2022’s Keats-Shelley Poetry and Essay Prize is now closed for submissions. We are no longer able to accept any more entries.
The Longlists of the Keats-Shelley Prizes will be announced on 3rd August. The Shortlists will be announced later the same month.
A huge thank you to everyone who worked so hard on their poems and essays, which are now being sent to our amazing panel of judges.
The winners will be announced by Fiona Sampson in September.
In the meantime, please visit our Google Earth Elegy World Map which we will continue to update and expand over the summer.
Email questions regarding the 2022 Prize to: prizes@keats-shelley.org
Poetry Prize (closed to submissions)
Poets are asked to write on 2022’s Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize Theme of ‘ELEGY’.
This commemorates two bicentenaries: the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley on 8th June 1822 and the composition of Adonais, Shelley’s elegy for John Keats, a year earlier in 1821.
Poets can interpret ‘Elegy’ freely. Poems can be serious or comic, avant garde or traditional. They can be formal elegies or elegiac, but the Judges advise that works drifting too far from the theme will not be considered.
Poetry judge Deryn Rees-Jones writes: ‘For me good poems adhere to no rules…except the one necessary to their own creation. Often a poem will stand out because of its precision and its ability to harness and also liberate a particular kind of energy. The poem will be able to say something that only it can say.’
RULES AND FORMATTING
Poems should be:
- no more than 30 lines in length.
- fit onto a single A4 page.
Entries must be original. Plagiarism will not be accepted. The poem must not have been published previously, either in print or online or in any other media, nor previously submitted to us.
Essay Prize (closed to submissions)
Essays may be on any aspect of the writing and/or lives of the Romantics and their circles.
Essay Judge Professor Sharon Ruston writes: ‘I want to read a well-organised, lively, and well-expressed essay. It should be arguing a point and offer persuasive evidence in its case. We are also looking for someone who has a deep and creative interest in Keats, Shelley, or their circle.’
RULES
Essays should be no more than 3,000 words including quotations.
Entries must be original works. Plagiarism will not be accepted. All sources must be acknowledged. They must not have been published previously, either in print or online or in any other media, nor previously submitted to us.