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Edinburgh is 900 years old

Edinburgh 900 poetry bookmark competition

As part of the Edinburgh 900 celebrations, our libraries are inviting residents to take part in a city-wide poetry competition. We will choose the poems of six winners to be printed on bookmarks and distributed throughout our libraries. We look forward to seeing your creativity and imagination as we honour Edinburgh turning 900 years old.

The poem must be written about the City of Edinburgh in connection with the Edinburgh 900 celebrations. There are ten themes for the Edinburgh 900 which you can use as inspiration for your poem.

Judging

There will be six winners chosen by three judges. The entries will be first read and filtered by library staff members, who will then give a selection of 20 poems each to judge. The judges will choose two winners each, which will then be printed onto bookmarks.

The judges are

  •  is a Scottish Jamaican writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her poems and stories appear in art installations and several anthologies, and her debut poetry collection, Time Cleaves Itself, is published by Peepal Tree Press.
  • is a poet, researcher, producer, and educator focusing on spoken word poetry. Since 2015 she has worked with I Am Loud in multiple capacities, including as a producer, publicist, and performer, and she currently leads their educational programming. 
  •  is a poet based in Edinburgh. After several years at the Scottish Poetry Library, he has since freelanced, working in schools, colleges, and community settings. In 2015 he established Edinburgh Poetry Tours and has organised poetry walks in Edinburgh. His most recent poetry collection, Floating the Woods, appeared in March 2018. 

Entries

  • Entry submission closes on 31 January 2025. Any entries submitted after this date will not be considered.
  • The poem must fit onto the spacing of the bookmark template. You can
  • If you hand back a handwritten paper entry – please let us know whether you would like your own handwriting to be printed onto the bookmark, or if you would like it to be printed.
  • Please specify along with your entry which colour you would like the bookmark to be printed – this can be chosen from our five Council brand colours – red, blue, orange, green and purple. 
  • You may submit as many entries as you wish.
  • We regret that physical copy entries cannot be returned.
  • Return your entry

Eligibility

  • To enter this competition, you must be a resident in the Edinburgh postcode area and have an EH postcode.
  • This is an adult competition, you must be 18 years or older to enter, in accordance with our library card administration.
  • The competition is free to enter.
  • All entries should be the work of the entrant. 
  • The poem must never have been previously published or self-published, either in print, on any website, or recorded.
  • Please don’t submit posthumous or AI generated poems.
  • If writing in a language other than English, please include an English translation - both must fit onto the bookmark spacing.

Privacy notice and Data Protection

  • By entering into this competition, you are giving us permission to contact you with the information you have provided.
  • To deliver this competition, we need to collect, store, use and dispose of personal information. We do not, under any circumstances, share any of your personal information. We may collect and process the following information provided by you so that we can make direct contact with the 6 chosen winners of ED900 Edinburgh Libraries Poetry Bookmark competition:
    • full name
    • post code
    • phone number
    • email address
  • By emailing or handing your entry into our libraries, you are consenting to your poem being judged and, if chosen as a winner, you will be contacted by City of Edinburgh Libraries to reach agreement on whether or not your details are included and your poem published.
  • If you are chosen as one of our selected winners and we contact you directly, you will at this point have the right to withdraw your consent for your poem to be published and distributed.
  • You are then consenting or refusing to City of Edinburgh Council Libraries Division, printing your poem onto 300 hard copy bookmarks that will be distributed by libraries in book issues from May to Aug 2025. You will also have the choice of including your name, part of your name or remaining anonymous. 
  • All entries not chosen as winners will be removed and deleted, along with your personal information from the digital platform and all hard copies will be destroyed by shredding.
  • Under the guidance of the Council's recods management team, your personal data will be managed under: MAN-007-005 – Project Management. This requires the Council to keep your data for two years from the project close of 31 January 2025.
  • Hard copies will be securely kept in a locked cabinet and digital copies will be securely saved in the Councils secure online presence.
  • Worldwide copyright of poems remains with the author, but the City of Edinburgh Council Libraries will have the unrestricted right to print the poem onto bookmarks to be distributed in libraries, publish the winning poems on its website and in competition publicity.