The Free Verse Prize is a new poetry prize, which supports the Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair.

Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair celebrates the vitality of poetry in the UK – it’s a day of conversation and shopping, an unrivalled opportunity to browse the very best in contemporary poetry and to meet publishers, literary organisations, poets and poetry readers.

The winner of the competition will receive £500, plus publication in Poetry News. The winning poem will also be printed in the official 2024 Free Verse programme, distributed to all attendees and publishers at the Fair.

The judge is poet and former Poetry Book Fair director, Chrissy Williams.

We are keen to encourage quality, so suggest writers to check their stories before submitting using Prowritingaid. They have free and paid versions and are the best writing software we know to help improve grammar, readability and check for repetition, ‘sticky’ sentences and suggest alternatives.