Poetry Competition

Clare Pollard was born in Bolton in 1978 and lives in London. She has published five collections with Bloodaxe: The Heavy-Petting Zoo (1998), which she wrote while still at school; Bedtime (2002); Look, Clare! Look! (2005); Changeling (2011), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; and Incarnation (2017).

Her translation Ovid’s Heroines was published by Bloodaxe in 2013. Her first play The Weather (Faber, 2004) premièred at the Royal Court Theatre. She works as an editor, broadcaster and teacher.

Her documentary for radio, My Male Muse (2007), was a Radio 4 Pick of the Year. She is co-editor, with James Byrne, of the anthology Voice Recognition: 21 poets for the 21st century (Bloodaxe Books, 2009), and translator (with Maxamed Xasan ‘Alto’ and Said Jama Hussein) of Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf’s The Sea-Migrations (Somali title: Tahriib), published by Bloodaxe Books in 2017 with The Poetry Translation Centre. In 2017 she took over the editorship of Modern Poetry in Translation.

Her non-fiction book Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind our Picture Books was published by Fig Tree in 2019.

• Poems must be no more than 55 lines long excluding title, and be typed on A4 paper.
• If submitting by post please send 2 copies of each poem- one with your details clearly shown and the other with no details on.
• Poems can be on any topic and in any form.
• Poems must be in English and your own original work.
• The competition is open to anyone aged 16 or over.
• Poems must be typed, in English, unpublished, (They must not have been published, self-published or accepted for publication in print or online, broadcast, or have won or been placed in another competition at any time) have a title, and be your original work. No translations.
• Please ensure you attach the correct postage. If we have to pay the post office for any shortfall, we reserve the right to reduce the number of poems you have entered, to cover our loss.
• No entry form required, send two copies of each poem, one anonymous, the other with name and contact details. An e-mail address is essential for contact with regard to publication in the special anthology, if your poem is chosen.
• If on two pages they should be stapled in the top left hand corner.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• No person may win more than one prize.
• The copyright of each poem remains with the author, although the organizers have the right to publish winning and commended poems once, in a future issue of South Bank as well as online and on social media.
• No traveling or accommodation costs will be paid in connection with any prize awarded or attendance at any subsequent launch reading(s) of winning poems.

Find out more about the benefits of our Poetry workshops and other news.