After the highly successful 2023 inaugural Foyle Schools Poetry Competition, Creggan Enterprises Revival Programme will launch the 2024 Foyle Schools Poetry Competition in September 2023.
The competition is a result of an innovative partnership between Creggan Enterprises, The Write Stuff, Guildhall Press, Colmcille Press and Little Acorns Bookstore and is funded by the NI Executive (Central Good Relations Programme). This creative good relations programme aims to promote and strengthen shared community spaces and encourage linguistic diversity and creative expression.
The competition will serve as a reminder of the importance of developing shared communities and nurturing the boundless potential of young minds. Society often thinks about young people as ‘citizens of tomorrow’ and fails to give due consideration to them as ‘citizens of today’ – we aim to change that through our programme.
We will invite each school (primary and secondary) to submit their entries across designated good relations themes and we will provide a skilled facilitator to deliver poetry workshops to post primary pupils on an agreed date and time between 1st October 2023 and 30th November 2023.
The judges for this year’s competition will be come from a range of acclaimed literary backgrounds. Prizes will be awarded to first, second and third in each Key Stage category, along with a number of special merit awards. All entrants will be showcased online and the winning poems will be published in book form and poster which will be launched in Ráth Mór Centre on World Poetry Day, 21st March 2024, with copies distributed to all the entrant schools.
Entrants must be 18 or under.