Have you got the ambition for a poetry competition?

Following our hugely successful writing competition, we’ve decided to do another. James Falconer has more…

Róisín Kelly recently won the Sin short story competition. Her story, The Whales was an outright winner and competition judge Dr Patrick Lonergan was very impressed with Róisín’s writing saying that; “The story is excellent.”

You might be wondering where you can read the winning story. At the end of this week, The Whales will be published on sin.ie.

I got the idea for the competition when I was appointed Arts and Ents editor of Sin. I was aware of the fact that there’s a library full of students predominantly writing academically.

I know that this writing can often be rigid, procedural, and its main purpose is to convey knowledge, understanding, data and information. It’s orderly, organised and follows a certain structure. I wanted to encourage students to diverge from this process and to embrace creative writing.

The large number of entries is testament to students’ ability to put the creative cap on! Creative writing is often inspired, artistic and entertains with word pictures, concepts and deep meaning. It is enjoyable to read and can touch us while teaching us. It’s an art form; not necessary to learn, but a joy to those who do.

Following the short story success I have decided to run a poetry competition. Nearly all writing shares the goal of communicating a message to an audience, but how that message is communicated can differ significantly.

What are the differences between prose and poetry? Most everyday writing is in prose form and the language of prose is typically straightforward without much decoration. Ideas are contained in sentences that are arranged into paragraphs. There are no line breaks and sentences run to the right margin.

On the other hand, poetry can have ideas contained in lines that may or may not be sentences. Lines are arranged in stanzas. Poetry uses line breaks for various reasons and commonly follows a formatted rhythm or emphasises an idea. Lines can run extremely long or be as short as one word or letter. According to many great writers, poetry is the highest and hardest literary genre.

You are invited to write a poem (300 words max.) and submit to artsentertainment.sined@gmail.com before 12 March. The competition will be judged by established Galway poet, Elaine Feeney.