If you find this page and our site useful, please consider making a small donation through our Ko-fi page. This will help us offer regular free-to-enter competitions and free entries to our paid-entry competitions for those on low incomes.
Please also sign up to our free monthly newsletter. Subscribers gain exclusive access to our free-to-enter competitions, entrance into free prize draws, information about the latest writing competitions and events from around the world and more.
Competition Details
The Bridport Prize is one of the most prestigious (and lucrative) writing competitions around that is open to unpublished writers. The Bridport Prize for Poetry offers an amazing £5,000 top prize, but even making it onto the shortlist gives the poet an important addition to their CV.
At £12 per entry, it’s not not bad value given the prize, and if you are serious about your verse, you might as well aim high. And if you win the Bridport Prize (in any category) it can garner a lot of attention and open plenty of doors.
Note that the 42-line limit doesn’t include the title of the poem or lines between stanzas. Ensure you read the submission instructions carefully (for instance you need to add the line count to the entry and submit in 12pt, black font).
The judge for the poetry competition is Romalyn Ante, the co-founding editor of harana poetry, a magazine for poets who write in English as a second or parallel language. She was awarded the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2021-2022, sits on the editorial board for Poetry London magazine, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her new collection is AGIMAT (Chatto).
The following additional prizes may also apply to entrants who fit certain criteria:
Young Writer Award £500 – For the highest placed writer aged 16 to 25 in poetry, short story, flash fiction and novel.
Never Too Late Award – This £500 award is given to the highest placed writer aged 60+ in Poetry, Short Story, Novel and Flash Fiction. The winning piece will feature in our anthology, which counts as being published and opens doors with literary agents and publishers. It also accesses other competitions not available to the public.
Dorset Award £100 – Given to the highest placed Dorset writer in poetry, short story, flash fiction and novel. Sponsored by The Bookshop, Bridport.
Details