This is a quick guide to entering the 2025 Disabled Poets Prize. It gives you the main information you need to make a submission.
On this page the Quick Guide to entering the Disabled Poets Prize 2024 is available in text (scroll down). It is also available in alternative formats.
Quick Guide in Alternative formats
Quick Guide – BSL video:
Quick Guide – Audio
Quick guide – text
We would encourage you to read the Prize’s full Terms and Conditions, Eligibility Criteria and Frequently Asked Questions, before you enter the Prize.
The Prize accepts entries from deaf and disabled poets aged 18+ currently living full-time in the UK.
There are two categories to the Prize: 1) Best Unpublished Poem and 2) Best Unpublished Pamphlet.
The work you submit to any of the categories must be your own individual and original work and have not been published and/ or broadcast.
If you are entering the Best Unpublished Pamphlet category you cannot have already published a pamphlet or a collection of your work.
You can enter both categories of the Prize, but only one entry per category may be submitted.
A submission to the Prize is made up of the following: a completed entry form and the poem/s you are submitting.
If you are entering the Best Single Poem or Best Unpublished Pamphlet categories you can submit your entry either online via the Submittable link on the Disabled Poets Prize website or by post to the Disabled Poets Prize, Spread the Word, The Albany, Douglas Way, London, SE8 4AG. The postal entry form can be downloaded from the Prize website.
When entering your poem/s to the Prize either online or by post please make sure:
- Your name is not on the file you submit.
- Entries for the best single poem and best unpublished pamphlet prize must be submitted as a text document, typed in black and double spaced.
- Entries for the best single poem should be original works of poetry of no more than 40 lines in length (does not include the title).
- Entries for the best unpublished pamphlet should be original works of poetry of no more than 28 pages in length with 27 lines per page (does not include titles).
- Entries for the best poem performed in British Sign Language should be original works of poetry of no more than a 4 minutes in length video recording (does not include the title).
The deadline for the 2025 Disabled Poets’ Prize will be: [insert].
The Disabled Poets Prize is a collaboration between CRIPtic Arts, Spread the Word, Verve Poetry Press and Verve Poetry Festival. The 2025 Prize is supported by the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS).