The Keats-Shelley Memorial Association announces the launch of the Keats-Shelley Prizes. In celebration of the bicentenary of Lord Byron’s death, the theme for this year’s prizes will be ‘Exile’.
The prizes include the Keats-Shelley Prize for essays and poems and the Young Romantics Prize, also for essays and poems, open to those aged 16 to 18yrs. Entrants are welcome from around the world.
The Chair of this year’s prizes will be acclaimed author and historian Tom Holland. Returning as judges for this year’s poetry prizes will be award-winning poet Will Kemp and Professor Deryn Rees-Jones, and for the essay prizes Professor Simon Bainbridge and Professor Sharon Ruston.
Past poetry prize winners include the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, Pascale Petit, Paul McMahon and Pat Borthwick.
Entrants to the Keats-Shelley Prize and Young Romantics Prize poetry competitions should submit a poem, contemporary in style, on the theme of ‘Exile’. The Keats-Shelley essay prize will remain open, with entrants able to explore any aspect of the life and work of the Romantic writers. Entrants to the Young Romantics Prize essay competition should submit an essay on one of the following subjects: In what ways are Romantic-period writers relevant today? or “Mad, bad and dangerous to know”: How important is a knowledge of Byron’s life to an understanding of his poetry?
Prize submissions open on Wednesday 4 September 2024 and close at 10am (GMT) on Friday 31 January 2025, with winners announced in April 2025. The winners of the Keats-Shelley essay and poem prizes will each receive £1,000, and the two runners-up £500. The Young Romantics essay and poem prize winners will each receive £700 and the two runners-up £300 each.
For more information and to enter the prizes from 4 September 2024 visit: www.keats-shelley.org.
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