Competition
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BEST songs OF ALL TIME
poetry competition
Judge: Emma Purshouse
Closing date 5th April 2025
Yaffle’s Nest invite you to submit poems about what you consider to be the best songs of all time.
You can respond in any way you like, just make your poems as good as they can be.
If you can’t whittle your favourites own to one – send us as many poems as you like.
For more specific guidance on what our judge will be looking for see Emma’s comments below her bio.
All longlisted, commended, highly commended and winning poems will be included in the eventual anthology.
The anthology will be a stand alone book where every contribution will be equal, however the final placings turn out.
The aim is to get the anthology into as many book shops as we can.
This will be the first of what we hope will be many of our new ‘Best Of All Time (BOAT) series of anthologies.
Prizes:
Winner: £200
2nd Prize: £50.00
3rd Prize: £25.00
The winner, runners-up and those on the long-list, will be announced on 8th April 2025
ENTRY FEE:
£6 for one poem
£13 for 3 poems
£20 for 6 poems
Please pay for your entry using PayPal yafflesnest@gmail.com
You are allowed to enter as many times as you want.
We look forward to reading your work.
Yaffle's Nest Team
Sole Judge
Emma Purshouse
What am I looking for?
I enjoy crafted, tightly written poems. Poems that tell stories. Poems that come at things from unusual angles. Poems that I can walk into and have a good look round. Poems that sparkle and sing. I’m looking for the tales that only you can tell.
When I judge competitions I read poems aloud, so a piece that feels wonderful in the air is always a pleasure to discover.
I have wide ranging poetry tastes and am as likely to pick a poem that makes use of a traditional form as I am a piece of prose poetry.
I’m really looking forward to reading your work."
Rules:
The prize is open to any poet in the world who is over 18 years of age writing in English.
Competition Rules
1. Closing date for receipt of entries: 5th April 2025 (Midnight GMT).
2. The maximum length for each poem is 40 lines excluding the title. Breaks between stanzas do not count towards the total.
3. Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant and must never have been published, self-published, published on any website or recorded (poems read at open mics are OK as long as they were not recorded). No posthumous or AI generated entries please.
4. Entries must be in English and we will not be accepting translations of poetry.
5. Each poem should be sent as a separate word document. The name of each document should be the name of the poem it contains and have no identifying marks other than the title on either the page or in the document name.
6. Font should be Georgia (or similar) 12 point. Pages should not be numbered, there should be no colour, pictures or borders and no explanatory notes.
7. Online entries – Pay online using PayPal. Your covering email should include: your name and address, and the titles of your poems. The title of your email should be Yaffle Prize, your name and PayPal transaction number eg: John Smith 9PO79127H87167P.
8. Send your poems to: yafflesnest[at]gmail[dot]com
9. No corrections can be made after receipt, nor fees refunded.
10. Worldwide copyright of poems remains with the author, but Yaffle’s Nest will have the unrestricted right to publish the winning poems on its website, in competition publicity and in the resulting anthology.
11. The judge’s decision is final and no individual correspondence can be entered into.
Entry implies acceptance of the rules. Failure to comply with entry requirements will result in disqualification.
Receipt: Yaffle’s Nest will acknowledge all entries, if you do not see acknowledgement please check your spam filter – adding our email address to your contacts should prevent this happening.
Results: Winners will be notified by email by 5th May 2025
Results will be published on our website and social media
The Zoom Prizewinning event take place in Summer 2025.
Please pay for your entry using the PayPal email yafflesnest@gmail.com
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Emma Purshouse is a poetry slam champion and performs regularly at spoken word nights and festivals far and wide, sometimes using her native Black Country dialect. She was the first Poet Laureate for the City of Wolverhampton (2020 – 2022). Her appearances include, The Cheltenham Literature Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Much Wenlock Poetry Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe,
Latitude, Shambala, and Womad. She has supported the likes of John Hegley, Holly McNish and Carol Ann Duffy.
In 2017 Emma won the ‘Making Waves’ international spoken word competition which was judged by Luke Wright. Her children’s poetry collection ‘I Once Knew a Poem Who Wore a Hat’ (Fair Acre Press) won the poetry section of the Rubery Book award in 2016. Her poetry publication ‘Close’ (Offa’s Press) was shortlisted for the same award in 2018. ‘It’s Honorary, Bab’ is Emma’s most recent poetry collection also published by Offa’s Press. Her debut novel ‘Dogged’ is published by Ignite Books. She is one third of the poetry collective ‘Poets, Prattlers and Pandemonialists’ who run spoken word events, workshops, and poetry projects across the English Midlands. Emma’s poem ‘Catherine Eddowes Tin Box as a Key Witness’ came 3rd in the National Poetry Competition in 2021.“
A whirlwind of wit and humour” – Write Out Loud.