Keats-Shelley

Memorial Association    Patron HRH The Prince of Wales

 Registered Charity No: 212692

The Keats-Shelley Prize

For details of the 2010 Prize see Noticeboard Page

Initially the brain-child of Caroline Wu and the late Quentin Crewe, The Keats-Shelley Prize was inaugurated in 1998 to reward excellence in writing on Romantic themes. The underlying purpose of the Prize was and remains to encourage people of all ages, but particularly the young, to respond personally to the emotions aroused in them by the work of the Romantics through rising to the challenge of writing their own poem or essay. Entries are invited annually in two categories: poems, on a theme chosen by the judges, and essays on any aspect of the work or life of Keats or Shelley. Although it is a competition open to all, it is promoted strongly to the universities. It is launched at the beginning of each calendar year.

The judges' panel consists of two practising poets, Matthew Sweeney, who is also a KSMA Trustee, and John Hartley Williams, and of two Romantic scholars who assess the essays. A distinguished literary figure with an interest in the Romantics is chosen as Prize Chairman each year. There are £3,000 of prizes, awarded in each category to a winner and a runner-up. The winners have the additional bonus of being published in the Keats-Shelley Review.  

An Awards Ceremony takes place each year in London, to which all Friends and Competition entrants are invited. Former Prize Chairmen have included the poets and biographers Andrew Motion, Claire Tomalin, Tom Paulin, Grevel Lindop, Miranda Seymour, Ian Gilmour, James Fenton, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Keates, A.N.Wilson, Ann Wroe and Janet Todd.

The Prize was sponsored for its first four years by The Folio Society, and thereafter by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the John S.Cohen Foundation. It was sponsored in 2007 by Barclays Wealth, The Department of English, University of St Andrews, and The Cowley Foundation.

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Sheila Birkenhead Bursary Award Scheme

Bursaries, established in memory of Sheila Birkenhead, a former Chairman of KSMA and author of Illustrious Friends and Against Oblivion, are awarded to support graduate students presenting academic papers at conferences of Romantic studies in the UK.

Candidates must be postgraduate students studying full-time for a second degree in English Literature at any UK university, and should be full-time UK residents.

Awards will be made on a first-come, first-served basis. Applications, which may be submitted at any time, will include a CV (including the names of two referees), an abstract of the paper to be read, details of the conference organisers, with full details of the conference including cost. They should be sent to Angus Graham-Campbell – marked “Bursary Awards”, 12 High Street, Eton, Windsor, Berks SL4 6AS.

This year two awards have been made: to Susan Miller, £150, for a paper given to Edwards and Scotland Yale/Glasgow conference at the University of Glasgow on March 30-31, on Keats and Jonathan Edwards and their concept of beauty; and to Nicola Healey of St Andrews University for a paper given to the Wordsworth Summer conference, on Dorothy Wordsworth.

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Children's Poetry Prize Italy

This is one of the key 'outreach' projects for school children run from the Keats-Shelley Memorial House, which receives visits from Italian school groups throughout the scholastic year. Established in 1991, it takes place each year in spring and summer. It invites entries through the schools from children to write poems either in English or Italian on different subjects according to their age group, from five to eighteen. Many hundreds of entries are received each year from all over Italy, on themes such as Revolution, Ghosts, Peace, Dreaming, Conflict. In June a prize-giving ceremony is given in Rome attended by the young winners and their families, usually with a well-known poet from the UK – in the past these have included Matthew Sweeney, Brian Patten, Vicki Feaver – presenting the prizes and giving a personal reading. Proceedings are rounded off at a party at McDonalds in Piazza di Spagna.

For more information contact the House in Rome

telephone 39/6/678 4235

fax 39/6/678 4167

info@keats-shelley-house.org

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KMSA Awards

Keats-Shelley Prize

Sheila Birkenhead Bursary Awards Scheme

Children's Poetry Prize Italy 

To read winning poem entries of previous years, click on the links

The poems will open in a new window

Winners and their entries 2009

The winning poem  was by

DH Maitreyabandhu

“The Small Boy and the Mouse”

(click here to view)

The winning essay was by

Jillian Hess

 “This living Hand: Commonplacing Keats”

To be published in

Keats-Shelley Review 2010, issue No 23.

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