Christmas Stories:
Postcard Poem Competition

See your poem on a limited edition festive postcard! We’re looking for brand new poems on the theme of ‘Christmas Stories’ for a special Christmas postcard that we’ll be supplying to book and gift shops across the UK. As well as a set of your own poem postcards, you’ll win £75 and hot-off-the-press copies of this year’s festive titles.

Timeline

Submissions close midnight Thursday 30th June 2022.

Poems

In order to fit onto the front of an A6 postcard, poems must be no longer than 16 lines, including title and stanza breaks, with no more than 10 words per line. Your poem must be in English. It must also be new, unpublished, and not currently submitted elsewhere.

Entries

It’s free to enter and there’s a maximum of one poem per poet. Email your poem as a Word doc or PDF file to with your poem’s title and your own name as the file name.

Prizes

The winner will have their poem published as an A6 postcard which will be given away with copies of our 2022 festive pamphlets. They’ll win £75 and receive a set of 20 of their postcards, plus five copies of each of our new festive titles.

Themes

Christmas Stories! Your interpretation of the theme can be as broad as you wish but the link must be clear. And it certainly doesn’t have to be Christian – or even religious.

Judges

Entries will be judged by the Candlestick editorial team (Di Slaney and Kathy Towers). The judges’ decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into. The winner will be notified by email by 31st July and announced via social media on or before 22nd August.

Good luck! We look forward to reading your entries.

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Previous competition winners

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Christmas Together Competition

Winners

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Getting Older Poem Competition

Winners

Commended Poets

Shortlisted Poets

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Snow Poem Competition

Winners

Highly commended poets

Shortlisted poets

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Breakfast Poem Competition

Winners

Shortlisted poets

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Cloud Poem Competition

First Prize

‘Hazy, Massed, Dappled’
Lesley Saunders

Second Prize

‘Flight’
Sarah Westcott

Highly Commended

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Micropoem competition

First Prize

Roz Goddard
@rozgoddard

Commended

Plus five additional runner-up prizes of a copy of The Twelve Poems of Christmas (Volume Seven) to