Guernsey Literary Festival 2025 Launches International Poetry Competition
by Karen Rollins Nov 4, 2024
The Guernsey Literary Festival has launched its annual international poetry competition (Poems on the Move) ahead of next year’s event.
Last year, the global poetry contest attracted more than 3,000 entries from 49 countries including the UK, Australia, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Japan, Nigeria, and Taiwan.
The judge for this year’s competition is world-renowned poet Imtiaz Dharker.
According to a press release announcing the competition: “Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and video film maker and has published seven collections of poetry, including her latest, Shadow Reader. She was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014 and has been Chancellor of Newcastle University since 2020.”
The Poems on the Move competition is divided into three categories – Open; Channel Islands; and Young Poet for children aged 11-17.
The winner in the Open class will win £1,000, the Channel Islands winner will claim £250 and the best Young Poet £250. Entries must be no longer than 14 lines and fit on a single A4 page. The competition deadline is 15 January 2025.
Imtiaz will host a presentation and reading event for the all the winners on 2 May 2025, during the Guernsey Literary Festival, which runs from 25 April to 4 May. She will also read her own poems at an event and speak in local schools.
All the winning entries and another selected 21 will become part of the ‘Poems on the Move’ display at Guernsey Airport, and other sites around the island, as well as on Guernsey buses.
The 2025 Guernsey International Poetry Competition is organised by the Guernsey Literary Festival and sponsored by Specsavers with the support of Guernsey Arts.
For more information, visit PoemsontheMove.com.
