UK Poetry Competitions: A Calendar of Deadlines, Fees and Prizes

Two closing dates in this calendar fall on 31 October, the Bedford Competition and the Edward Thomas competition, and the Wildfire single-poem contest follows on 10 November. In early November the Poetry Business closes two competitions on the same day. A poet with six poems and a modest budget cannot enter them all, and ought not to try.

The table below lists thirteen UK-run competitions, each read from the organiser’s own page; the Wildfire, Tower Poetry and VERVE entries were last read on 30 October 2026 and the rest on 1 October 2026. The dates are the organiser’s. Where a page gave a day but no year, the table’s notes say how the year was worked out.

Poetry competitions closing soon

8 in the next 45 days from 1 November 2026

1. 4Nov
   The Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition 2027The Poetry Business · first prize £500 each for two winners, plus Smith|Doorstop publication
   Fee
2. 4Nov
   The Poetry Business 40th Anniversary Collection CompetitionThe Poetry Business · first prize £500 plus publication of the collection
   Fee
3. 10Nov
   Free Speech or Fake News Single Poem CompetitionWildfire Words (Frosted Fire) · first prize £300 for the text first prize and £300 for the audio first prize; four runners-up receive £25 each
   Fee
4. 15Nov
   Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2026Cafe Writers · first prize £1,000
   Fee
5. 23Nov
   Straid Collection Awards 2026Templar Poetry · first prize publication of up to three collections (no cash sum stated)
   Fee
6. 6Dec
   Thomas Cranmer Poetry CompetitionThe Prayer Book Society (Cranmer Awards) · first prize £150 in each of two age categories (11 to 15 and 15 to 18)
   Fee unclear
7. 7Dec
   Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2026Mslexia · first prize £2,000 plus publication in Mslexia
   Fee
8. 7Dec
   Mslexia Women's Poetry Pamphlet Competition 2026Mslexia · first prize £500 plus publication by Bloodaxe Books
   Fee

Full calendar · Add the deadlines to your calendar (.ics)

Read from each organiser’s or magazine’s own page on 30 October 2026, re-checked against those pages on 1 November 2026.

How poetry competitions work

The pattern is nearly uniform. A fee is paid per poem or per batch, the poems go in without the poet’s name, a reader or panel sorts them, and a named judge chooses the winners. Results come weeks or months later. For single-poem contests in the calendar the limit is usually between 25 and 50 lines: 40 at Bedford and Cafe Writers, 48 at Tower Poetry, 50 at the Wildfire contest, and only 14 at Guernsey.

Prizes vary a great deal. The Bedford Competition pays £2,000 for first place and Cafe Writers £1,000, while the monthly VERVE Poem of the Month pays £100. Cash is not always the point. Several pamphlet and collection contests pay a modest sum and publish the winning manuscript, and that publication can matter more to a career than the cheque.

Fees, free entry and fee waivers

Fees in the table range widely. VERVE asks £3 a poem or £6 for three. Bedford asks £8.50 a poem, or £17 for three, with student rates of £6. Cafe Writers charges £5 a poem, £13 for three, and offers free entry to UK residents with a household income under £16,000. The Poetry Business lets entrants request a fee waiver up to 14 October 2026.

A few competitions cost nothing. Tower Poetry is free, for students only, and Cafe Writers waives the fee for UK residents with a household income under £16,000. If you are budgeting, add up the fees before choosing, and consider dropping the expensive entries that leave you resenting the cost.

Judging a competition before paying

Before sending money, read the rules page as if it were a contract. A trustworthy one names the organiser, the judges or the judging process, the fee, the line limit, the eligibility rules and the date results are announced. All thirteen entries in the calendar state the closing date, or for VERVE the monthly closing day, and the fee position, even when the amount is unclear (as with the Thomas Cranmer competition, where no fee is stated).

Look at who has won before. Winners of the Edward Thomas competition read at the Fellowship meeting in Steep, Hampshire, each March, which is a real event, not a promise. The rules pages for Bedford and Cafe Writers are detailed enough to answer most questions before you ask. Treat the opposite as a warning: vague rules, no judge, no results date, or a prize mostly made up of anthology copies.

Eligibility catches people out. Wildfire excludes its own volunteers and recent winners of its major prizes. The Mslexia competitions are for women. Tower Poetry is for students aged 16 to 18 in UK secondary education. Read the line before you pay.

The calendar in order

Reading the table by date gives a rough shape to the autumn. The monthly VERVE Poem of the Month opens on the 1st and closes on the 20th of each month, which makes it the only rolling entry in the list. Bedford and the Edward Thomas competition both close on 31 October.

In early November come the Poetry Business pair on the 4th and the Wildfire contest on the 10th. Cafe Writers follows on 15 November, Templar’s Straid Collection Awards on 23 November, and the Thomas Cranmer competition on 6 December. Mslexia’s two competitions both close on 7 December, with results due in February 2027. The Guernsey International Poetry Competition runs to 15 January 2027. Tower Poetry, for students, closes at 12 noon on 18 February 2027.

A practical habit: write the deadlines in a diary with the fee next to each, and decide in advance how much you will spend in total. Competitions are a poor place to chase a result impulsively.

Entries read again on 30 October

Three entries in the table were read again on 30 October 2026, and their dates moved. Wildfire’s single-poem contest now closes at 11.59 pm on 10 November. Its fee is £5 a poem, falling to £17 for four with a fifth poem free, and it takes poems of up to 50 lines from poets in any country, with two first prizes of £300, one for the text and one for the audio recording, and four runners-up at £25.

Tower Poetry’s 2027 round is open until 12 noon on 18 February 2027 on the theme of “The Deep”. The first prize is £5,000, with £3,000 for second place, £1,500 for third and ten runners-up at £500. Entrants must be at least 16 and under 19 on the closing day and in secondary education in the UK. VERVE’s page gives a rule, not a date: submissions open on the 1st of each month and close at midnight on the 20th, so the table shows no single closing date for it.

Two habits help when a date looks odd. Some organisers leave an “open now” banner up after the closing date has passed, so read the date, not the banner. And a date for a prize ceremony or for announcing winners is not a closing date, however close it sits to the entry details.

Rights, shortlists and what happens after

Rules on rights differ and are worth reading before you enter, because a winning poem may be published by the organiser, and some prizes carry publication in an anthology, magazine or pamphlet. The Mslexia single-poem prize includes publication in Mslexia. Others, like the Edward Thomas competition, invite winners to read aloud.

Shortlists and commended lists matter less than poets think. They are pleasant, they are not a trophy, and they rarely open doors by themselves. Where an organiser sets a date for results, as Wildfire does for early December 2026, wait until then before sending the same poems elsewhere, unless the rules say simultaneous entry is allowed. Cafe Writers, for one, does not allow simultaneous submissions.

Pamphlet and collection prizes

Pamphlet contests ask for a short sequence. The Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition wants 20 pages and gives two winners £500 each plus Smith|Doorstop publication; the entry fee is £25, or £22 for subscribers, Friends and Poetry Society members. Mslexia’s pamphlet competition asks for 18 to 20 poems across 20 to 24 pages, judged by Maura Dooley for Bloodaxe Books, with £500 and publication.

Collections are bigger commitments. The Poetry Business 40th Anniversary Collection Competition asks for 40 to 60 pages and an unpublished manuscript, with £500 and publication, and a joint entry with the pamphlet competition costs £50. Templar’s Straid Collection Awards take a complete collection and publish up to three, with a closing date of 23 November.

For anyone choosing between a single poem and a pamphlet prize: if you have fewer than a dozen poems you would stand behind, enter single poems. A thin manuscript shows its gaps; a single strong poem does not.

Regional, themed and age-restricted contests

Not every contest wants the same poem. Wildfire’s 2026 contest is themed on free speech, and Tower Poetry’s 2027 theme is “The Deep”. The Edward Thomas competition is tied to a poet and a Hampshire village. The Thomas Cranmer competition asks young people for an original poem about Thomas Cranmer as author of the Book of Common Prayer, with £150 in each of two age bands, 11 to 15 and 15 to 18.

The Thomas Cranmer competition is the odd one out on fees: its page states none. The Guernsey International Poetry Competition has a tiny line limit of 14 lines, which suits a compressed poem and punishes a loose one.

Why entries fail

The rules pages repeat a short list.

• Late entries. Most deadlines are midnight, UK time or GMT, but Wildfire closes at 11.59 pm on 10 November and Tower Poetry at 12 noon on 18 February 2027.
• Over the line limit. A 41-line poem in a 40-line contest is out.
• A name left on the poem where entry is anonymous.
• Work published elsewhere, including some online posting.
• Ignoring a theme: themes in the calendar include free speech at Wildfire and “The Deep” at Tower Poetry.

The theme rule is the one entrants misjudge. A poem that touches the subject sideways may be admired by a judge and still count as off-brief by the rules.

Where competitions meet magazines

Some organisers are also magazines. Mslexia runs competitions, and The Poetry Business, which publishes The North, runs the pamphlet and collection contests. The magazine side of that world, with its windows and its own fees, is laid out in the directory of UK poetry magazines. The Literary Desk holds interviews and poems from a long-running poetry journal, and anyone who finds themselves wanting to edit rather than enter might read how to publish your own magazine. Types of journals sets the wider landscape of periodicals.

The big name missing from the table is the National Poetry Competition, run by the Poetry Society, whose page could not be read at checking. The Poetry Society was founded in 1909 and its competition exists, but dates and fees need to come from the society itself.

For rules and fees straight from the organisers, see the Bedford Competition rules, Cafe Writers and the Poetry Business pamphlet competition. The Poetry Business closes on Wednesday 4 November, and so does its collection prize.