Brighton Festival 2017 has announced that Guest Director Kate Tempest has chosen the theme of ‘Everyday Epic’ for this year’s Peacock Poetry Prize.
The Festival is inviting aspiring young poets and wordsmiths to observe and reflect on the details and daily achievements of our lives and to celebrate and share our common humanity.
The annual creative writing competition, produced by Brighton Festival and Brighton, Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College (BHASVIC), encourages local poets from 8 to nineteen years to respond to a specific subject in an imaginative and inventive way.
Submissions are divided into four age groups: 8-11 years, 11-13 years 13-16 years and 16-19 years.
In addition, this year the Brighton and Hove environmental education project (BHee) will give a special prize to a school pupil whose poem celebrates our interaction with the natural world.
Pippa Smith, Head of Creative Learning at Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival said: “The Peacock Poetry Prize is a fantastic opportunity for young people to get involved with Brighton Festival. I’m always taken aback at the number and range of submissions we receive, and this year I hope Kate Tempest’s theme of ‘everyday epic’ will inspire our young writers’ imaginations to produce some wonderful poetry once again.”
The Peacock Poetry Prize is open to residents of Brighton & Hove and East and West Sussex. Each budding writer may submit up to three poems with a maximum length of 20 lines per poem.
Entries can be emailed, together with full name, age and date of birth to peacock@brightonfestival.org, or posted to Peacock Poetry Prize, Brighton Festival, 12a Pavilion Buildings, Castle Square, Brighton BN1 1EE.
The deadline for entries is 5pm on Monday April 3, 2017.
Finalists and their friends and relatives will be invited to a reception in Brighton Dome on May 25 when the winners of each age category and the BHee prize will be announced.
For more details, click here: