The Poetry Business 40th Anniversary Collection Competition will open soon.
The UK’s most prestigious collection competition
– Manchester Metropolitan University
The Poetry Business is delighted to announce that we will be running our usual Book and Pamphlet Competition as two separate strands this year: The Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition and the 40th Anniversary Collection Competition. This will allow us to publish our competition-winning pamphlets as usual and to publish a full collection by the winner of the collection competition.
The Poetry Business 40th Anniversary Collection Competition is open internationally to all writers at any stage in their careers. The winning collection will be published in 2027/28, promoted widely alongside our other new publications, and entered for all eligible awards and prizes. It will be sold in bookshops throughout the UK and through online stockists of The Poetry Business publications.
Our long-standing International Book & Pamphlet Competition will return next year. The Book & Pamphlet Competition was the first of its kind in Britain and has launched the careers of many well-established and successful poets, including Selima Hill, Michael Laskey, Daljit Nagra, Pascale Petit, Catherine Smith and Kim Moore.
The Judge: Imtiaz Dharker
Imtiaz Dharker grew up a ‘Muslim Calvinist’ in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. She is an accomplished artist and video filmmaker, and has seven poetry books with Bloodaxe, Postcards from god (including Purdah) (1997), I Speak for the Devil (2001), The terrorist at my table (2006), Leaving Fingerprints (2009), Over the Moon (2014), Luck Is the Hook (2018), and Shadow Reader (2024), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. All her poetry collections are illustrated with her drawings, which form an integral part of the books; she is one of very few poet-artists to work in this way. She was awarded The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry for 2014, presented to her by HM Queen Elizabeth in 2015, and has also received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2020 she was appointed Chancellor of Newcastle University. Imtiaz Dharker has been recognised in the 2025 New Year’s Honours List with an OBE for services to the Arts.
Ann and Peter Sansom are directors of The Poetry Business and editors of The North magazine and Smith|Doorstop books. Ann’s publications include Romance and In Praise of Men & Other People (Bloodaxe) and Peter’s include Writing Poems (Bloodaxe) and Selected Poems (Carcanet).