“Many young poets know they have talent, but many more
don’t. And many true poets, young and old, sit around for years waiting to
be discovered. The Foyle Young Poets Award is a chance to speed that process
up, to step into the light and let us hear you. So take the chance.”
Glyn Maxwell, Judge
The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is a chance
for any young poet aged 11-17 to be ‘discovered’ and accelerate their
writing career. Since it began 14 years ago the Foyle Young Poets
Award has kick-started the careers of some of today’s most exciting young
poets. These include Caroline Bird, who after winning the award had
her first collection of poetry published aged just 16, Jay Bernard
whose first collection Your Sign is Cuckoo, Girl was published in
2008, and Richard O’Brien who set up the highly successful e-zine
Pomegranate with other young writers. Many past winners such as Helen
Mort have also performed their work at festivals across the UK such as
Latitude and the Big Chill.
Any young writer can enter, whether they have been writing
for a long time or just started – all they need to have is an active
engagement with the world around them. As Fielding Ronshaugen, one of last
year’s winners explains: “The real trick of the poet is to pull out
the beauty in a biscuit, or a random fact you learned about owls, an old
postcard or the memory of a place you visited as a child and pin it down to
paper so that other people can catch a glimpse of the same wonderfulness.”
All fifteen overall winners of the prize are invited to a
gala prize giving event in London on National Poetry Day (6th October 2011).
There are two prizes available for the fifteen overall winners of the award.
The 14-17 year olds get the chance to attend a week long residential course
at The Hurst in Shropshire, one of the prestigious Arvon Centres, where they
will be tutored by this year’s judges Imtiaz Dharker and Glyn Maxwell. The
younger age range winners (11-14 year olds) will receive a visit to their
school from a professional poet, followed by distance mentoring.
Win
£1000 : Make a video about their cute toys 
