Interwoven: Poetry Celebrating Connectedness
Full details
ollowing the success of the New Beginnings project in 2021, the Spectrum project in 2022, the Kinship project in 2023 and Building Bridges in 2024, the Interwoven project seeks to continue celebrating identity and community through poetry. We want the resulting anthology – scheduled for November – to be an celebration of that which unites us – the people, places and forces which have in our power to use for good.
Genocide. Climate collapse. Culture Wars. Physical War. The global picture in these Roaring Twenties can leave little to inspire and uplift, and rhetoric is rife aiming to stoke fires of hate and distrust. But poetry – like many art forms, but perhaps more so than any other – is universal, and has real power to unite.
Raising voices from around the globe as one, from across continents and myriad walks of life, Interwoven
is a celebration of that which unites us – the people, places and
forces which have in our power to use for good. Woven into these pages
is a celebration of the rich tapestry of humanity – a lyrical
teasing-out of threads that unite us. These are poems to pick up in
anger, in distrust, in confusion – and an anthology that will show you
the good all around you.
Details
Competition opened on Tuesday 10th June 2025; closes on Sunday 13th July 2025
Longlist announced 1st September 2025
Shortlist announced 6th October 2025
Winners announced at a virtual launch in November 2025
Entry cost: free
Open to: anyone, anywhere, any age. We’re particularly keen to hear from those who do not feel the aspect of community/ies they’re writing about to be represented in traditional or mainstream media. Rules →
Poetry length: up to 100 lines or 750 words (whichever is lower), only one (previously unpublished) poem per applicant.
1st prize: £200
2nd prize: £100
Special mentions at the judges’ discretion.
All of the poems on the shortlist will be published in a volume, everyone included will receive a copy of the book, and will be invited to take place in an online launch event.
Meet the Judges
Photo © Jo Cotterill
Miriam Halahmy
Miriam was a teacher for 25 years, and, having worked with refugees and asylum seekers in schools, her writing engages with historical and contemporary issues that affect children across time – most notably the plight of refugees. Her young-adult novel, Hidden, was a Sunday Times Children’s Book of the Week, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and has been adapted for the stage. Saving Hanno, Miriam’s new book, is about a boy who comes on the Kindertransport and reflects on the grief and loss experienced by refugee children.
Photo © Tom Denbigh
Tom Denbigh
Tom Denbigh lives in Bristol with an obscene number of books. He is the first Bristol Pride Poet Laureate and a BBC 1Extra Emerging Artist Talent Search winner. He has performed at the Royal Albert Hall and festivals around the UK, and has brought poetry to Brighton and London Prides. He is a producer at Milk Poetry and has facilitated writing workshops for groups of students from the UK and abroad (he is particularly proud of his work with queer young people). His debut collection …and then she ate him is out now with Burning Eye Books.
Photo © Suman Gujral
Suman Gujral
Suman Gujral is a multidisciplinary artist working with print, textile and poetry. In 2024, she founded Third Space, a platform for South Asian poets, and she is literary lead for South Asian Heritage Month. Suman’s history as a child of refugees and immigrants underlies her practice. Her parents were forcibly displaced by the 1947 Partition of India, and came to the UK eighteen years later. It was during her MA that she came to understand the ongoing impact of Partition on them and millions of others.
Photo © Matt Dady-Leonard
Will Dady
Will Dady grew up in the wonderfully named Great Snoring in North Norfolk, and now lives in London. He is the Publisher at Renard Press, which he founded in 2020, and the founder of the Indie Press Network. An award-winning, climate-positive publisher, Renard’s raison d’être is to ‘publish beyond the mainstream’: providing a platform for stories and voices that have traditionally been marginalised. The New Beginnings project was set up in 2021 as an antidote to the less pleasant aspects of the pandemic, and its huge success in attracting stirring entries has made these projects a firm fixture in Renard’s publishing programme.
Support the Project
If, like us, you think this is a really important project, we’d love your help! Please do help us to get the word out – on social media (#InterwovenPoetry) and in real life, as we’d love to reach people who aren’t on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter (X), too!
This project is going to need money to get off the ground. If you’re able to, please pre-order the anthology or consider becoming a sponsor of the project – in return we’ll add your name to a special ‘thanks’ page in the book, and you can choose your level of support and receive various perks, including tote bags, paper/e/hardback editions and more. Sponsor →
If you know someone who would be interested in the project, please share this page with them! Click here to email them →
Sponsor the Project
Enter
Entry is via this Google form. We hope that this is straightforward, but if you have any queries please don’t hesitate to be in touch.
You can also sign up to our newsletter to hear about future competitions!
Rules
We want to keep this fairly simple and open – the only rules we have for entry are below.
- There is no minimum (or maximum) age requirement for entry, but please bear in mind that if you’re under 18 you legally need to have parental or guardian consent to enter. Anyone can submit, but please read the brief first and make sure that your poem and entry fits.
- The work must be your own, and we ask that you don’t submit it elsewhere in the mean time.
- Please do not include photographs or illustrations.
- Please only submit once – we will only consider your first entry if you enter again.
- Entries must be received by 11.59PM on Sunday 13th July 2025 to be considered.
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