Tag: troubadour prize

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Competition season! Be afraid. Plus the odd launch

Those Darn Comps

Love ’em or loath ’em, but some of us just can’t stop ourselves entering. “Is there a competition season?” someone once asked me and I feel as if there is, and it’s now – not sure why except that the National always closes on October 31st, this year a particularly loaded date, sadly. Plus the results of the Bridport out soon.

If you keep up with Angela T Carr’s comps and submissions blog posts then you’ll already know this, but just a reminder:

National Poetry Competition (a misnomer actually – it’s International, as the list of prize winners generally confirms) – closing date 31st October, judges Mona Arshi, Helen Mort and Maurice Riordan. First prize £5,000 but tons of kudos and visibility to anyone making the ‘commendeds’. Even reaching the ‘long list’ is pretty good. First entry £7, Poetry Society members get a FREE second poem. Enter here and lashings of good luck to you.

Also don’t forget the Troubadour Poetry Prize, closing on 21st October. £5 to enter and £2000 first prize, with the very interesting combo of Kathryn Maris and Pat Boran judging this year. I predict there’ll be one grandaddy of a pile of paper in the Maris-Riordan household come November.

Launches, readings

This evening it’s the Needlewriters in Lewes with readings by poets Clare Best, Robert Hamberger and Anna Reckin, alongside prose writer Martin Nathan. I’ll be the host, which is always fun. Do come if you’re able.

This Sunday I’m off up to Greenwich, my old manor, for the Live Canon readings & competition results (for which we’re all being kept cruelly on tenterhooks, having made the ‘long list’ – I’m assuming I haven’t won since I haven’t had the call to say ‘you are coming, aren’t you…?’ But it will be a fun-filled afternoon I’m certain, and every one’s a winner baby (NOT! – whoever thought up that stupid phrase!) Anyway, I’m looking forward to hearing the Live Canon ensemble perform the winning poems, it’s an amazing experience.

November is shaping up well – my new pamphlet launch is scheduled for 25th and (same week) I’m reading for Rogue Strands in London on 28th – more to come on both. I’m also hoping to get to Lynne Hjelmgaard’s launch of A Second Whisper (Seren) on Monday 11th.

Meanwhile I’m getting close to the end of Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary – I’ve been slowing down as we approach the second World War, I almost can’t bear to read her thoughts on it all – and am also in the ‘Rotten Pockets’ of Hell c/o Signor Dante Alighieri. No wonder I’ve been having such weird dreams lately.

 

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Home again, and deadlines approaching

Clare Shaw interviews Carrie Etter at Poetry Swindon Festival
Clare Shaw interviews Carrie Etter at Poetry Swindon Festival

The Swindon Poetry Festival over, I’m now catching up with stuff, looking at my book purchases (actually there are a couple of books I still need to buy, not being able to do so because I ran out of cash. Note to self: always take a thick wodge of CASH to poetry events as that will invariably be the only method of payment AND you can be sure there won’t be a cash machine within a mile. Judi Sutherland kindly drove me around the roundabouts of Swindon on Sunday morning as we tried to a) follow the directions given by people in the hotel and petrol station and b) find a cash machine that actually worked.

You can read all my Swindon Festival posts here if you’re interested –  including some audio recordings.

Anyhow, next week is the Needlewriters on Thursday 18th in Lewes which I’m looking forward to very much, then there are a few poetry competition deadlines coming up, such as the Troubadour and the National. Each year I feel less and less optimistic about entering competitions, there seem to be so many brilliant ‘up and coming’ poets on the scene, plus very experienced/successful/professional poets entering (and winning) comps, and who can blame them if the prize money is good? But still. I must remind myself that there is at least an element of luck. And it’s good to support the Poetry Society, Coffee-House Poetry and the many shoestring organisations who rely on income from competitions to stay afloat.

Most importantly I need to finish the ‘how to get published in magazines’ book, before people go off the boil about it. I’ve really enjoyed gathering comments and advice from magazine editors which I think will make very interesting reading. Just when you think it’s all been said, I guess it hasn’t!

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A few poetry comp deadlines coming up

be in it to win it

This is the post I set out to write before I got sidetracked with my last one! So enough with the musings. I just wanted to mention some poetry competition deadlines coming up. Like London buses, they all seem to come at once, so I hope you’ve got a nice bagful of competition-winning poems at the ready.

Frogmore Poetry Prize – you’ve got to be quick because it’s postal submissions only and the deadline is Tuesday 31st May. Judged by Catherine Smith, first prize 250 guineas and a 2-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers, entry fee £3 per poem. A pedigree comp with an impressive list of distinguished former winners.

Bridport Prize – also closing Tuesday 31st May, but you can enter online. Judged by Patience Agbabi, first prize is a whopping £5,000 and the entry fee is a correspondingly fat £9. One of the big ones and famous for its long longlist.

South Bank Poetry Competition – closes 15th June. Judge is Mimi Khalvati, first prize is £300 and entry fees are £4 for the first poem, £3 for the second and £2 for the third and each subsequent poem (discounts for subscribers to the magazine). This is a new competition, just in its third year, and although although the entry free to prize money ratio isn’t great, there are good reading opportunities for winners, plus publication. And the money supports the magazine.

Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition – closes 13th June. Judged by Liz Lochhead. First prize £2,000 plus a week’s writing retreat and a mentoring session, entry fee £7 for up to 3 poems.

Troubadour Poetry Prize – closing Tuesday 21st June. Judges are Glyn Maxwell and Jane Yeh. First prize £5,000 and a £5 entry fee. Another of the big ones – the deadline is earlier than usual this year, but at £5 a go it’s good value from a comper’s point of view.

Plus there are more listed at the Poetry Library. Good luck!

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Nice to end the week with an acceptance

Although I was delighted to hear that Antiphon is taking a poem of mine for the next issue, for a moment I had a panic because it’s a piece I’ve altered drastically since, and I was thinking of sending it into the National in its new form (but same title). As it happened, I was so busy going on holiday at the end of October I missed the deadline for the NPC anyway – DUH, so later version of poem is still with me.

So now what – I really like the new version but I suppose I should give it a new title, make sure it doesn’t contain any of the exact same lines/phrases and think of it as something entirely new. I wonder if there’s such a thing as plagiarising one’s own poem? And can a poem be very very similar to another poem and yet a different poem? At what point has it ‘calved’? I’m thinking about some examples in art – cf all those Monet paintings of water lilies. Or music? Those Satie Gymnopedies are all more or less the same. (My husband might not be impressed by my saying that.)

Meanwhile I guess my entry for the Troubadour prize fell on its face – since I’ve not been one of the lucky recipients of a phone call summoning me to the prize giving! Ah well! Another year maybe …