The Bridgette James Poetry Competition is open. You have from 8 April to noon, 8 May, 2025,
to ENTER
This year’s theme is Nature and You.
Submit Via email-
pennedinrage@outlook.com or ellaswriting@mail.com
Contestants are invited to submit a 40-line, non-metered poem on the theme which can be broadly interpreted. You should write an eco-poem (a poem about the environment or nature), focusing on the relationship between humans and the natural world.
Please familiarise yourself with the competition rules.
Submitters MUST send in an original piece of work. (I do run checks for plagiarism on all selected poems. Contestants have previously been disqualified for submitting an already published or AI-generated piece.)
All submissions must be in a Word.doc format please.
You MUST enter under your real name. If using a pseudonym you MUST disclose your real identity to competition organisers.
Only one poem can be submitted. However, I advise that you concentrate on drafting and redrafting your poem before submitting it. In the past grammatical errors have cost entrants a win.
The competition is free to enter.
Poems should be on the theme Nature & You, written in the first-person narrative.
Poems must not exceed forty lines.
Your work is accepted on the basis that this will be its first publication in Penned in Rage, Literary Journal, on my Social Media pages or this website.
Poems cannot have been broadcast on any regional, national or online TV station or via any radio platform.
Poems cannot have won any other competition.
Poems must be written in English, but you can include phrases in your mother tongue or another language.
You MUST NOT enter a poem written by more than one author.
Entries will be accepted from sub-Saharan Africa, The Caribbean and individuals from those regions living in the diaspora.
Rejected competition entries are deleted. Please ensure you keep a record of all poems entered and send copies only.
Entries will NOT be accepted any other via email address, except pennedinrage@outlook.com
By entering this competition, entrants agree that their poems and data may be used by Ella’s Poems, including for educational purposes as material for Bridgette’s Writing School, Facebook.
The judge: PAMILERIN JACOB’S decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into concerning his decision.
All online entries must be received by midday BST on the 08 May 2025. Late online entries will not be accepted under any circumstances.
Due to the large number of entrants, I am unable to respond individually to submissions.
Rules: winners
Due to the high number of submissions, only successful entrants will be notified. Details of the full winners list will be announced publicly on www.ellaspoems.com on May 30th 2025.
The winners will be paid via Western Union ONLY.
Photographs of winners will be displayed on www.ellaspeoms.com.
The copyright of each poem remains with the author. However, by entering the competition, authors of the winning poems grant Ella’s Poems the right to publish and/or broadcast their poem, and to do this before anyone else.
Authors of the winning poems will grant Ella’s Poems irrevocable, non-exclusive licence to republish the work in perpetuity, including (but not limited to): Penned in Rage Hardcover Magazine.
You are free to focus on manmade-environmental issues such as oil mining, harvesting trees for firewood, use of fossil fuels and pollution, from the first person narrative.
Submit online - BELOW/or By Email - pennedinrage@outlook.com
Submit Via email- pennedinrage@outlook.com or ellaswriting@mail.com
1st Prize Paid Via Western Union - $40 USD.
Runner-Up - $10 USD, Paid Via Western Union.
Top three (3) contestants to be published in Penned in Rage Hardcover.
Terms & Conditions
Contestants must have subscribed to website to be eligible to enter. Subscription is free, simply click on the ‘Subscribe’ icon on home page to open up your email app and join site with email to receive notifications.
Pamilerin Jacob is a poet and editor whose poems have appeared in POETRY Magazine, Lolwe, 20.35 Africa, Agbowó, Frontier Poetry, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. He was the second runner-up for Sevhage Poetry Prize 2019, co-winner PIN Food Poetry Contest 2018.
Stories and poems by Bridgette James have been published in several UK outlets.
SUBSCRIBE to Participate
Anna Zgambo is pursuing a PhD in literature at the University of Zambia with a focus on lyric poetry. Her most recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Ubwali Literary Magazine, Akpata Magazine, Up the Staircase Quarterly, ObindoMagazine, The Weganda Review, Midway Journal, and elsewhere. She is a Mawazo PhD Fellow, an Idembeka Creative Writing Fellow, and a reader at CRAFT Literary.
Zambia Educational Publishing House published Read Prose Poetry by Anna Zgambo, and her collection reached the finals in the creative writing category of the Ngoma Awards 2022. Her latest poetry collection, Peruse Every Poem, won a Canon contract organized by the United Nations SDG Book Club.
Arbiter, Lergon Parris
is a Jamaican writer.
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Submissions- OPEN
SUBMIT a Poem or Flash Fiction in Word Document Format Please
Poem - free verse, haiku, Fibonacci, Prose et cetera preferred over meters. Maximum lines 40. Flash Story - maximum 500 words; Fiction. Nonfiction and Non-academic essays accepted.
Submissions
The submission window will reopen on 08 April 2025 - to coincide with the Annual Bridgette James Poetry Competition - for the second online edition of Penned in Rage Literary Journal. You may submit a 40-line poem for consideration. I do not publish metered poetry of any shape or form, neither do I accept anything that offends other social groups.
Flash fiction not exceeding 500 words on any genre or topic may be submitted, as may non-academic essays or creative nonfiction not above 500 words.
Underrepresented writers from anywhere may submit a poem or flash fiction for consideration.
How is the journal published?
Triannual Online Publication - Downloadable PDF January, April, October
Hardcover Format via Amazon KDP - Annually
