The poets of the short-listed entries will be informed by e-mail on or before Wednesday 25th October. They will go through to the Finals Night to take place in The Old Mill, 1 Old Mill Road, Plumstead SE18 1QG on Tuesday 7th November from 8pm.

The Finals Night: -

On Finals Night, the poems can be read by the poet, but this is not compulsory. Actors, who will also be the short-listing judges, have been engaged to do the readings where necessary and no indication will be given on the night to indicate whether the reader is the author or not. If you wish to read your own poem, then you should contact us when you know your poem has been short-listed.

Before the Finals Night the short-listed poems will be split into 3 groups of 4 for what will be the semi-final stage.

On the night, the first group of 4 poems will be read and the audience in the pub will be given the opportunity to vote by ballot as to which they think is the best poem in that section. The winning poem will go through to the Grand Final.

This process will be repeated twice more so that there will be 3 poems in total chosen for the Grand Final.

The Grand Final will follow the same format and voting process so that it is the public’s choice as to which poem is the winning entry.

If present, the poet will be crowned Plumstead Poet Laureate 2023 by last year’s winner, *******.

NB There is no monetary prize associated with the competition.