Submissions are now invited for the annual Hay Writers’ Circle Poetry Competition, and we are thrilled to announce the judge for 2026 is the wonderful Lesley Saunders. The theme this year is entirely open and we hope to receive a wide variety of poems and poetry styles for this competition. The first prize winner will receive £100 prize money, with cash prizes for 2nd and 3rd placed poems.

Lesley is the prizewinning author of several poetry collections, most recently This Thing of Blood & Love (Two Rivers Press 2022) and, with artist Rebecca Swainston, Days of Wonder (Hippocrates Press 2021), a poetic record of the first year of the Covid pandemic. She is also an award-winning translator of modern Portuguese poetry. Her current work is a series of extended explorations of the connectivities between poetry and dementia, for which she is attached to the University of Lisbon and the University of Warwick. See www.lesleysaunders.org.uk

(On This Thing of Blood and Love) – Saunders’ poetry skates on thin ice, stylishly, gracefully, aware of the risks’ — Jeremy Hooker

For a selection of Lesley’s other publications, please CLICK HERE

Of the competition, Lesley says: ‘I want to read work that treats language as a medium like paint or music to make something new. I will be looking for poems that surprise as well as delight me, that show the poet exploring ideas and images with precision as well as imagination. I would like the poem to contain a swerve or leap just before it comes to an end – a poem that knows from the start how and where it will end is less likely to have surprised its writer and risks withholding a necessary pleasure from its readers. I have no preference for the form in which a poem is written – only in the skill with which the poet deploys the form s/he has chosen, including (or especially) free verse.’

– HWC POETRY COMPETITION –
FIRST PRIZE £100

The Hay Writer’s Circle Poetry Competition 2026 is open to everyone.

The first prize of £100 with additional cash prizes for 2nd and 3rd placed poems.

The closing date for entries is midnight Tuesday 7th April, 2026
Results will be announced in early May.

Original, unpublished poems of up to 40 lines maximum on any theme.

At our discretion, the winning poems will be published on the Hay Writer’s website. Publication may prevent eligibility for future competitions. All rights remain with the author.

For full competition guide lines and entry form please download the file below :

… or head on over to our Competitions page and read it there too.

Remember, anyone can enter this poetry competition and we can’t wait to read your amazing poems.

Good luck!

To keep up to date with all our competition and workshop news etc., why not subscribe with your email address in the box below.