Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.
FAQs
Go to the 'Submit your poem for 2023' section and fill out the submission form. On the final page of the submission form upload the file of your video entry and you're done!
When filling out the submission form, you will be asked for details about yourself, then about your poem and the final page will allow you to upload a file.
When your file has uploaded you will receive a confirmation from our file upload service to confirm we have received the file, this means we have received your entry.
After this we will be reviewing and transferring entries over into our YouTube channel within 14 days of receipt.
After the competition closes, we will continue to upload entries onto our YouTube channel until the beginning of September. Our judges will then work to shortlist and choose the winning 20 poems, all winners will be contacted via your entry email before the end of October 2023.
If you do not hear from us you have not been selected for the final twenty in this year's competition.
It takes us a little while to process applications as they come in and transfer them to YouTube, roughly between 1-2 weeks.
After the competition closes, we continue to upload entries onto our YouTube channel for a further two weeks.
if after that period you do not see your video, please contact us at info@poetryarchive.org. There may be a small number of videos we are unable to access. We will try to reach out to entrants via info@poetryarchive.org. Our info mail address sometimes gets blocked by spam/junk filters so please check your spam / junk email.
We think home-made videos via phones, or via your PC, Mac or laptop are fantastic. Last year we loved those little windows into the places you come from, whether they were indoors or outside. If you can’t gain help from someone else you can select your ‘stage’ and sit with your hand held device / laptop in front of you and record your whole poem in one take. So long as we can hear you clearly and see your face – we will be happy and so will our visitors who come to listen to your poems. YouTube has some great advice on how to make a great home-made video. Try this video to get started (after reading their privacy notice). You can read or recite your poem from a book or piece of paper, you can be seated, standing, in a full shot or just a head-and-shoulders. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable and speak clearly so we can fully enjoy your poem.
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You can submit a video that has you reading but does not feature you on camera, simply use a static image to accompany the audio, or get creative and think of other ways.
There may be some exceptional situations where we will be able to help you enter a voice only poem if you don't know how to make it a video - please send us an email if you want to find out more.
We are a small team and it is most likely we have had multiple entries and are working our way through them. If you haven’t heard from us after 2 weeks of your entry please send an email to info@poetryarchive.org and we can check if there has been a problem. Many thanks for your patience and understanding.
Please keep checking our YouTube channel and we are sure your video will appear in around 2 weeks after you submit it to us.
We will email you to congratulate you and ask for your payment details so we can arrange to pay a royalty fee of £100. We will then work with you as we launch this new collection to the world.
Each poet chosen for a special collection on our Archive will be offered £100 royalty fee for the use of their poem. As a charity the Poetry Archive is sadly unable to pay a royalty for every submission we receive as we truly hope that many hundreds of poets will have work they want the Archive to keep. For every poem published to our YouTube channel we promise our staff team will work to bring new audiences to your work though our marketing, newsletters and social media activity – and we will promote this initiative far and wide. We will welcome you into the Poetry Archive family by committing our archiving resources and expertise to ensure your poem is stored carefully, included in our master catalogue and maintained in our Archive securely for future generations to find and enjoy. You will always know the Poetry Archive keeps your poem safe!