The competition is open to all entries of original, previously unpublished work across categories for Adults, Young People (12-­17 years) and also Children (11 and under). Children and Young People enter their first poem free.

The 2018 Ledbury Poetry Festival Poetry Competition will be judged by Nia Davies. Nia is a poet and editor of Poetry Wales. She has co-curated and participated in several transcultural collaborations, projects and events and her work has been widely translated. Her most recent publications are All fours (Bloodaxe Books, 2017), England (Crater, 2017) and Interversions (Poetrywala, 2018) which documents her collaboration with Kannada poet Mamta Sagar. She is undertaking practice-based research into poetry and ritual at Salford University.