We are pleased to announce the inaugural Sydney Poetry Prize will be awarded in March.

The prize is for the best poem published on www.sydneypoetry.comin the last year. By 'best' we mean 'in the view of our esteemed judge'.

The winning poem will be announced during our second birthday celebration readingat Sappho on Tuesday 13th March. 

Posting a poem is all you need to do to enter (check the conditions below first). If you have added a poem since 1st March 2011 it is automatically entered.

How to post a poem

You can add a poem in the members poetry section or as a blog post under your profile.

The Prize

The prize is a bookpack of awesome new Australian poetry from our publishing friends at River Road Press, Spinifex Press, Giramondo, Vagabond and Puncher & Wattman.

Wouldn't it be great if there was also a cash prize? Well we're onto that too!

The Judge

The 2011/12 Sydney City Poet Kate Middletonis the judge for the competition.

Kate is a poet and musician and was selected in 2011 for the inaugural 12-month Sydney City Poet appointment, which is supported by Arts NSW in partnership with the Centre for New Writingat the University of Technology, Sydney.

She is the author of Fire Season, awarded the Western Australian Premier's Award for Poetry in 2009, and shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year in Poetry. 

Conditions of Entry

• Poems must be by members of Sydney Poetry and be published by the author in the members section of the site, or in a blog post on the site, between 1 March 2011 and 29 Feb 2012.
• Closing date is midnight of 29 Feb 2012.
• Poems must not be previously published in a book, literary journal, or have previously won a competition.
• Poems entered may be previously published on personal blogs and the like elsewhere.
• Links to poems hosted elsewhere are not eligible.
• Members may enter any number of poems, but remember that not more than one poem per day should be added to the site.
• Sydney Poetry site administrators and editors are not eligible to enter.
• Members of Sydney Poetry who are organisations or other entities are not eligible to enter.
• The winner is to provide signed copies of their winning poem for leading contributors to the Prize pool.

Finally, as always, poems added to the site should be consistent with the members' poetry moderation policy.