Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2025

If you’re aged 11-17, send in your poems for the chance to be among the 100 winners and kick-start your writing career. Poems can be on any theme and in any style but must be no longer than forty lines. You can submit as many as you like.

Winners of the award receive a fantastic range of prizes to help develop their writing. The top 15 poets receive a mentoring package with opportunities to receive support and feedback on their writing; and all 100 winners receive a year’s youth membership of The Poetry Society and a bag full of books donated by generous publishers. The Poetry Society continues to support winners throughout their careers providing publication, performance and development opportunities, and access to a paid internship programme.

Since it began 27 years ago, the Award has kick-started the career of some of today’s most exciting voices. Past winners include Jay Bernard, Sarah Howe, Helen Mort, Phoebe Power, Caroline Bird, Mukahang Limbu, Richard O’Brien and many more incredible poets. You can read last year’s winning poems for inspiration in our new anthology, We Sail Paper Boats.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with everything that The Poetry Society offers young writers, follow our social media pages (X , Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky and Facebook) for updates. You can also visit Young Poets Network for year-round poetry prompts and challenges, events and advice for young writers.

If you have any queries, or if you would like any information about the competition in an alternative format, please contact us at fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk.

Teachers

Teachers, librarians and youth workers are encouraged to enter class sets of students’ poems using our teacher submission portal. For inspiration, teachers can order a free class set of print anthologies featuring the 2024 winning poems by emailing fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk. We are also happy to send you flyers about the Award for your classroom, or you can download a poster here.

Sign up to our monthly teachers’ e-bulletin for up-to-date news about free poetry resources and opportunities your school can take part in. Join Cloud Chamber, our online poet-teacher network, for access to free CPD and opportunities to share best practice with other educators dedicated to celebrating poetry. Email fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk to sign up.