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Young poets’ competition aims for biggest entry yet

1 December 2010

Sixth formers across the UK are being encouraged to enter a prestigious Oxford University poetry competition offering nearly £6,000 in prize money.

The 2011 Christopher Tower Poetry Competition is open to all 16-18 year olds in full or part-time education in the UK. The competition is being run by Christ Church, one of Oxford’s largest colleges, and organisers are hoping that students from at least 50% of schools and colleges will submit their poems. This year’s theme is simplicity.

Entry closes on 11 March 2011 when the three judges David Morley, Director of Writing at Warwick University, Frances Leviston, an alumna of St Hilda’s College, Oxford and Peter McDonald, Tutor in Poetry at Christ Church will choose the winners.

The first prize is £3,000, £1,000 will be awarded to the runner-up and the third-placed poet will win £500. The students’ schools and colleges will also receive cash prizes, taking the total amount awarded to £5,800.

Kathryn Grant, competition administrator, said: ‘Since 2000, the Christopher Tower Poetry Competition has become one of the UK’s most highly regarded literary contests for young people.

‘In 2010, students from nearly 30% of eligible schools entered which was extremely satisfying. But we can do better than that and are hoping that, as interest in poetry increases, far more schools will encourage their pupils to take part. We’re aiming for 50% of eligible schools this year.’

The annual competition was launched in 2000 following a bequest to Christ Church from Christopher Tower, for the promotion of poetry writing. Christopher Tower read history at the college from 1934-1937 and later became a poet.

Interest in poetry has soared partly because the internet makes publication easier. Last year’s Christopher Tower competition attracted more than 1,000 entries with six poets shortlisted to attend a prize-giving ceremony at Christ Church.

Previous prize winners include Richard O’Brien, commended in 2008 and now reading English and French at Brasenose College, Oxford, and Annie Katchinska who was second in the 2007 competition. In the same year, Katchinska was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year for the second time. She is currently studying classics at Cambridge.

For more details visit www.towerpoetry.org.uk/prize, email info@towerpoetry.org.uk or call 01865 286591. 

Notes for editors

  • Christopher Tower wrote nine illustrated books of poetry, mainly of Persian and Arab legends. These included Firuz of Isfahan, A Distant Fluting, Oultre Jourdain, Victoria the Good and Arcesilayus at Tocra. He left a legacy of £5m to be used by Christ Church to fund the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize, to endow two teaching posts - a Poetry Studentship and a tutorial fellowship, with an associated University Lecturership - and fund a Junior Research Fellowship in Greek mythology.
  • David Morley is the award-winning writer of nine books of poetry and the editor of six anthologies of new fiction and poetry. He writes criticism, essays and reviews for The Guardian, PN Review and Poetry Review. His next book of poems is Enchantment from Carcanet in November this year.  He recently published a new book of Romany poems The Invisible Kings, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing. David is Director of the Warwick Writing Programme at The University of Warwick where he is Professor of Writing and Director of the Warwick Prize for Writing.
  • Frances Leviston was born in Edinburgh in 1982, and grew up in Sheffield. She read English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, where she won the Lord Alfred Douglas Prize for Poetry in 2003. She has an MA in Writing from Sheffield Hallam University. Her pamphlet Lighter (Mews Press, 2004) was selected as the PBS Bulletin Pamphlet Choice for Spring 2005, and her poems have appeared in the Times, the TLS, British Council/Granta New Writing 14, Poetry London, Poetry Review and AnOther Magazine. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2006. Her first collection, Public Dream, was published by Picador in 2007. She has worked as a bookseller, a secretary, a writing tutor, and a snowboarding instructor, and has reviewed poetry for publications including the TLS, the Guardian, and the Yorkshire Post.
  • Peter McDonald is the Christopher Tower Student and Tutor in Poetry in the English Language at Christ Church, Oxford.  His publications include Louis MacNeice: The Poet in his Contexts (1991), Mistaken Identities: Poetry and Northern Ireland (1997), Pastorals (2004) and The House of Clay (2007).