Update on the situation relating to the 2023 erbacce-prize for poetry which opened for submissions on January 1st 2023 and closed April 30th 2023 at midnight.

OUR LONG LIST IS PRINTED BELOW!

(Yes we work FAST; editing as we go along)

Every single year since we began organising the erbacce-prize for poetry in 2004, the number of submissions

has grown and now we can safely claim to be THE BIGGEST POETRY COMPETITION IN THE WORLD. 

In 2023, over a four months period, we received more than TWELVE THOUSAND

admissible/valid submissions from every corner of the globe

(That meant we had over SIXTY thousand+ pages of poetry to read)

The erbacce-team of volunteers are proud that the erbacce-prize for poetry is now established,

without a shadow of a doubt, as

the premier poetry-prize world-wide

Every single submission is filtered and then sent to the selection panel who judge every entry BLIND... You can check out the selection-team-members HERE and further down this page you can see the long-list of poets which were judged to be worthy of further consideration for our prestigious prize and many of these will be selected for inclusion in a future erbacce-journal.

The poets. listed in our long-list below,  made the cut from many thousands of submissions and are thus

among the Crème De La Crème of poets world-wide; each and every one is highly-commended.

WE HAVE A RESULT! SEE BELOW!

The final result of the selection panel's deliberations will appear here and so if your name appears below;

book-mark this page:

Winner of the 2023 erbacce-prize for poetry is:

Michael Wilkinson from Castleford England 

Michael wins; a contract with erbacce-press for publication of a perfect-bound collection of his poetry which

will proclaim on the cover 'Winner of the erbacce-prize for poetry 2023'.
We will pay all costs and registration fees for Nielsen and ISBN etc and will supply key-universities with copies

of the book as per legal requirements and we will also set up a personal page on our site for Michael,

pay author-royalties on sales at 20% and send free copies to him also.

Featured poets will be:

Anuradha Vijayakrishnan from Dubai, UAE

Hsiang-cheng Hsu from Texas USA

Lisa Lopresti from Bristol England

Stuti Sinha from Dubai UAE

Each of the four poets named will have their poetry featured in a future edition of the prestigious erbacce-journal

and they will have the opportunity to write either an extended 'about me' OR an essay/statement

wherein they can sound off about any aspect of the literary arts that they feel strongly about.

We will also of course supply each featured-poet with a copy of the erbacce journal which is

a 96 pp perfect-bound distributed twice a year (Autumn and Spring)

PLEASE NOTE ALL SELECTIONS WERE MADE 'BLIND'.

THIS IS IMPORTANT; THE SELECTORS WERE NOT SWAYED BY 'BIG NAME' POETS;

THE QUALITY OF THE SUBMISSION IS THE ONLY THING THEY CONSIDERED.

And what that means is that none of the panel could see the names of the poets who submitted a five-page entry: submissions came to a neutral email and there the names and all details were removed from the submission and

an identity number was allocated prior to the submissions before being sent to members of the selection panel. 

You can check if you are included on the long list below where each poet is listed alphabetically by first name. If you name is NOT on the list please do remember that we had record submissions world-wide, the selectors had a difficult time and it could be your submission lost out by one single vote. Overall every Panel-member expressed genuine astonishment at the exceptionally high quality of the submissions; poetry is alive world-wide and this despite phony competitions trying to rip-off poets by asking them to pay to have their poems read or to pay to enter dubious poetry competitions. Ask yourself why it is that these people ask you to pay them to read your poems? It stinks! It treats poets with contempt; it effectively says 'Send us a poem you have spent hours, maybe months, crafting... and if you pay us five-quid we MAY actually read it.' No! No! No! You can NOT disrespect poets like that! Ugh; it infuriates us all here at erbacce-press. We urge genuine poets to

NEVER EVER PAY TO ENTER A POETRY COMPETITION

Also; check the big names who have been selected below and you will see that they are among the finest in the world.

A few facts that might interest you;

1. There were just under 15,000 valid submissions of which, (judging by name only), about 47% were female submissions to 53% male. (This is the first year we have had more male submissions than female... but remember it is estimated by names only; we get very few submissions from Mister, Missus or even Ms...)
2. Most submissions came from the USA and UK (about equal) BUT we had submissions from almost every single country in the world as is reflected in our long-lists below and were pleased to see many submissions of high quality from UAE.
3. Roughly a thousand submissions did not follow submission guidelines and thus were rejected (UNBELIEVABLE isn't it??? most of these had an email displayed-name that did not match their given-name; i.e. a submission from poet named 'Fred Flintstone' would have a displayed email address of 'Betty Boob')
4. A few gave incomplete snail-mail addresses and these simply can't legally be accepted. We need a FULL and complete snail-mail address... and a word to those from America; this means adding 'USA' to your address as there are actually countries that exist outside of America.
5. Also there were several who sent word docs or PDFs or included frames... we need submissions in Word; Rich Text Format ONLY. No frames.
6. A few stated their given-name as something we queried as with 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy-Gongool' (yes this idiot exists) Be clear; if you are one of the poets selected then you can use ANY PEN-NAME YOU CHOOSE but on your submissions we need your legal given name.

Bookmark this page; maybe start getting together your submissions for 2024... and PLEASE consider purchasing a subscription to the erbacce  poetry journal which we publish bi-annually. We can only offer this FREE TO ENTER prestigious prize annually if we have subscriptions to the journal; we get no money from anywhere else, not from the arts-council or the lottery or anyone because we want to remain independent and dedicated to poets and poetry. Please support us.

FINALLY; Thank you ALL so much for your submissions, every single one was read and most were enjoyed, we couldn't continue to offer this 100% FREE TO ENTER competition annually if it wasn't for those of you who support our co-operative publishing house by subscribing to the erbacce-journal. (FREE download sample-copy available) If you don't subscribe; please consider doing so. ...we repeat again; if your name is listed below you are a VERY special poet; the world needs poets and poetry, so whatever you do; keep up the good work...

In the long lists below (arranged in alphabetical order by first name) are poets from; Croatia, Scotland, Italy, USA, China, Denmark, Portugal, Ireland, India, Poland, Austria, El Salvador, Nigeria, England, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, Spain, New Zealand, Philippines, France, UAE, Finland, Germany and Argentina. These are the long lists; selected from among many thousands of submissions that stemmed (quite literally) from every country in the world.

Aaron Lembo; Maidstone England

Adele Evershed; Wilton USA

Aidan Fadden; Roma Italy

Ailish NicPhaidin; Florida USA

Alastair Hesp; Copenhagen Denmark

Alejandra Cabezas; Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador

Angela Christopher, Lancaster England

Anne Marie Wells; Springfield USA

Anyély Gómez-Dickerson; Honolulu USA 

Becky Cherriman; Leeds England

Bernadette Ingrid Yeun; Scarborough England

Bibhu Padhi; Odisha India

Bill Yarrow; Illinois USA

Blossom Hibbert; Nottingham England

Brenda Yates; California USA

Bruce McRae; Salt Spring Island Canada

Caitlin Cacciatore; NY USA

Caroline Bracken; Dun Laoghaire Ireland

Catherine Lee; Texas USA

Charis Horsley; Buckinghamshire England

Charlotte Murray; Leeds England 

Christine Macfarlane; Wiltshire England

Ciaran McDermott; Stirling Scotland

Claire Thom; Andalucia Spain

Colin Pink; London England

Constance Stadler; Virginia USA

Corey Bryan; Atlanta USA

Craig R Kirchner; Florida USA

Dana DeFranco; California USA

Daphne Harries; Pocklinton England 

Dave Kurley; Leiria Portugal

David Holper; CA USA

David R. Cravens; Colorado USA

Dele Oladeji; London England

Derek Selle; Canterbury England

Dominic James; Gloucester England

Donna Faulkner; Rangiora New Zealand 

Ellen Zhang; California USA

Ellery Washington; Florida USA

Elmira Elvazova; Edinburgh Scotland

Emma M Swailes; Leeds England

Eve Naden; Crewe England

Federica Bueti; Berlin Germany

Fiona Sinclair; Kent England

Francis K Johnson, Coventry England

Frank McMahon; Cirencester England

Geoff Sawers; Reading England

Gordon Kennedy; Glasgow Scotland

Grace Kay; Leyland England

Gus Reynolds; Blacksburg USA

Hannele Luhtasela; Helsinki Finland

Henry Bohan; NY USA

Iryna Shashkina; Bellingham USA

Ivan Marović; Mravince Croatia

Iwan Hedd Jones; Salford England

Jack Donahue; NY USA

James B. Nicola; NY USA

Jane Katherine Angué; La Tour Sur Orb France

Jane Thomas; Oxford England

Jean-Denis Couillard Hale; Norwood USA

Jeff Gallagher; East Grinstead England

Jennifer Kearns; Vienna, Austria

John Lanyon; Chipping Norton England

John Oberholzer; Brackley England

Joseph Byrd; Oregon USA

Juliana Ongking; Manila, Philippines

Katy Aisenberg; Sommerville USA

Kevin Meehan; Derry Ireland

Kexin Huang; Jiangsu, China

Kwasi Shade; Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

Landon Jones; California USA

Lara Frankena; London England

Lawrence Mathias; London England

LindaAnn LoSchiav; NY USA

Łukasz Zwoliński; Śląskie Poland

Mantz Yorke; Manchester England

Margaret Royall; Notts England

Marian de Vooght; Wivenhoe England

Marjory Woodfield; Christchurch New Zealand

Mark Carr; County Durham England

Martin Heavisides; Ontario Canada

Martin Rieser; Bristol England

Maxim D. Shrayer; Massachusetts USA

Maxine Sinclair; Norfolk England

Maya Olso; California USA

Megha Sood; New Jersey USA

Michael Baldwin; Texas USA

Michael Philip Castro; Florida USA

Michael Sharp; Puerto Rico USA

Mike Rogers; Somerset England

Molly Lanzarotta; Massachusetts USA

Mukut Borpujari; Assam, India 

Eve Naden; Crewe England

Nancy Cook; Minnesota USA

Neha Parthasarathy; Tamil Nadu, India

Niall McGrath; Co Antrim Ireland

Oisín Breen; Edinburgh Scotland

Osahon Oka; Edo Estate Nigeria

Paola Tavoletti; Rome Italy

Peter Allmond; Charlbury England

Peter Branson; Stoke-on-Trent England

Pritha Mukherjee; Kolkata India

Purbasha Roy; Jharkhand India

Raamy Nadim; Durham England

Richard T. S. Smith; Cumbria England

Robert Verdon; Canberra Australia

Roderick Manson; Perthshire Scotland

Roger Elkin; Staffordshire England

Sam Butler; London England

Sandhya Mahadeva; New Jersey USA

Sanjeev Sethi; Mumbai India

Sarah Davies; Bedford England

Scott Thomas Outlar; Maryland USA

Stella Phipps; London UK

Stephen Page; Buenos Aires Argentina

Stuart Flynn; Dublin Ireland

Sutputra Radhey; London England

Sydney Conteh; Liverpool England

Sylvia Anne Telfer; South Lanarkshire Scotland

Timothy Marshal-Nichols; Wirral England

Yael Aldana; Florida USA

Yasmin Inkersole; Oxfordshire England

Ziggy Cooper; Cambridge England