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Prole Laureate competition, 2012
The second Prole Laureate competition is now open. We are looking for a poet who epitomises the qualities of Prole: a writer who engages, challenges, entertains and is inclusive of a wide audience.
We are open to all forms of poetry: free, blank, structured, rhymed. You write it, we’ll read it. The only arbiters that will inform the shortlist are the elements mentioned above. Once the short list is formed, it will be sent to our Judge. This year Andrew McMillan has kindly agreed to make the final choices.
Andrew McMillan was born in 1988 and is one of the poets who will “dominate UK poetry in years to come” according to the new Salt Book of Younger Poets. He has been poet-in-residence for Off the Page and the Regional Youth Theatre Festival, as well as writer-in-residence for the Watershed Landscape Project. He has completed high profile commissions for the likes of the Cultural Olympiad, which was featured on Radio 4’s Today programme.
His debut pamphlet, every salt advance, was published in 2009 by Red Squirrel Press and was deemed "a delightfully imaginative debut"; a second pamphlet, the moon is a supporting player was published in Autumn 2011. A selection of his work can also be found in the Salt Book of Younger Poets.
Prizes
Winner: £130, publication in April 2012 issue of Prole and on the website.
The right to call yourself Prole Laureate!
Two runners up: £25 each, publication on our website and possible publication in our April 2012 print issue.
How to enter
All entires must be previously unpublished.
By email.
Your name, contact details, paypal reference number and poem/poems should be contained in the body of the email and sent to
poetrycompetition@prolebooks.co.uk
If you want to include a short bio, feel free.
By post.
Contact details should appear on each page used.
Cheques should be made payable to Prolebooks.
Mail to:
Prolebooks
15 Maes-y-Dre
Abergele
Conwy
LL22 7HW
Time scale
All entries should reach us by March 1st 2012.
Winners will be announced in our April 2012 issue of Prole and on here on our website 30th April 2012.
How to pay
By PayPal.
You do not need a PayPal account to use this safe and secure payment method. Just use the buttons below. Include the transaction number with your payment.
By cheque.
Make your cheque payable to Prolebooks and include in posted submission.
If you are paying by PayPal, you have the option to purchase the current PDF version of Prole for an extra £2.50, saving 38%.
Our outgoing Prole Laureate is Helen Ramoutsaki. Her winning poem, The up side, can be viewed below.
| Single entry, £3 |
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| Two entries, £5 |
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| Three entries, £7 |
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| Single entry, plus current PDF, £5.50 |
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| Two entries, plus current PDF, £7.50 |
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| Three entries, plus current PDF, £9.50 |
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Last year’s winning poem by Helen Ramoutsaki, Prole Laureate 2011-2012.
The up side
Inside your small world
you carve your daily bread sideways
with only one side up
to butter it on.
Year after year,
showing stern fingers shaking,
thou shalt nibble at the crumbs
and never be greedy.
Inside your hatch
hides a tin of caring, cariad,
all mouth-melting, griddle-cooked
for children to gobble at.
Grasping your basket,
sensible shopping, pension-eking,
penny by penny in a co-op book
stuck with stamps in line for a bingo.
Over a sloe gin,
sipped sour and surprising,
I hear you careering, black-out illicit,
down contrabanded country lanes.
Out in the avenue,
the children play tin-tan-topper
past the pigeons homing home
all in a line, counting polished doorsteps.
Choking on a woodbine
in adult-bar city-life amazement,
I’m offered lovers, fags and sports cars
and a single, faded photo.
I’ve been told now,
take your cake, eat it up,
relish it, each buttery currant,
before you’re left with only bread.
Pigeons know
where to come home to roost,
trained to their place, compelled by duty
and a battered tray of grain.
Now I see the side you hide
and why you carefully cut,
buttering first so you’re not tempted
to choose which one it’s on.
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