B.O.A.T

BEST songs OF ALL TIME

poetry competition

**A huge thanks to all those poets who have entered our Yaffle’s Nest BOAT (poems inspired by the Best Songs of All Time) comp. We don’t do things by half and while many comps just have prize money we do that and produce anthologies too. And this year we’ve added a judge to the mix. Unfortunately, we haven’t managed to cover costs up to press so we have no other choice but to extend our deadline. The good news is those who didn’t quite manage to get their subs to us have another six weeks to enter! The new deadline date is 17th May. Thank you. **

Yaffle’s Nest invite you to submit poems about what you consider to be the best songs of all time.

You can respond in any way you like, just make your poems as good as they can be.

If you can’t whittle your favourites own to one – send us as many poems as you like.

All longlisted, commended, highly commended and winning poems will be included in the eventual anthology.

The anthology will be a stand alone book where every contribution will be equal, however the final placings turn out.

The aim is to get the anthology into as many book shops as we can.

This will be the first of what we hope will be many of our new ‘Best Of All Time (BOAT) series of anthologies.

Prizes:

Winner: £200

2nd Prize: £50.00

3rd Prize: £25.00

The winner, runners-up and those on the long-list, will be announced on 7th June 2025

Please pay for your entry using PayPal yafflesnest@gmail.com

You are allowed to enter as many times as you want.

We look forward to reading your work.

Yaffle’s Nest Team

Sole Judge

Emma Purshouse

What am I looking for?  

I enjoy crafted, tightly written poems. Poems that tell stories.  Poems that come at things from unusual angles. Poems that I can walk into and have a good look round.  Poems that sparkle and sing. I’m looking for the tales that only you can tell.

When I judge competitions I read poems aloud, so a piece that feels wonderful in the air is always a pleasure to discover.

I have wide ranging poetry tastes and am as likely to pick a poem that makes use of a traditional form as I am a piece of prose poetry.  

I’m really looking forward to reading your work.”

Rules:

The prize is open to any poet in the world who is over 18 years of age writing in English.

Competition Rules

1. The maximum length for each poem is 40 lines excluding the title. Breaks between stanzas do not count towards the total.

2. Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant and must never have been published, self-published, published on any website or recorded (poems read at open mics are OK as long as they were not recorded). No posthumous or AI generated entries please.

3. Entries must be in English and we will not be accepting translations of poetry.

4. Each poem should be sent as a separate word document. The name of each document should be the name of the poem it contains and have no identifying marks other than the title on either the page or in the document name.

5. Font should be Georgia (or similar) 12 point. Pages should not be numbered, there should be no colour, pictures or borders and no explanatory notes.

6. Online entries – Pay online using PayPal. Your covering email should include: your name and address, and the titles of your poems. The title of your email should be Yaffle Prize, your name and PayPal transaction number eg: John Smith 9PO79127H87167P.

7. Send your poems to: yafflesnest[at]gmail[dot]com

8. No corrections can be made after receipt, nor fees refunded.

9. Worldwide copyright of poems remains with the author, but Yaffle’s Nest will have the unrestricted right to publish the winning poems on its website, in competition publicity and in the resulting anthology.

10. The judge’s decision is final and no individual correspondence can be entered into.

​11. Please do NOT use song lyrics in your poems. There may be copyright issues and we are a small company with limited funds. Titles are fine, there is no copyright on titles. 

Entry implies acceptance of the rules. Failure to comply with entry requirements will result in disqualification.

Receipt: Yaffle’s Nest will acknowledge all entries, if you do not see acknowledgement please check your spam filter – adding our email address to your contacts should prevent this happening.

Results will be published on our website and social media

The Zoom Prizewinning event take place in Summer 2025.

Please pay for your entry using the PayPal email yafflesnest@gmail.com

ENTRY FEE:

£6 for one poem

£13 for 3 poems

£20 for 6 poems