This national poetry competition ran in the Spring of 2021. There were three categories for submissions to this competition:
Spoken word
For videos of spoken poetry of up to 3 minutes long (from participants aged 16 or over)Written word
For written poems of up to 500 words long (from participants aged 16 or over)Growing word
For written poems of up to 250 words long (from participants aged 11-15)
For each Category we have awarded prizes to one winner (£300) and one runner up (£150), and also highlighed other poems which the Judges felt should be highly commended.
There was also an additional special prize of £150 for the best overall poem about cleaners and the contribution that they make (we are a cleaning company after all!)
All of the judging was undertaken by the Judges after the names of poem authors had been removed. The full Rules for the Competition are set out below, just for the record!
Our Team
We would like to thank the team of people who helped us make this competition a reality.
Firstly, thank you to the many people who wrote and shared their poems with us - the time and effort for every entry is greatly appreciated. We were moved by so many of the poems sent to us.
Thank you also to our wonderful Judges for their work and insight. They have had free rein to choose the poems they liked the best in each of their respective categories.
One of our Judges, Katherine Lockton, also assisted us in selecting the rest of our ‘Top 100’ poems from the many we received; she is the overall Editor of this online anthology of poems.
Thank you also to Max Randall, who designed this website, to Anna and Fiona at Midas PR for helping us share the news and to Nicola Hughes who provided world-class admin support whilst between jobs!
The Rules
The competition has obviously closed, but we have set out the Rules that applied, just for the record.
We are looking for poems which highlight and celebrate the work of the UK’s key workers – from office cleaners and couriers to shop workers and nurses. We are particularly interested in poems which will help to reveal the voices and stories of people whose work is often done unseen by many others.
The competition is open to anyone resident in the UK. Entrants for the Spoken Word and Written Word categories must be aged 16 or over. Entrants for the Growing Word must be aged 11-15 and their submission should include contact details for a Parent, Carer, Guardian or Teacher.
Poems should be submitted by email to submissions@poetryforgood.org.uk and must be received by us on or before 9 April 2021 (so, please note that this competition is now CLOSED). No paper or hard copies can be accepted, sorry. We can only accept one poem per person.
a. Poems should be in English, or primarily in English
b. Written Word submissions should be in a Word Document
c. Spoken Word submissions should be in a mp4 format
Secondary Schools may submit a ‘bulk submission’ on behalf of groups of pupils, as long as a) it is in a single Word document, b) each poem has the author’s name clearly identified, c) there is also a contact name and email address for a Teacher provided for correspondence.
Poems must be the entrant’s own original work and must not have been previously published anywhere else before April 30th 2021.
In judging the winners of the competition, the Judges’ decision will be final
Entries should not contain anything which is rude or offensive to others (Clean for Good as the Organiser, has the final decision on this)
The copyright of each poem always remains with the author. However, by entering the competition, authors grant Clean for Good the right in perpetuity to publish and/or broadcast their poem through the Poetry for Good website, and to include the poem in any subsequent book, providing it is published within 12 months of the competition deadline. The authorship of a poem will always be clearly identified when it is used.
Entry implies acceptance of all the rules. Failure to comply with the rules will result in disqualification
