Poetry Contest Sri Lanka 2026, Tamil & Sinhala
Quick answer: Monthly online poetry contest for poets in Sri Lanka. Submit in Sinhala, Tamil or English, any style. Cash prizes, certificates and scores for every poet.
Some of the oldest surviving Sinhala poetry is graffiti: verses scratched into the mirror wall at Sigiriya by visitors more than a thousand years ago, addressed to the women painted on the rock. After them came the sandesha kavya, the message poems, and Totagamuwe Sri Rahula's Selalihini Sandesaya. Sivpada quatrains held the folk line, Siri Gunasinghe opened up nisadas free verse, and Mahagama Sekera wrote poems the country ended up singing. Alongside all of that runs Tamil kavithai from Jaffna and the east, and an English language writing that produced Jean Arasanayagam, Anne Ranasinghe and the Gratiaen Prize.
Writory's monthly international contest is open to all three of Sri Lanka's literatures at once. Write in Sinhala, Tamil or English, in whichever form suits the poem. Entries begin on the 1st and end on the 25th, results are declared on the 30th, winners receive cash prizes, every entrant receives a participation certificate, and each poem is returned with scores for creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme. More than 50 countries have been represented in Writory's entries, which gives an island poem a genuinely wide readership.
Writory is a monthly international poetry contest open to poets across Sri Lanka in Sinhala, Tamil, English or any other language, with cash prizes for winners and a participation certificate for every poet who enters.
Why enter
- Sinhala and Tamil entries are read in their own scripts, so nobody has to translate a poem before it can be judged.
- A sivpada quatrain, a venba and a long nisadas poem are all valid entries, because no form and no length is prescribed.
- Everything happens online, which puts poets in Jaffna, Batticaloa, Kandy and Galle on the same footing as Colombo.
- Twelve monthly deadlines give a Sri Lankan poet a regular reason to finish work instead of leaving it in a notebook.
- Every entrant leaves with two things regardless of the outcome, a certificate and a score across five criteria.
What winners and entrants receive
- Each month's winners are paid cash prizes.
- Certificates of participation reach all entrants from the island, placed or unplaced.
- A win removes the entry fee for the following month, and so does entering in three consecutive months.
- Entries from the island compete for a place among the ten poems listed on the public leaderboard each month.
Sinhala sivpada and nisadas, sandesha influenced verse, Tamil kavithai and venba, English sonnets, prose poems and free verse are all accepted.
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
Can I enter in Sinhala or Tamil script?
Yes, both are accepted exactly as written, and so is English. Writory takes poems in any language and does not treat one of Sri Lanka's languages as the default.
How are poems from Sri Lanka assessed against the rest of the field?
By five fixed measures, creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme, applied to every entry in the contest. Each poet then sees their own marks in their profile, which is how the process stays open to inspection.
What is the entry fee from Sri Lanka?
The contest bills in US dollars, with one poem at $5, two at $8 and five at $15. The month after a win costs a winner nothing, and a poet who has entered three months back to back receives one free entry too.
How quickly are results published?
Winners are named on the 30th, shortly after entries close on the 25th, and the next contest opens on the 1st.
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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