Join competition judge Julia Copus as we announce the winners and launch the 2026 anthology. As part of Winchester Poetry Day 2026

Winchester Poetry Day 2026

Winchester Poetry Prize Ceremony 2026

Hosted by acclaimed poet and competition judge Julia Copus, this exciting live event is an opportunity to hear us count down through the Commended poems to the winners.

Hear the poems being read live by the poets themselves in this special prizegiving ceremony, as we celebrate the winners and launch the 2026 printed anthology.

First Prize: £1000 | Second Prize: £500 | Third Prize: £250

Includes the Kathryn Bevis Prize for the strongest poem written by a Hampshire-based poet.

Competition is closed. Longlist announced mid-Sept. Details can be found at www.winchesterpoetryfestival.org/prize

Julia Copus is a poet, biographer and children’s writer. She has published five collections of poetry. Her most recent, Girlhood (Faber 2019), was winner of the inaugural Derek Walcott Prize for best collection by a non-US citizen. Other awards include the Forward Prize for ‘Best Single Poem’, First Prize in the National Poetry Competition, and a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors.

Her biography of the poet Charlotte Mew, This Rare Spirit, was described by John Carey in The Sunday Times as ‘a triumph of precise scholarship and imaginative sympathy’ and was chosen by Andrew Motion as a book of the year in The Spectator.

Julia teaches poetry for the Faber Academy and was 2023-24 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Winchester Poetry Prize is sponsored by Paris Smith.

The Kathryn Bevis Prize is sponsored by The Writing School Online and supported by Oliver Golding.

Suitable for: all

Duration: 1.5 hours

Format: in person and online

Access: the venue is fully wheelchair accessible. The event can be accessed in person, or online

Description supplied by the event organiser.