As you know, our mission is to promote cultural democracy in all the arts and other cultural activities. We have been running the Bread and Roses Poetry Awards to create opportunities for working people to write poetry, and to encourage poets to focus on themes which are meaningful to working-class communities.
There can’t be much doubt about meaningful themes this year. We face a cost-of-living crisis – rising prices for food, fuel and energy, with the value of benefits going down, and increased pressure on jobseekers. We’ll see an increase in poverty in many areas of the country and amongst many communities. Homelessness and poor health are still major threats to working people, including mental health problems, exacerbated by the recent pandemic.
On top of these economic and social problems, we're faced with political problems: the lies, deception, hypocrisy, incompetence, cronyism and callous lack of compassion of our political rulers in Downing St., Westminster and Dublin.
As in previous years, there will be 5 prizes of £100 for the best poems. Following on from the success of A Fish Rots From The Head, our free downloadable anthology of images and poetry, we will publish online and printed versions of the anthology later in the year.
The judges will be Andy Croft, poet and publisher of Smokestack Books, and Fran Lock, poet and Associate Editor of Culture Matters.
Submission Rules and Guidelines
1. You may enter one or two original, previously unpublished (in print) poems in English, each no more than 50 lines long.
2. You must be resident in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland.
3. Entry is free and there will be five prizes of £100 each for the best poems.
4. Entries should broadly deal with themes relevant to working-class life, politics, communities and culture in 2022.
5. Entries should be sent to info@culturematters.org.uk by midnight on 30th September 2022. No entries will be accepted after that date.
6. Please include the poem(s) and your name, address, and contact details in the body of the email.
7. All entries remain the copyright of the author but Culture Matters will have the right to publish them online and in print.
8. By entering the Award, entrants agree to accept and be bound by the rules of the Award and the decisions of the judges. We are unable to respond individually to submissions.
Copies of They Want All Our Teeth To Be Theirs: The Bread and Roses Poetry Anthology 2021 (along with many other fine books of political poetry) are available to buy here.
