An international poetry competition

SMP Secretary Carol Hayton reflects on some of the surprises and challenges from this year’s Shelley Memorial Poetry Competition.

When we launched the Shelley Festival 200 poetry competition in April this year we were not really sure what to expect. We hoped that the prizes offered would attract a good response. We also hoped that that the network that we had used to promote the competition would have a broad enough geographical reach to make this a national event. We hoped we would at least receive enough contributions to actually have a competition in each category.

In the months following the launch, as entries rolled in, it was clear that our competition was not just the hoped for national competition but an international one. Amongst the many wonderful poetry submissions we received were poems from Malta, the USA, Sri Lanka, France, Turkey, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This was for us a great testimony to the enduring, international appeal of Shelley's work. Not only that, but it evidenced the enduring appeal of poetry itself, with so many people from so many places and of all ages, enthusiastically taking inspiration from the great poet and engaging in creative writing of such a high standard.

We were particularly pleased to receive poems from overseas entrants in our categories for young people. It was a delight to read all the poems sent from the young competitors in these age categories and all rose to the challenge of the competition really well, but it takes particular confidence and motivation to engage with a literary competition in another country, and in some instances to do so in a language that isn't your first. Our winner Afra Samsudeen from Sri Lanka and runner up Oshadra Perera from New Zealand demonstrated this brilliantly.

The challenge we then had at the prize awarding stage was how to convert a national book token into international book token currency. This transpired that there was no quick and easy way to proceed with this, international book tokens that can be purchased with UK currency are hard to come by. So following consultation with our winners, we agreed that we would transfer an equivalent amount of cash to New Zealand for Oshadra. Afra provided us with a list of books and asked us to source which ever combination of these could be purchased and despatched to Sri Lanka for the prize value. We found out that Waterstones could assist us with this international book transaction but unfortunately, our business coincided with a period of disruption to their despatch services due to reorganisation of their warehouse management system. So Afra had to wait patiently for her prize which arrived in separate parcels, received on a weekly basis over a period a month. At the end of the month we received email confirmation that the books had arrived in good condition and attached to the email was a lovely photograph of Afra and her prize.

By the end of the process we learned a lot about the challenges of running an international poetry competition and a lot about the rewards. What was particularly rewarding was the feedback we received from the competitors and their families about the experience of participating. A couple of our favourite comments are copied below.

' I would like to thank you all for organising the poetry competition so that many young people would be able to bring out the talent that lies within them'

' Thank you for creating this opportunity for young poets to participate and celebrate the life of one of the greatest poets '

And we would like to thank all of our poets, of all ages, for making this such a marvellous experience and a greta way to celebrate Shelley and great poetry. We are looking forward to the next one !

Afra and her prize