Poetry Contests Australia 2026, Every Poem Scored
Quick answer: Monthly poetry contest open to Australian poets, any language, any theme. Scored feedback and a certificate for every entry. Results on the 30th.
Australian poetry began in two places at once, in the oldest continuous songlines on earth and in the ballads that Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson traded in the pages of The Bulletin. It carried on through Kenneth Slessor's Five Bells, through Judith Wright's long argument with the land, through Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the first Aboriginal poet published in English, and through the crowded generous lines of Les Murray. Writory adds one more door to that tradition, a competition that opens on the 1st of every month and shuts on the 25th.
Results land on the 30th. The poets who place are paid cash prizes, and every single person on the entry list is issued a participation certificate, not only the ones who win. Behind each result sits a five part score covering creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme, which appears inside your Writory profile so you can see where the poem held and where it thinned out. Entry is open from age 13, in English or in any other language spoken in Australian homes, and Writory is indexed by Duotrope and Reedsy if you want to check the contest before you send anything. The entry list has drawn poets from more than 50 countries, so an Australian poem is read in genuinely international company. Australian work already places: in July 2026 Kahlani Steele's ONE MORE DAWN took fifth overall at 92, on the public leaderboard for anyone to check.
Australia's poetry calendar is strong but sparse: the Kenneth Slessor Prize and the Judith Wright Calanthe Award crown published collections once a year, state poetry societies run annual comps with entry windows that close fast, and between them sit long quiet months. A monthly international contest fills exactly that gap, twelve deadlines a year instead of one, with a scorecard after every single one.
Australian entrants sit in a pool drawn from more than fifty countries, judged blind against five published criteria: creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme. The reading is anonymous, so a first time poet from Dubbo is weighed on identical terms with a published one from London, and the breakdown that comes back shows exactly where the marks went.
Entries close on the 25th of each month, which for Australia lands in the early hours of the 26th, Sydney time, results follow by the 30th, winners are paid by PayPal, and every entrant receives a named certificate carrying the title Writorian. All rights stay with the poet.
Writory runs a poetry competition every month that Australian poets can enter from any state or territory, with cash prizes for winners, a certificate for everyone, and a five part score on every poem.
Why enter
- An Australian poem took 5th place in July 2026, Kahlani Steele's ONE MORE DAWN at 92, against poets from more than 50 countries.
- Distance costs you nothing. Submitting, judging and results are all handled online, so a poet in Broome or Alice Springs is on exactly the same footing as one in inner Sydney.
- Your poem comes back with a score instead of silence. Creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme are each rated inside your profile, which is more than most competitions here will tell you.
- Language is open. Enter in English, or in Greek, Vietnamese, Arabic, Mandarin or any other language spoken across the country, and the poem is read on its own terms.
- Subject matter is entirely yours. Drought, surf, the commute, a grandmother's kitchen, fire season, none of it is off limits, because Writory sets no monthly theme.
What winners and entrants receive
- Cash goes to the winning poets every month, paid after results are published on the 30th.
- A participation certificate is issued to every Australian entrant, which is useful if you are building a submissions record or a first manuscript.
- Win once and your next month's entry costs nothing.
- Enter three months running and the following entry is free as well, which rewards the habit of writing rather than one lucky poem.
- The ten highest scoring poems each month are published on the public leaderboard at writoryofficial.com/leaderboard.
Bush ballads in the Paterson metre, free verse, sonnets, prose poems, haiku and pieces written for the microphone at a Melbourne open mic all count as entries here.
Key facts
- Entries open the 1st, close the 25th at 11:59 PM IST, results on the 30th.
- One poem $5, two poems $8, five poems $15 (Rs 150 / Rs 220 / Rs 450 in India).
- Every poem scored by human judges on five criteria: creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme.
- A participation certificate for every entrant, not only winners, and the score is visible in your profile.
- Cash prizes for winners, free entry the following month for winners, open worldwide from age 13, any language.
Questions
I live in Australia. Is this contest actually open to me?
It is. Writory takes entries from every state and territory, and from Australians living overseas, with no residency clause anywhere in the rules. Anyone aged 13 or above can send work in, and the whole process from submission to result happens online.
What stops the judging from being arbitrary?
Each entry is rated against five fixed measures, creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme, and the resulting breakdown is published to your profile rather than kept internal. You can see which measure lifted the poem and which one pulled it down.
How much is the entry fee in Australia?
Fees are charged in US dollars. A single poem costs $5, two poems cost $8, and a bundle of five costs $15, which works out cheapest per poem. Winners pay nothing the month after they win, and anyone who has entered three months in a row gets an entry on the house.
What is the timeline from submission to result?
The window opens on the 1st, shuts on the 25th, and the outcome is published on the 30th, so you never wait longer than a month to hear back. Your score breakdown lands in your profile at the same time as the announcement, and the top ten appear on the leaderboard.
When is the deadline in Australian time?
The contest closes at 11:59 PM Indian time on the 25th, which is roughly 4:30 AM on the 26th in Sydney and Melbourne, and 2:30 AM in Perth. Treat the 25th as your writing day and the deadline takes care of itself.
Can Australian poets win real money here?
Yes. Prizes are paid in US dollars through PayPal, which serves Australia directly. Every entrant, winning or not, also receives a judged score out of 100 and a certificate; winners take the cash and free entry to the next round.
Is bush poetry or performance verse welcome?
Any form is. The rubric scores creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme; it does not privilege free verse over ballad metre or the page over the stage. Rhymed narrative verse in the Paterson tradition is judged on how well it does what it sets out to do.
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By the Writory editorial team. Updated July 2026.
Enter the September contest · All poetry competitions 2026: deadlines & prizes · International poetry contest · Past winners · Read the winning poems