Freedom from Torture: Poetry Competition
Freedom from Torture’s biennial poetry competition is back, which will be judged by the eminent novelist, poet and Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst and Poet Rachael Allen.
This year’s competition theme is Worlds into Words, inspired by the journeys people carry within them – across countries, across cultures, and across the landscapes of memory and identity. It also reflects the experiences of survivors of torture, whose journeys are not only physical but deeply psychological, shaped by resilience, loss, and the search for belonging.
For many of the survivors they support, coming to the UK as refugees means navigating not only a new place, but a new language – finding ways to express experiences that are often difficult to put into words. This theme celebrates the many worlds all writers bring to their work: the stories, cultures, and perspectives that shape how we see and understand the world.
Your poem might explore what it means to leave home, to begin again, or to carry multiple worlds within you. It could reflect on displacement or belonging, silence or expression, trauma or hope. As always, the theme is open to interpretation – your entry should reflect what Worlds into Words means to you.
First Prize:
- Zoom mentoring session with Poet and Fitzcarraldo Editions editor Rachael Allen.
- Two VIP tickets to our London Library Event.
- Your poem will be published in Freedom from Torture’s quarterly newsletter The Survivor, circulated to some 26 000 supporters across the UK, and on their website.
- Your poem will be printed in the London Library event programme, circulated to 150 esteemed guests including authors, poets, publishers and celebrities.
- Book bundles for the winner and runners up.
- All winners will have their poem featured on Freedom from Torture’s website with winners promoted on social media and promoted to press and media in the run up to the event.
Poems can be submitted from anywhere in the world, in any style, with a preferred length limit of 40 lines, and must be the entrant’s original work. Entries must not have been published, self-published, broadcast, or featured among the winners in any previous competition.
Entry fee: £5 (or £1 for under 18s) and is free for anyone with lived experience as a refugee. If you have lived experience as a refugee you can email your entry to: events@freedomfromtorture.org
Submission deadline: 9 October at 5pm
For any other queries or questions contact: events@freedomfromtorture.org