The Moth Poetry Prize is one of the most prestigious – and lucrative – awards in the world for a single unpublished poem, with an overall prize of €10,000, and three runner-up prizes of €1,000.  The prize is judged anonymously by a single poet. The judge only learns who the shortlisted poets are following the selection of the winning poems.

Editor of The Moth Rebecca O’Connor told Write Out Loud: “We're very proud that The Moth Poetry Prize (now in its eighth year) remains one of the most lucrative in the world for a single unpublished poem.”

Since its inception in 2011 it has been judged by such celebrated poets as Deborah Landau, Daljit Nagra and Billy Collins, and previous winners of the prize have included Natalya Anderson, Lee Sharkey, Abigail Parry and Ann Gray, whose poem was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2015.  The prize is open to anyone over the age of 16, as long as the poem is previously unpublished, and each year it attracts thousands of entries from new and established poets from over 50 countries worldwide.

This year’s judge is Jacob Polley author of four acclaimed poetry collections published by Picador, the latest of which won the T. S. Eliot Prize. He is also the recipient of a Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and his novel Talk of the Town won a Somerset Maugham Award. He teaches at the University of Newcastle.

The shortlist will be announced in March 2019 and the four shortlisted poems will feature in the spring issue of The Moth.  The winners will be invited to a special award ceremony at Poetry Ireland in Dublin. The entry fee is €12 per poem and the closing date 31 December 2018.  For more info and entry details visit www.themothmagazine.com