Teignmouth’s poetry competition has opened for entries
Like so many organisations, Poetry Teignmouth has had a difficult couple of years, not least with the untimely death of lynch-pin Graham Burchell last May. The rest of the team are now looking ahead, intending to make 2022 the come-back year.
First step is the annual poetry competition, which opened for entries on 1st November. Although it’s an international contest, attracting around a thousand entries from all over the globe, local poets are specially catered-for.
All entries from Devon postcodes are automatically included in the ‘Local’ section of the competition, which from now on has a new name, The Graham Burchell Prize for Devon Poets. Prize money in this section has been doubled too – £200 for the winner, £100 for second place and £50 for third. Administrator Virginia Griem is delighted to announce that the judge for 2022 is Dr Rosie Jackson, widely experienced author of many books and a highly respected poet, who took first prize in the Open competition last year.
Entry to the competition can be online via the website (poetryteignmouth.com) or by post using the printed entry forms which are now available in libraries, The Pavilions, and many other Arts venues.
Ian Royce Chamberlain, co-founder of the hugely popular Teignmouth Poetry Festival, explains that entry fees from this competition were the chief means of financial support for the festival, which had to be cancelled for two successive years. ‘With the loss of Graham Burchell and a number of other factors, we must find some new faces for the organising team,’ he says.
‘So it’s unlikely that 2022 will see a full-blown four-day festival as there was in past years, but with money coming in we will be in a good position to start planning properly for the future.”
For competition entry form and full details go to www.poetryteignmouth.com/competition-2022