A COMPETITION has been launched to find Hampshire's top poet.

Hampshire Cultural Trust, in partnership with the Winchester Poetry Festival, has launched this year’s annual Hampshire Young Poets Competition.

The theme of this year’s competition is ‘Home’ and young people from across Hampshire are asked to write a poem of no more than 14 lines about what home means to them, whether as a place or found in the people who matter most.

Entries are open to young people who live or study in Hampshire in three different age categories; four to seven, eight to 11 and 12 to 26 years.

The competition is free to enter and there will be National Book Token prizes for the winners, matched with P&G Wells book tokens for the schools of the winning entrants to spend on poetry books.

The closing date for entries is midnight on Monday 31 July 2023 and the poems will be judged by Hampshire Poet, Nazneen Ahmed Pathak.

Nazneen said: "Home is a rich and wonderful theme for poetry and it's a brilliant focus for this year's Young Poets competition.

"Whether it's thinking about our own homes, families, and the places that matter to us, making people feel at home in our community, or thinking about those who don't have homes or those who have to move from one place to another to make a new home - there's just so much inspiration in this theme for poetry that matters. I can't wait to read all the contributions."

The winners in each age category will be contacted by email or post and officially announced at an awards ceremony at The Arc, Winchester, on Saturday, October 14 2023.

Details of how to enter and submission guidelines can be found at hampshireculture.org.uk/hantsyoungpoets23.