About Us

History

The first Welsh Poetry Competition was set up by poet & writer Dave Lewis in 2007.  Officially launched on St David’s Day @ Clwb-Y-Bont, Pontypridd, 2007, the aim was to encourage and foster the wealth of creative writing talent that we knew existed in Wales but was languishing in the doldrums. The aim was to inspire people to capture life in the present day and to give a voice to a new generation of poets and writers. We were not interested in purely academic types of literature but wanted to see pure raw passion burst onto the creative writing scene in Wales.

Photograph by Andrew Davies, 2007

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It was obvious, after our first few years, that our competition was here to stay, and with entries from as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, Corfu, Denmark, England, Finland, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Scotland, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Swaziland, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, USA and Vietnam as well as Wales of course, the Welsh Poetry Competition was truly international, and accessible to all (through the English language).

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Funding

Readers should note that the competition was totally independent and financed purely by the organiser and entry fees.  We received no grants, bursaries or monies from any of the cash-rich, publicly-funded agencies in Wales (i.e. the Arts Council of Wales, Literature Wales, Welsh Books Council, The Welsh Academy, Association for Welsh Writing in English, Wales PEN Cymru, Wales Literature Exchange, The Association for Welsh Writing in English, The Rhys Davies Trust, the Welsh book publishers, magazines, webzines, blogs, etc. etc.) whatsoever.

In 20 years of running the competition, we didn’t get a single email with offers to help us promote the contest from any of the organisations listed above (swimming in millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash as they are). Literature Wales (responsible for promoting Welsh literature) wouldn’t even mention us in their newsletter!  And this was and still is their job!  Despite this, we were still the biggest poetry contest in Wales for many years.

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Judging

We were lucky to have a great set of judges throughout our history, and all judges resided in Wales. We had local Pontypridd writer John Evans, Red Poet Mike Jenkins, novelist Sally Spedding, Children’s Laureate Wales, Eloise Williams, Bridport Prize winner Kathy Miles and former winner of our own contest Mick Evans.

In August 2011, we published a fantastic anthology of the first five years of winners’ poems, followed by a second in 2016. Our third and final collections were published in 2021 and 2026.

Photograph by Andrew Davies, 2008

Our 20th contest, in 2026, saw Mick Evans return to judge. A bittersweet moment, as this was our final competition.

Unlike many competitions, we did not filter entries; our judges read every single poem, so everyone had the same chance. We also believed in having (naming) as many ‘winners’ as possible. By having twenty winners each year, we aimed to encourage writers who may have come fourth, fifth, etc. in other competitions but who would never know. Since we began the competition, other bigger contests started to follow our lead and are now naming more writers amongst their winners, although no one went as far as we did!

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Promoting Welsh Talent

Whilst the aims of the poetry competition never wavered, since we began back in 2007, we did notice that over all those years, the taxpayer-funded, heavily subsidised establishment organisations did not seem to want to help us in any way.  Every year, we would ask Literature Wales to help promote the contest (it is their job after all, and they get millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to do this!), but every year they seemed to forget to promote us, or we needed to ask them several times, just to be included on their website or in a newsletter.

One year, they even refused to help because we linked to an excellent blog that dared to tell the truth about them – blackmail, we thought, how quaint!  We asked Pen Cymru to intervene, but they also refused to help.  It didn’t bother us as we were fairly self-sufficient by then, but we do wonder why these big, powerful quangos take this backwards, rather childish and spiteful attitude, especially as all we were doing is their job for them!  You’d think they would be falling over themselves to help advertise and market the contest, seeing as we did all the work.

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Writers of Wales

There used to be a ‘Writers of Wales database‘ which many people in Wales loved as it made them feel a part of things, but sadly it disappeared many years ago.  So, rather than moan about its passing, we decided to create our own.  In February 2019, we launched the new Writers of Wales A to Z writers database.  This ongoing, time-consuming project was quite a big undertaking, but we felt it was worth doing.  We maintained the website for six years and ‘shamed’ Literature Wales into starting their own again.  Mission accomplished, we let the site fade away…

As well as the poetry competition, Dave, the organiser, also runs a self-publishing company, PoetryPublisher, which also aims to help Welsh poets get into print and compete in the marketplace.  Many authors would claim that the only true test of a writer is to sell books.

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Maya Poetry Book Awards

For 2020, as well as continuing with the contest and adding more Welsh writers to our database, we decided to start a new venture.  The International Poetry Book Awards aim to find the best self-published poets with a book-length collection.  The awards will target small or micro presses and independent publishers who find it difficult to compete with the large publishing houses that either refuse point-blank to allow self-published writers and indies to enter their big-money competitions or just price poets out with huge entry fees.  Again, you must ask yourself – why discriminate against poor artists?  What are they afraid of?  Perhaps they don’t want to discover a great new poetic voice?

If you have a paperback of poetry, then check out our website.

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Newsletter

If you would like to be added to our mailing list, just click the link below, and we shall let you know when we update the website or publish a blog post. We also offer writing tips, marketing ideas, author quotes, free poems and self-publishing news.

Sign Up Here

We usually send one email a month, and you can unsubscribe at any time. We will send you news from the following sites:

Maya Poetry Book Awards – www.poetrybookawards.co.uk
Dave Lewis – www.davelewis.co.uk
Poetry Publisher – www.poetrypublisher.co.uk

We use MailChimp for our newsletters; they are GDPR compliant, and we never give your e-mail address to anyone else.

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To follow Dave on Twitter/X***

Tweet

@DaveLewisWriter

*Note: You will need your own Twitter account to join in.

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Facebook

We use the ‘Welsh Writers’ Facebook Group** to post and promote all things literature-related in Wales – click here.

**Note: You will need your own Facebook account to join in.

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Photography

All images are copyright © Dave Lewis, apart from:

Free stock images, e.g. Pexels, used on our blog posts.

No unauthorised use is permitted.

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And Finally…

The international Welsh Poetry Competition (2007-2026) has now concluded after twenty successful years. Thank you to everyone who supported it. This website will continue with blog posts, news, book updates and events. We aim to post about once a month, so please bookmark us and check back regularly.

A final word from our organiser…

“After 20 years of running the Welsh Poetry Competition, I am hanging up my boots.  Sadly, 2026 will also be our last year.  To all entrants, thank you so much for all your support over the last twenty years; it’s been a special contest, and we couldn’t have done it without you.  It’s been a blast!”
– Cheers Dave 🙂

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