Calling all scribes, wordsmiths and lyrical-language lovers!
For the first time ever, Westport Arts Festival is running a poetry competition. Our three prestigious judges will sift through entries in three categories – Under 12s, Under 18s and Adult. First prize in the adult category is €500 and a weekend break in the Wyatt Hotel in the heart of Westport. The Under 18s winner will receive €100, while the winner in the Under 12 category will receive €75.
As poets find inspiration in any and every aspect of life, Westport Arts Festival is not curtailing the poetic imagination by laying down a theme.
Winners will be announced at a prize giving event on Friday, October 5, 2012. Shortlisted entrants will be notified one week in advance and invited to attend.
Westport Arts Festival would like to thank Poetry Ireland for its generous sponsorship of this exciting new event.
Judges
Dermot Healy
Dermot Healy is a poet ,novelist and dramatist. He lives in county Sligo and is the author of A Goat’s Song, Sudden Times and The Bend for Home. He has previously won the Hennessy award twice, along with the Tom Gallon Award, the Encore Award and the AWB Vincent American Ireland Fund Literary Award.
He is a member of Aosdána.
“Among the Irish, Dermot Healy is the writer’s writer. He is the man.” Anne Enright
“An extraordinary maze of a novel, a brilliant, crazed, cruel and savagely funny book by a writer at the peak of his powers.” Frank McGuinness, on Long Time No See
Gerard Reidy
Ger Reidy has won several national poetry prizes and has recently received an Arts Council bursary. He is the author of Pictures from a Reservation and Drifting under the Moon. Poetry Ireland reviewer Benjamin Keating referred to his Kavanagh-like realism: “… his poems echo the grounded concision of Larkin and attain an astonishing lyrical aptitude out of the slightest of rural subjects.”
A third judge will be announced later.
The details
Closing Date for entries: September 21, 2012
Categories: Under 12s, under 18s, and adults
Prizes
- Adults: First Prize – €500 plus a weekend for two in the Wyatt Hotel; Second prize – €200; Third prize – €100
- Under 18s: First prize – €100
- Under 12s: First prize €75
Cost of entry
- Adults: €3 per entry, 4 entries for €10. Unlimited entries.
- Under 12s and under 18s: €1 per entry. One entry per person, entries via schools.
Entry Form
The rules
Click to open
Entries must be in English only.
Entries must not have been, by the date of submission, published or broadcast in any medium.
Entries must be the entrant’s own work.
Entries should consist of no more than 40 lines.
Entrants are advised to keep copies of work as entries will not be returned.
The adjudicators will not enter into any correspondence concerning the competition.
The decision of the adjudicators is final.
You may enter as often as you like provided entries are accompanied by appropriate fees.
Entries must be typed, in double spacing, using only one side of the page. No indication of the writer’s identity may appear on the poem(s) entered.
An online payments system has also been set up and is available at the bottom of this page.
Entries can be submitted online using the form below, or by post. Postal entries and accompanying entry forms should be sent in an A4 envelope to: Westport Arts Festival Poetry Competition, c/o Westport Chamber of Commerce, The Fairgreen, Westport, Co Mayo, Ireland.
All cheques accompanying postal entries should be made payable to ‘Westport Arts Festival Limited’. Please do not enclose cash.
Winners will be announced at a prize giving event on Friday, October 5, 2012. Shortlisted entrants will be notified one week in advance and invited to attend.
Pay for entry online
Enter Online
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