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RSL Jerwood Poetry Awards Application Guidance

Congratulations! You have been nominated by one or more poetry expert/s and invited to apply for the RSL Jerwood Poetry Awards. Your nominator believes you are an exceptional individual who would embrace this opportunity to grow and explore your practice across 12 months with financial support and mentoring.

What the programme offers

The programme mentoring model originated by the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships has established itself as a unique and incredibly effective way of enabling poets to make significant step-changes in their careers. The new programme – the RSL Jerwood Poetry Awards – will give 12 poets over the three years from 2024-7 the unique opportunity to balance time and space to write and develop their practices, with a focus on harnessing their creative output and provide them with a range of opportunities to showcase their work, build networks and take their next career steps.

Four poets will be selected annually from each of the UK nations – England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Each winning poet receives £10,000 and a year of support through mentorship and advice, paid for by the programme.  

Who are the Awards for?

The Awards are open to emerging and established individuals with poetry at the heart of their practice, who:

In addition:

Whether emerging or established, nominated poets must have a track record which can show how they meet the above criteria. We want to support you to realise your vision for your future. We are not looking for applications for single project ideas and do not necessarily expect to see a publication, performance or digital outcome as a direct result of the Awards. We are more interested in the long-term impact on your practice and influence in your artistic/creative community.

The assessors will be looking for well thought-out applications with clearly defined areas to develop your poetry practice, and strong ideas for how the supported year will help you do this. They will be looking for the timeliness of the Award and how it will enable you to make a significant and meaningful step forward.

Timeframes and Deadlines for 2024

Access

In addition to the Word document you were emailed. You can access this guidance in the following formats:

Our online application form gives you the opportunity to make either a written, audio, or video application. Whichever format you choose, we will ask you to answer the same questions about your career highlights, recent work and your proposal. We will ask you to complete contact details and an equality and diversity monitoring survey in written form to assist the processing of your application. No assessment will be made of the writing style or the production quality of audio or video recordings.

We can contribute up to £200 towards a fee for an Access Support Worker for applicants who need one. Please get in touch by email or phone on 020 7845 4679 at least two weeks before the deadline in order to arrange this.

We are also committed to ensuring that the programme is accessible for the selected poets and will discuss access requirements and ensure that our communication methods meet individual winners’ needs.

If there is anything else we can do to make your application accessible, please do not hesitate to contact us by email or phone on 020 7845 4679.

The selection and decision-making process

Earlier in 2024, we asked over 200 organisations and individuals from the poetry sector to nominate poets who they thought would benefit from the Awards. We ran a nomination process because we want to ensure that we reach those who might not normally consider applying for development opportunities, awards or prizes. We want to explore what poetry in the UK is today, and for the Awards to embrace excellence in poetic practice in the broadest artistic and cultural sense. This includes:

All eligible nominees are now being invited to apply for the Awards and provide information on their experience to date and their ideas for how they would make the most of the supported year. An online Q&A session will be available to all nominees, to provide more information on the application process if needed.

Applications will be reviewed by assessment panels of poetry and literature experts, who will decide on a longlist of around 50 people and a shortlist of 12. At this point, in early October, decisions will be communicated with all applicants. If your application is unsuccessful, you will have an opportunity to request written feedback. Shortlisted poets will be invited to an interview with a mentor and the RSL and will be paid an honorarium of £75 each and receive coaching and support prior to the conversation. The final selection of four poets will then be made and announced in November.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

The RSL is committed to addressing equality, diversity and inclusion across all our work. The assessment and selection process will endeavour to ensure that all applicants are treated equitably, and access requirements are met. The Awards will be tailored to individual winners’ specific needs, agreed at the outset of the programme.

We know that poets may have faced barriers to their progress due to different forms of marginalisation and that access and inclusion are fundamental to being able to discover and support the most exciting new talent. We regularly review our application processes to improve accessibility. Actions we have taken to make our support to applicants more inclusive include providing comprehensive guidance available as an audio recording. We use a more equitable application form, with no requirement for CVs and the choice to submit video/audio applications.

Background of the Awards

In 1964, a bequest was made by Joseph Compton, one of the first directors of the Poetry Book Society, to Arts Council England with the aim of helping poets and of bringing poetry to a wider audience. Using accrued interest from the bequest and funds from Jerwood Arts and Arts Council England, the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships offered a significant new development opportunity for poets. Nine poets were supported over three editions between 2016-2022, offering time and space to develop their practice alongside significant year-long support and mentoring. The poets were Hafsah Aneela Bashir, Romalyn Ante, Raymond Antrobus, Dzifa Benson, Jane Commane, Jackie Hagan, Jamie Hale, Anthony Joseph and Yomi Sode. These poets are pushing the boundaries of poetry in the UK and growing new audiences. The Fellowships offered all of them a chance to develop their craft, grow their professional networks and open-up new opportunities. Most of all, it allowed them to gain confidence and to reach a new stage in their careers.

RSL Jerwood Poetry Awards Application Form Guidance

Please note that the Word document provided is for drafting purposes only. To submit your application you will need to enter your responses in the online form.

Please use the password provided in the email you received to access the form.

There is no save and continue function in the online application form. We strongly recommend you draft your responses offline and then paste them into the online form when you are ready. It is not possible to amend your application once it has been submitted.

Please keep a copy of your responses for future reference as it is not possible for us to provide you with a copy once you have submitted your application.

Once you have sent us your application, you will see a webpage confirming that your application has been submitted. This will state that your application has been successfully received and you will receive a confirmation email. If you cannot see this in your inbox or spam/junk folders, please get in touch using the contact details at the bottom of this page to check that we have received your application.

Before starting your application, please read the application guidance above.

We are committed to making our opportunities accessible and supporting applicants facing barriers to apply. Please get in touch using the details at the bottom of this page to tell us what you need to enable you to apply if this is not already covered in the current process and documents.

Data Protection

The information you give us here will be used to process your application for the RSL Jerwood Poetry Awards by the RSL and our paid external assessors, who will sign up to a data sharing agreement. No contact details will be shared with assessors.

We will only get in touch with you in connection to this application. Your personal data will be kept by the RSL for up to 10 years and will only be used by us for the processing of your application and for evaluating this opportunity. It will not be passed on to anyone else. If you want to be removed from the RSL’s records, you can email us to request this.

Contact Martha Stenhouse by email or phone 020 7845 4679 if you have any questions about the opportunity and how to apply. Office hours are 10am-6pm Monday to Friday. We are committed to meeting your access requirements, please get in touch if you would like to discuss how we can support your application.

The RSL is committed to equality of opportunity and welcomes applicants from all background and experiences. To give us insights into who is applying, we would appreciate it if people could complete an equal opportunities form, for which a link will be provided in your confirmation email. The information provided will be treated in the strictest confidence and not linked to applications.