The Simon Powell Poetry Prize 2025 Update
We have now contacted the ten winners of this year’s competition to inform them of their success.
Well done to our winners, but congratulations to everyone who entered the competition.
As our judge Daljit Nagra said,
Nearly two decades of winners for the Simon Powell Poetry Prize neatly demonstrates the competition’s staying power, that young poets enter the competition each year, and that many of the winners will enjoy the experience of performing at a Poetry Live event before thousands of students. In addition, the winners receive a workshop session at the Barbican along with poetry collections by the Poetry Live poets. In return, we get to enjoy the voices of poets at the earliest stages of their creative powers as they experiment with new ways to articulate the strange otherworld of the imagination. This year’s 12 winners present a wonderful range of tones and subject matters, from a poem about a tiger within us to a scene at a Peruvian mountain to a child being turned into a doll. I recommend these winners for their courage to enter the competition and for their assured powers of language that communicate music and ideals against the struggles endured. Congratulations to the winners, I hugely enjoyed your poems and can’t wait to hear you perform them!
To everyone who entered, thanks for making this year’s competition such high quality and keep writing.
Once again congratulations to our winners!
Best wishes,
Daniel Powell (June 2026)
Simon Powell (1952-2009) was always a great champion of new poetry. We run this competition as a tribute to his commitment to poetry and to his encouragement of young people to start writing.