Terms & Conditions

This competition is run by The Poetry Archive, charity number 1093858, registered office Exeter Phoenix, Gandy Street, Exeter, EX4 3LS.
The Poetry Archive publishes the poems of people entering the open call ‘Poetry Archive Now!’ (here called 'multimedia content'), and publishes them to our own websites and social media channels with the permission of the poet creators. The information contained in the multimedia content posted here represents the views and opinions of the original creators of the content, and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the Poetry Archive. The appearance of this video content does not constitute an endorsement by the Poetry Archive or anyone affiliated with us. We make this video content available for informational and educational purposes only, and we do not make any representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the video content. Ownership of the video content remains with the poet creator at all times and the Poetry Archive disclaims any and all liabilities to any party arising from any use of this content.
Only submissions completed through the online form on poetryarchive.org between 1^st July 2024 and 31^st August 2025 will be accepted.
Open only to poets over 18 years of age.
Each recording should be a video of yourself reading your single poem with a maximum length of 2 minutes viewing and reading time. We welcome video entries in British Sign Language. We would like you to tell us your name, the name of the poem and followed by the poem recital. We do not accept poems created using Artificial Generative Intelligence. We appreciate that some entrants may not want to be seen on screen reading their poem. We are happy to accept voice only submissions. Simply supply a static image as a background to your video or get creative and think of other ways.
The online entry process also asks you to include a copy of the text of the poem which will be displayed with your video.
Poems must be written during, and in response to, 2025. They can be on any theme, subject and in any style up to a maximum of 2 minutes in length. We want future generations to look back and see the refrains, concerns, emotions of 2025 in all their diversity to build a true picture of poetic responses to our age.
By submitting your poem, you confirm you are the sole copyright holder for your work. The Poetry Archive will only share a poem when we have the copyright owner’s permission to do so. If the poem you choose is published elsewhere you might not be able to grant us permission to share your work – please talk to your publisher.
We do not ask for exclusive rights to this work. By submitting a poem to the Poetry Archive, you confirm that you have the authority to grant us copyright permissions to share your work through the Poetry Archive website, our YouTube, and other social media channels.
The Poetry Archive collects poetry written in English from around the world so we ask that all poems be recorded in English.
All work submitted will only be played through the Poetry Archive websites (poetryarchive.org) or on our YouTube channel or marketed through our social media channels and websites. We will not sell, rent or loan your work to any third party without your prior written permission and all intellectual property belonging to poets will be respected at all times.
The Poetry Archive retains the right to choose which poems we will share through our websites, YouTube and marketing channels. We maintain our poetry collections for general public enjoyment and for education purposes.
To ensure we can reach as many poets as possible we regret that we must limit entries to one poem per poet and multiple entries received afterwards will be automatically disqualified - so take your time to get the best version you can. We regret that we cannot accept requests to amend videos or the text of poems once an entry has been received. This competition will run every year so you can apply again each year.
We regret no responsibility can be accepted for entries not received for whatever reason.
All poets whose work we would like to include in our online Virtual Poetry Festivals or curated collections will be contacted in advance to gain approval before we proceed.
The Prize: Each year, after the deadline, the Poetry Archive will assemble a panel of experts to choose their favourite poems to be part of a special annual collection, the Poetry Archive Now: WordView Collection. This year, one poem from the Poetry Archive Now! Wordview shortlist will be selected as the overall winner, and the poet will receive a £1,000 cash prize. The top 20 shortlisted poems will be featured in the annual Winner’s Collection on the Poetry Archive website. Shortlisted poets will not receive monetary award as only one poem will win PAN! Wordview 2025 overall. The Prize selection process consists of:
- A shortlist of the Top 50 poems to be chosen by a panel led by the Poetry Archive Director and a team of invited poets and poetry specialists and publishers.
- From the shortlist, a specialist panel will select the 20 poems to be included in the Poetry Archive Now 2024 Collection.
- Where poets are chosen for commendation by the panel they will be contacted by email.
- All other poets selected may still be contacted by email in future to be part of curated collections based on geography, style, theme etc as part of our work to raise the profile of as many poets as possible through our newsletters and marketing channels.
Poets whose entries are chosen for our prize-winning collection will be invited to supply a head and shoulders photograph to go on their page on our website. This is not a mandatory requirement.
At all times the Poetry Archive retains the right to choose which poems to publish. We always look for reasons to include poets in the Archive and no poet will be unreasonably excluded. We reserve the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and conditions without notice in the event of catastrophe or any actual or anticipated event outside the Poetry Archive's control.
As a charity, the Poetry Archive is unable to pay royalties for submissions. For every poem published to our You Tube channel, our staff team will work to bring new audiences to your work through our marketing, newsletters and social media activity and we will promote the initiative far and wide. We will welcome your poem into the Poetry Archive family by using our archiving experience and expertise to ensure your poem is stored carefully, included in our master catalogue and maintained for future generations to find and enjoy.
We regret that we cannot enter into individual discussions or correspondence with poets. We are a very small team, but we will do our best to provide information through our website and will update our FAQ’s in response to enquiries as they come in.
By entering this competition and entrant is indicating their agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.

Read the FAQs

PA Now main page