The Winchester Poetry Prize 2025

The Winchester Poetry Prize is a globally popular, annual poetry competition, which began in 2016. The competition attracts entries from all over the world and is judged blind. It opens in April, and closes in July.

Open to writers 16 years and above. Poems can be on any subject, and in any form or style. Poems must be written in English.

Poems must not have been published or accepted for publication elsewhere (including online and social media).

Winning poets receive cash prizes (1st prize: £1000, 2nd prize: £500, 3rd prize: £250) and all longlisted poems are published in a printed anthology. The best poem entered by a poet living in Hampshire is awarded the Kathryn Bevis Prize – a year’s worth of tuition from The Writing School Online and £150.

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.