2025 AVBOB Poetry Competition
30 November 2024
Welcome to the home of the AVBOB online poetry project, where all South African poets – expert or fledgling, professional or aspiring – have an equal opportunity to shine.
The Competition is open to any citizen of South Africa and poems may be submitted in any of the 11 official South African written languages. For poems that are not in English, an English translation of poems would be appreciated, but is not compulsory.
Entrants may enter poems in more than one of the language categories, however, the same poem(s) may not be translated and entered in more than one language category. A single entrant may submit no more than 10 poems per annual Competition.
The theme of the competition is: “I wish I’d said”. However, entrants should use the theme as a guideline, not a rule. Poems can be entered into any one of five categories: New Beginnings, Birth, Hope, Death and Love. The guiding principle must be: Will a person experiencing loss be uplifted by the poem, or be able to identify with it?
Any style of poetry is open for consideration – free verse, haiku, sonnet rhymed, unrhymed, etc. Poems should not exceed 30 lines in length (excluding title).
Entries must not have been published in print, on websites, public areas of social networking sites, broadcast, featured among the winners of another competition or submitted elsewhere for consideration.
The competition is open from 1 August to 30 November 2024. Only online submissions will be accepted.
Should your poem be accepted for publication by AVBOB, you will be remunerated as follows:
- You will receive a usage fee to the value of R300 for publication on www.avbobpoetry.co.za
Prize-winners and shortlisted poets will be notified in the first half of 2025 and invited to an award ceremony, at a venue and date still to be announced.