Hampshire Cultural Trust (HCT), in partnership with the Winchester Poetry Festival, have launched this year’s search to find the top young poets in Hampshire in the Hampshire Young Poets Competition.
The competition, which takes place annually and has seen incredible contributions in previous years, with young people taking part from all over of the county. This year’s theme is ‘Our world, our planet’ and young people from across Hampshire are asked to write a poem of no more than 14 lines on this theme. Whether it’s a favourite place in the world to be or thoughts on climate change, HCT want to hear from young people across the county about what the words mean to them.
Entries are open to young people who live or study in Hampshire in three different age categories; 4-7, 8-11 and 12-16 years. The competition is free to enter and there will be National Book Token prizes for the winners, supported by Paris Smith, matched with P&G Wells book tokens for the schools of the winning entrants to spend on poetry books. The closing date for entries is midnight on Wednesday 31 July 2024 and the poems will be judged by the new Hampshire Poet 2024.
Huw Miles at Paris Smith commented, “We love inspiring young people to develop their talents, especially those living in our special home of Hampshire. The written and spoken word is at the core of who we are and what we do, and we hope this competition encourages lifetimes of creativity and expression”.
As well as online and postal entries, young poets can submit their entries via the P&G Wells bookshop on College Street in Winchester where they are hosting a poetry desk for young visitors to submit their poems.
The P&G Wells team commented, “If you need a bit of extra inspiration, head to P&G Wells bookshop on College Street to discover the poetry desk. Pull up a chair, dig out a pencil and rummage through the desk drawers to reveal prompts and ideas to help spark ideas for young poets. Once you're happy with your poem, you can pop it into our Poetry Postbox where it will be collected and entered into the competition.”
The winners in each age category will be contacted by email or post and officially announced at an awards ceremony at Winchester Poetry Day 2024 to be held at The Arc, Winchester, on Saturday 5 October 2024.
Details of how to enter and submission guidelines can be found at https://www.hampshireculture.org.uk/hantsyoungpoets.