OLD POSSUM'S CHILDREN'S POETRY COMPETITION
Children’s Laureate to chair international competition

Michael Rosen, the Children’s Laureate, is to chair the judging panel for a worldwide poetry competition for 7- to 11-year-olds. He hailed last year’s winning poems as ‘beautiful and surprising’. The Competition is organised by the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf (CPB), a poetry book club for young people run by the Poetry Book Society.

How to enter

To link with National Poetry Day on Thursday 9 October, children will be asked to write a poem in English no longer than 25 lines on the theme of ‘Work’.

Entries are to be no longer than 25 lines, written in English and that you must be aged between 7 and 11 when you send in your entry, which must ,of course, be entirely your own work.

Entry forms will be available to download from the Children's Poetry Bookshelf website from Thursday 11 September 2008 when the competition opens.

It closes on Monday 20 October 2008. Now in its third year, the competition has been renamed the Old Possum’s Children’s Poetry Competition after T. S. Eliot’s much-loved children’s poetry collection about cats.

The competition is open to both individuals and schools. Cash prizes of £250 for first prize, £100 for second and £50 for third will be awarded, along with books and Children's Poetry Bookshelf memberships, in two age groups, 7- to 8-year-olds and 9- to 11-year-olds.

Entries will be accepted from Thursday 11 September up until the closing date of Monday 20 October. The winners will be announced at a gala celebration in London in December.

A booklet featuring the winning poems from this year’s competition will be produced by the Poetry Book Society (PBS) and distributed to the winning poets, all the UK schools that entered the competition, and CPB and PBS members.

For further information about the Competition please contact:

Chris Holifield at the Poetry Book Society

T +44 (0)20 7833 9247
E-mail chris@poetrybooks.co.uk