11th Poetry Prize announcement

Calls for the 11^th poetry festival participation

Jaleh Esfahani Cultural Foundation is proud to announce the 11^th poetry contest of year 2021.

The Foundation’s aim is to encourage and support young poets from the three Persian speaking countries and around the world to participate in this contest especially those whose talent remains in the shadow.

To further this goal, in 2018, a selected collection of 8 years poetry prize winners was translated into English and published as a bilingual work.[1]

For the first time, this year’s poetry contest brings together young poets from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The work of contestants from each country is reviewed and evaluated by a panel of judges from each country and one winner from each country will be announced in a grand ceremony on January 29, 2021 via Zoom application.

The prize for this year winner is £500 cash.

How to participate in the 2021 poetry contest?

1-Each contestant is expected to send 5 pieces of poetry to the poetry contest secretariat before 31 October 2020. Email: javanan2020@jalehesfahani.com

1. All work submitted should be in Farsi (for Tajikistan in Cyrillic) in pdf format.
2. Each piece must be coded by a number (even if it has a title).
3. The file and poet’s name in both Farsi and English must be attached to the file in a separate sheet. 
4. A separate sheet must have the poet’s details, address, phone number and a photo.
5. The contestants must be under 30 years of age.
6. By sending their poetry to the Foundation, the contestants will give permission to have their poetry published on the Foundation’s website.

Judges and the selection process

1. The secretariat comprised of members from the 3 countries will read and inspect each work sent to them in the order mentioned above and then send the approved list to the judges.
2. The judges will read, inspect and evaluate the works of 3 to 5 poets in a long list. This list will be published on the Foundation’s site by December 2020.
3. The ceremony to announce the final winners would be held through the Zoom application as due to the Covid-19 it would not be possible to be held in London University as was customary done the years before.
4. The finalists will be chosen by consensus or the majority vote.
5. Judges in the 11^th poetry prize contest are:

Mr Alireza Abiz, Ms Shirin Razavian, Ms Modjgan Sagar, Mr Hadi Shafiee, Ms Azita Ghahreman, Mr Ali Abdolahi,Mr Reza Mohamadi and Mr Rostam Vahabzadeh.

 The Foundation is proud to announce that Mr Esmael Khoie, who was in the panel of judges for 8 years has accepted our invitation to advise the board of judges.

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[1] The Anthems of Love, translated by Rouhi Shafii and published both in Iran and outside.