July 18th – 25th 2017
 

gamble   blood   part   foil   scissor

At around noon each Tuesday (UTC), from the 11th of April 2017, five words will be posted on this competition page. Entrants will have one week to compose and submit poems that include all five words given for that week.

The competition will run for 42 weeks, until the 30th of January 2018.

A prize of 500 euros is awarded to one winner, who, if available will be invited to read at Ó Bhéal’s eleventh anniversary event, on Monday the 16th of April, 2018. An additional travel fee of 100 euro plus B&B accommodation will be provided for this. The winner also receives a physical award, hand-crafted by acclaimed glass artist (and poet) Michael Ray.

The shortlisted poems and winning entry will also be published in Five Words Vol XI – the next annual anthology of five word poems, to be launched at the same event. A shortlist of twelve poems including the overall winner will be announced by the first week of March 2017.

The five words offered each week for 2017-18 are sourced from the audiences of the fifth year of (fifty) Five Word Challenges, which were held each Monday evening during 2011-12 at Ó Bhéal – with a selection of extra words added due to deletion of duplicates, colloquialisms, etc.

Entry is open to all countries. Poems cannot exceed 50 lines in length (including line breaks), and must include all five words listed during this week. A modicum of poetic license is acceptable. As long as the original spelling is intact within your syntax, you’re welcome to pluralise, join or even split the word to form two adjoining words. There is no limit on submission quantities, although each payment and submission will need to be made separately. Entries to be sent no later that 12pm on Tuesday.

Submissions carry a 5 euro entrance fee.

Payment should be made via this paypal button before continuing.

For postal entries, please print out and complete the submission form, and post together with your attached poem (in which nothing other than the title and poem appear). As is usual practice, all entries are logged and numbered by our allocated filter programmers so that judges cannot see the names of the entrants. Email entries should be sent via the email address given above, not via the submissions [at] obheal [dot] ie email link on the home page, which is only for non-competition entries, written and performed live during each Monday evening event – from words offered up in random by the audience.