Madchester Big Money ("New Submitted"?)

The Manchester Poetry Prize 2012

First prize: £10,000

Deadline for entries: 31^st August 2012

Judges: Ian Duhig, Francis Leviston, Adam O’Riordan

Under the direction of UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University has launched the third Manchester Poetry Prize – a major literary competition celebrating excellence in creative writing.

The Manchester Poetry Prize is open internationally and will award £10,000 to the writer of the best portfolio of three-to-five poems new submitted. The competition is open to both new and established writers aged 16 or over; there is no upper age limit. Work can be in any style, and on any subject, but must be new writing, not previously published elsewhere.

You can find full terms and conditions of entry on the Competition website, where you can also enter online, or download a printable entry pack for postal submission:

http://www.manchesterwritingcompetition.co.uk/poetry/index.php If you would like to be send a printed entry pack, please email your full name and address to eve.lucas@stu.mmu.ac.uk and we’ll send one out to you.

The prize will be awarded at a gala ceremony held as part of the 2012 Manchester Literature Festival.

Comments

Dennis Tomlinson said…

Thanks for drawing my attention to this competition!

Fri Jul 20, 04:14:00 pm 2012

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

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Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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