National Poetry Day 2019 – the 24-Hour Poem Competition is on again!

Yes indeedy, I have once again taken a/ the plunge and b/ leave of my senses  and am officially announcing that the 24-Hour Poem competition is on again. Ten words, twenty-four hours, one poem. How hard could it be?

Once again there will be a Winner, a Runner-up, an Organiser’s Husband’s Choice, and the chance for everyone who takes part to collectively choose the Contestant’s Pick. And entry is COMPLETELY FREE – you just have to pre-register by August 16th (and can do so by filling out the form on this page).

When the shortlist for the Ockham Book Awards came out, I was a bit worried about the chances of getting prizes without charging an entry fee – last year there were five publishers represented, so the load was shared equaitably, but this year there was only one: Victoria University Press. But I’m delighted to say that VUP have been amazingly generous and have donated copies of all four books, so there will again be a lovely swag of titles for the four prize winners. I really am incredibly grateful to VUP for this, so if you, the readers, feel like doing something to let them know that this is A Good Thing To Do, please click on the links below to go to their website, and have a browse of their poetry section. Even if you don’t necessarily buy anything from them today, clicking through gives them definite confirmation that sponsoring this event is a worthwhile bit of marketing.

The prizes up for grabs:

Helen Heath’s Are Friends Electric? (winner of 2019 Best Poetry Collection)
Erik Kennedy’s There’s Nothing Like the Internet in Springtime
Therese Lloyd’s The Facts 
and Tayi Tibble’s Poūkahangatus (winner of 2019 Best First Poetry Collection).

I’ve also got a small grant from the National Poetry Day organisers which will let me buy a couple of additional titles as prizes, so if you already have some of these books, a/ yay! what good taste you have, and also b/ we have alternatives available.

So there you have it. If you’d like to read a bit more about last year’s competition, click on the tag 24-Hour Poem Competition to bring up a (reverse chronological) list of all such posts. If you’d like to register for the competition, go to the sign-up page, and sign up. (It costs you nothing, and there’s no penalty if you don’t end up submitting a poem.)

To find out what else is happening on National Poetry Day, visit the official website: www.poetryday.co.nz. And don’t forget to click on the VUP links, so they know this is an event worth supporting!