VER POETS OPEN COMPETITION 2025
For poems of up to 30 lines
​
Adjudicator: Rory Waterman
Closing Date: April 30th 2025
Prizes: 1st - £600, 2nd - £300, 3rd - £100
Short-listed poems published in The Ver Prize 2025 anthology
​
Download an entry form here.
Rory Waterman was born in Belfast in 1981, and grew up mainly in Lincolnshire. His full-length collections, all published by Carcanet, are: Tonight the Summer’s Over (2013), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for a Seamus Heaney Award; Sarajevo Roses (2017), which was shortlisted for the Ledbury Forte Prize for Second Collections; Sweet Nothings (2020); and, most recently, Come Here to This Gate (2024), described in the Guardian as 'a wise and deeply satisfying book.' He is also a critic for the TLS, PN Review and other publications, and has published several books on modern and contemporary poetry. He co-edits New Walk Editions. Since 2012, he has worked at Nottingham Trent University, where he is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature. He lives in Nottingham.​​​​
Conditions of Entry
The Ver Poets Open Competition is for poems on any theme and in any form. It is open to anybody aged 16 or over. There is no initial sifting process and Rory Waterman will receive all entries. His decision is final.
To be eligible for the competition, poems must be no more than 30 lines in length. Each poem should be typed clearly, in English, on one side only of A4: one poem only per sheet.
Competitors’ names and addresses must not appear anywhere on the poems.
​
If entering by post: TWO COPIES OF EACH POEM please. Please write your contact details and the titles of all poems clearly on the entry form. Please send entries to: Competitions Secretary, 23 Nightingale Walk, Windsor
SL4 3HS.
If entering by email: please write your contact details and the titles of all poems in the body of the email and attach all the poems in a single word or pdf document with a separate page for each poem. Please use Open Entry as your subject line.
​
Email: verpoets@gmail.com
Competitors may submit any number of poems for a fee of £4.00 per poem, 3 poems for £10, £3 per poem thereafter. Payments may be made by bank transfer or cheques/postal orders (sterling only). It is not advisable to send cash in the post. Entries must be received no later than April 30th 2025.
​
Poems must be the original work of the competitor. They should not have been published, or accepted for publication, in print or online. They should not have won prizes in other competitions, be simultaneously entered for other competitions or be translations of other poets’ work. No competitor may win more than one prize.
The copyright of all poems selected for the anthology will remain with the author but we reserve the right to publish the prizewinning poems on our website and in our newsletter. Copies of the competition anthology, The Ver Prize 2025, may be ordered by including a payment of £4 per copy plus £1 post and packaging. Selected and prizewinning poets will be informed by post in June and invited to read at a prize giving event. Results will be posted on our website in July.
A donation will be made from the proceeds to St Albans Community Pantry, a food bank and food rescue charity, helping vulnerable, individuals and families who find themselves in hardship.
