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Mirko Lux

6th poetry competition for school pupils with guest judge Francesca Beard

By taking part in our poetry competition, you have the chance to win tickets for the poesiefestival berlin 2025 (26 May-15 June), secure a place in a poetry workshop at the renowned Haus für Poesie in Berlin and take part in an exclusive poetry workshop with your class!

The British Council and Haus für Poesie are collaborating to host the sixth poetry competition for students in Grades 6-12 in Germany. Participants can showcase their creative writing skills in English or German while engaging with contemporary English-language poetry. This year's theme is 'Gratitude'. The judging panel includes award-winning poet Francesca Beard and the Head of Poetic Education at Berlin's Haus für Poesie, Karla Montasser.

The task

  • Pupils should write a poem in English or German that refers to and responds to the work 'Give thanks' by Francesca Beard and reflects on the theme of 'Gratitude'. 'Give thanks' can be read on LyrikLine here and downloaded as a pdf below.
  • Poems must be submitted as text and may also be submitted as a video if desired.

Submitted poems should:

  • Be written in English or German
  • Not exceed 50 lines

Eligibility and rules

  • You must be a pupil at a school in Germany 
  • You must be in Grades 6-12 at the time of writing your poem

To apply

  • Email your poem to mitmachen@haus-fuer-poesie.org with the subject line: "British Council Poetry Competition 2025". In your email, please include your name, age, address, gender (m/f/d), the name of your school, your class and your English teacher's name and email address.
  • Closing date for entries: Sunday 4th May 2025, 6 p.m.
  • Announcement of the winners: Friday 16th May 2025
  • If you have any questions about eligibility, please send an email to Karla Montasser (mitmachen@haus-fuer-poesie.org) or call +49 (0) 30 4852 4536.

Prizes

Each entry submitted will receive personalised feedback on their writing.

Four poems will be selected as winners: a 1st and 2nd prize for poems in English and a 1st and 2nd prize for poems in German. 

  • All winners will have the opportunity to read their poem at the 2025 Poesiefestival and meet Francesca Beard in person at a prize-giving ceremony on 13 June in Berlin.
  • All winning entries will be translated into German or English by a professional translator.
  • All winning entries will be published in English and German on the website and social media channels of the British Council in Germany and the Haus für Poesie.
  • Two winners will win a poetry-writing workshop with their class with Francesca Beard.
  • All winners will win tickets to the 2025 Poetry Festival at Haus für Poesie, Berlin, which takes place from May 26th - June 15th 2025.
  • All winners will also win a place in the annual poetry workshop "Weiter im Text" or the "young poems" at Haus für Poesie.

This year's judge: Francesca Beard

Francesca Beard is a performance poet who collaborates with diverse people throughout the UK and abroad to share stories about what it is to be human. She is currently developing a new piece, ‘Confabulation’, about the future of memory, supported by Arts Council, England.

Her first solo show, ‘Chinese Whispers’, produced by Apples and Snakes in 2002, was seen as ground-breaking in its approach to performance poetry as a cross-arts form. Since then, she's written short plays for The Royal Court and BBC Radios 3 and 4, worked with The Young Vic and ICT to create participatory community-led shows and held research residencies at Banff, Canada and The Mixed Reality Lab, Nottingham University, to develop story-telling platforms for live and on-line audiences with B3 Media and Kings Cultural Institute.

She is a current Associate Artist with All Change, who lead the field in building long term relationships with communities to make and share outstanding creative work and has been poet in residence at The Barbican, BBC White City, The Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kingston Library, the Natural History Museum and The Metropolitan Police and a guest lecturer in creative writing at the University of Westminster.

She trained as a workshop facilitator with Apples and Snakes through their Poets In Education scheme and has over twenty years experience as a creative practitioner in primary and secondary schools as well as libraries, hospitals, prisons and other institutions.

She has represented contemporary UK literature with the British Council in 23 different countries, from a jazz café in Azerbaijan, to a Bangkok shopping mall, in a Colombian prison to Zimbabwe’s National Library, working with Femrite, a Ugandan activist women’s literature organisation to create a public performance for the National Theatre in Kampala and with Makaan Arts and Culture, to create the first ever student-led cross arts theatre show in Khartoum.

Her work is often research-informed and inspired by emerging knowledge about ourselves and the universe.

www.francescabeard.com

More about Francesca Beard can be found here.
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