The RSPB and The Rialto are additionally working with BirdLife International and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. There’s a fantastic range of prizes on offer and prizewinners will be invited to read their poems at an event with Michael Longley at CCI in spring 2018.
The closing date for entries is midnight on 1st March 2018.
As well as offering poets the chance to win considerable cash prizes and publication of their poems, the competition will raise money for conservation and poetry. We are working in partnership with leading independent UK poetry magazine, The Rialto, as we feel the magazine will be the perfect place to showcase the winning entries.
Prizes
1st prize – £1000
2nd prize – £500
3rd prize – A place on a creative writing course at Ty Newydd in 2018 (worth £550)
Two additional prizes
A personal tour with Mark Cocker of his most cherished wild life places in East Anglia. Mark is one of Britain’s most celebrated writers on nature.
A personal tour with Nick Davies of his beloved Wicken Fen to learn about his research there. Nick is Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Cambridge.
Our judge is celebrated poet, Michael Longley.
Michael Longley’s eleven poetry collections have received many awards, among them the Whitbread Prize, the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the Irish Times Poetry Prize, the Griffin International Prize and the PEN Pinter Prize. His Collected Poems was published in 2006, and Sidelines: Selected Prose in 2017. In 2001 he received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, and in 2003 the Wilfred Owen Award. He was appointed a CBE in 2010, and from 2007 to 2010 was Ireland Professor of Poetry. He and his wife, the critic Edna Longley, live and work in Belfast. In 2015 he was elected a Freeman of the City.
The entry fee is £6 for the first poem and £3.50 for each subsequent entry.
Full details and the facility to enter online can be found on The Rialto website: https://www.therialto.co.uk/pages/nature-poetry-competition-2018/
