Chancellor’s Poetry Prize

Repair by Suzanna Fitzpatrick

I limp on crutches past valves
empty of pistons, a tuba
with a dented bell, mouthpieces
scattered like lost teeth –

soundless instruments waiting
for their music back. I watch
as the technician murmurs
over my daughter’s trumpet:

notes its injuries, darts about,
rummaging in boxes, makes a call.
All right, mate? Just wondering –
you got a junker B&H?

400, yeah. I need the stays –
got nothing in my bone pile.
My femur and tibia ache,
clamped by new metalwork.

He says if he can get the spares
he can repair it; otherwise
it’s written off. I think
of its bright spiral singing

with my child’s breath, my silence
when told to give up running –
ask him to try. He swaddles
a cloth around its small form,

places it in a vice, picks up
his toolkit, starts to tap. I flinch
as it vibrates, both of us humming
with the need to play again.

December by Nadine El-Enany

I loved the bridle path. I remember that.
The hopscotch puddles, the arched boughs,
the snatches of light and hills
in the gaps between the trees.
Just before the farmhouse
was a gate with a view up to the stag
looking out at the valley and the bamboo copse.
The first time we saw it we thought it was real,
antlers raised, sun speckling its bronze body.
After, Bambi was a trick we played on friends.
For years the only bad thing
was having to cross the farmer’s yard,
awkward past his large and empty rooms,
all knick-knacks and no people,
a sports car outside that never moved.
At the end of the path was a kennel,
poor mutts howling through the holidays.
This morning a gunshot clapped the valley,
another and another and nothing I could do.
The forest it cradled shook with shouting men
and barking dogs. Just then he appeared,
having darted up from the woods unscathed,
orange fur prickling. He stopped and looked at me,
weighing the threat I posed.
I willed him to run, my thoughts on stray bullets
and the tiny lamb inside me.

IVF by Rushika Wick

You bought a Mimosa,
starry tree with boughs
of pom-poms, spring-bright.

Leaves were delicate,
amphibian, as if half
within another realm.

On one branch, paper
with botanic drawings
curled, outlines

like dance notation.
Everything I write about
I don’t want to write.

We planted it under cloud
on a rainy night -
spooled from the domestic.

Confetti petals dropped
in puddles.
It's naked now, you said.

A snail crackled
its own mollusc-time
around the empty pot.

General

1. The Chancellor’s Poetry Prize: Place is open to any current undergraduate or postgraduate student at Newcastle University.
2. The closing date of the competition is 4 April 2025. All entries must be received by submission to https://forms.office.com/e/8F6SD6MqvC by no later than 10.00pm (UK time) on this date; entries will receive a receipt at the time of submission.
3. Any entries arriving after this time will not be considered. 
4. Entrants may only enter one poem.
5. Entries will not be returned, so please keep a copy. 
6. Under no circumstances can alterations be made to poems once entered. 
7. Entrants may withdraw entries from the competition.
8. Newcastle University will not accept responsibility for competition entries that are lost, mislaid, damaged or delayed in transit, regardless of cause, including (for example) technical malfunction, or systems, network, server or computer hardware or software failure of any kind.
9. Proof of transmission will not be accepted as proof of receipt of entry to the competition.
10. Telephone or email confirmation of receipt is not available. Newcastle University is not able to confirm the content of documents submitted, so please ensure you submit the correct version.
11. The competition organisers reserve the right to change the judging panel without notice and not to award prizes if, in the judges’ opinion, such an action is justified.
12. Due to the number of entrants, we are unable to respond individually to submissions. 
13. The judge’s decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into concerning this decision.

Poems

1. All entries are judged anonymously, and the poet’s name must not appear on the poem itself – please include only your student number in the top right-hand corner.
2. All poems must have a title and must be between 10 and 30 lines in length. The title is not included in the line count, nor are any blank spaces to indicate stanza or section breaks. Entries should be on the theme of ‘making it new’ and can be written in any style or form.
3. Poems must be the entrant’s original work. Entries submitted posthumously or on behalf of another person will not be eligible.
4. Entries must not have been published, self-published, published on a website, blog, online forum, nor on social media such as X, Facebook or Instagram, nor broadcast, nor have won or been placed (as in 2nd, 3rd, runner-up, etc.) in any other competition before the deadline.
5. Handwritten and postal entries cannot be accepted.
6. The file type of online entries must be .pdf.
7. Entries must be written in English as the primary language. 

Winners

1. The winner of the 2025 Chancellor's Poetry Prize will receive £250, paid via bank transfer.
2. Prize-winners will be notified by email in May 2025. Only successful entrants will be notified.
3. The winner will be expected to provide a short biography and hi-res photograph. 
4. The copyright of each poem remains with the author. However, authors of the winning poem, by entering the competition, grant University, the right in perpetuity to publish and/or broadcast their poem.

Publicity and Personal Information

1. Personal information (including any photographs) supplied by entrants when entering or winning this competition will only be used by the University for marketing and promotional activities.