Dial-a-Poem celebrates 50 years since John Giorno’s public art project launched in New York City. Giorno’s Dial-a-Poem connected callers to answering machines playing recordings by poets such as Allen Ginsberg, John Cage and Patti Smith. 2020 will see the service re-wired across several platforms. Winning poems will be published and recorded for the Dial-A-Poem app, a renovated K8 phone kiosk in the City of Nottingham and project website. The app will launch at The Science Museum in 2020.

The competition invites students enrolled at a UK institute of higher or further education to enter a poem on the theme of calling. This brief may be interpreted freely – poems can be directly or indirectly ‘telephonic’.

Prizes are awarded in National Book Tokens. First prize is £500, second prize is £300 and third prize is £200. An additional prize of £100 National Book Token will be awarded to a student currently enrolled at Nottingham Trent University.