may not normally consider applying for prizes, awards, or development opportunities. Following the initial application stage, a reading panel will select a longlist of 30 applicants whose work will then be read by a panel of industry judges. A resulting shortlist of nine poets will be revealed, before the final selection of three awardees is made by the mentors who will work with the winning poets.

Deadline

The Women Poets’ Prize 2022 submissions closed for applications on Monday 15th August 2022 at midday.

How to Enter

The Women Poets’ Prize aims to be accessible to as many women poets as possible. Our definition of poetry is, therefore, broad and dynamic: we are as interested in the ideas running through your work as we are in the way that your work appears visually on the page. As such, applicants are asked to send the following:

• Three poems, across no longer than four pages of text, OR one video OR one audio file of up to 3 minutes in length containing no more than three poems. We encourage you to submit what you feel is your best work. For full information on eligible poems, please read our Terms & Conditions PDF, linked below.
• A short statement telling us where you are in your writing career currently (200 words max)
• A short statement explaining what you feel you have to gain from the Women Poets’ Prize.(250 words max)
• An equal opportunities monitoring form. This is optional and anonymous, but will help us analyse the demographics of women poets applying for the Prize more accurately.

If you have any accessibility requirements not covered by the above, or any questions, please contact us directly:

Save your application document, including your 3 poems and 2 short statements, as a single PDF, Word or Docx file titled ‘Surname First Name – WPP22’. Submit your documents using the form below, by the deadline. You may add your video or audio file within the entry form. Please select only ONE format (page/video/audio) for your submission. Submit the equal opportunities monitoring form (separate and confidential) – this is optional.

Before entering, please ensure you have read the Women Poets’ Prize terms and conditions: