The 31 July deadline is looming for this year's Foyle Young Poets of the Year award for poets aged 11-17, with this year’s judges Jackie Kay and Raymond Antrobus. This year’s winners will be announced on National Poetry Day on 3 October at L:ondon’s Southbank Centre, London, with the top 15 winning poets seeing their poems published in an anthology.

Raymond Antrobus said: “I’m looking for poems that sing, move and inspire. Something that shows the world as I’ve yet to see, feel or hear it. It takes a certain amount of confidence to enter a competition, so show that confidence in your writing. Be open. Be bold. Show us something that only you could have written.”

Jackie Kay is seeking poems that will make her stop and think: “I’m going to be looking for poems that stop me in my tracks and make me think, poems that are memorable, that I’ll carry around with me for the day. An arresting first line, an unusual image, a distinct and interesting voice, a different tone. I’m looking for poems that make me care about the poem itself. I love coming across poems that make me look at something in a completely new way, and I love poems that work as well when I read them out loud as they do on the page.”

All 100 winners will receive a year’s youth membership of the Poetry Society, a range of poetry books and other prizes. The top 15 winners are also invited to attend a week’s residential creative writing course at an Arvon centre or receive a poet residency in their school (age dependent). All winners will benefit from support and encouragement from the Poetry Society, via publication, performance, promotion and access to a paid internship programme. More details