We’re looking forward to celebrating National Poetry Day on 8 October with an international poetry competition for 7 to 11-year-olds. Carol Ann Duffy will chair the judges - John Agard, Antonia Byatt, Gillian Clarke, Janetta Otter-Barry and Roger Stevens - as they select the winning poems on the NPD theme of ‘Heroes and Heroines’.  There are cash prizes for the winners, as well as Children’s Poetry Bookshelf memberships for their schools. The Competition starts on 10 September, when full details will be available on our website www.childrenspoetrybookshelf.co.uk.

 

We’re thrilled that Carol Ann has agreed to support the Competition. Also lined up for judging duties this autumn is Simon Armitage, who’s agreed to chair the judges of the 2009 T S Eliot Prize, awarded by the PBS in January for the best collection of poetry published in the previous year. When the ten-strong shortlist is announced on 22 October we’ll also start our T S Eliot Prize Shadowing Scheme, with its student writing and new teachers’ competition.  This autumn we’ll also pilot our T S Eliot Prize reading group scheme on www.poetrybookshoponline.com.

 

These excitements apart, the Poetry Book Society www.poetrybooks.co.uk delivers the quarterly Bulletin review of the best new poetry and its Selectors’ Choice to its keen poetry reading members. The Education membership for ‘A’ level students has teaching tips and books, and for 7-11-year-olds there’s the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf’s selection of the best new children’s poetry.

 

So we’re looking forward to an autumn full of poetry and a great National Poetry Day!

 

Chris Holifield, Poetry Book Society