Poetry Contest Uganda 2026, Enter Online
Quick answer: Monthly poetry contest for Ugandan poets. English, Luganda, Acholi and more welcome. Cash prizes, certificates for every entrant, scored feedback each month.
Okot p'Bitek turned an Acholi song into Song of Lawino in 1966 and changed what an African poem written in English could sound like. Makerere University had already gathered a generation of African writers at its 1962 conference, and the thread runs on through Susan Kiguli and through Kampala rooms where poets read to full houses. The Babishai Niwe Poetry Award has spent years putting Ugandan and African poets into print.
Writory sits alongside that calendar as a monthly option. The window opens on the 1st and shuts on the 25th, results follow on the 30th, and winners receive cash prizes. Every poet who enters gets a participation certificate along with a five criteria score covering creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme. Work arrives from over 50 countries each cycle, so a poem written in Gulu is read in wide company.
Writory is a monthly poetry contest open to Ugandan poets writing in Luganda, Acholi, Runyankole, English or any other language, with cash prizes for winners and a scored certificate for every entrant.
Why enter
- Poems in Luganda, Acholi, Runyankole, Lusoga or Ateso are read as poems in their own right, with no translation asked for first.
- Song poetry in the p'Bitek line, built to be heard rather than parsed on a page, is assessed on the same score sheet as any other form.
- Distance from Kampala changes nothing, because a poet in Gulu, Mbarara or Arua submits through the same online form as everyone else.
- The fee buys a documented score rather than silence, which is unusual when so many competitions only reply to the shortlist.
- Writory appears on Writing Africa and in Duotrope, so you can check the contest against an independent listing before you pay anything.
What winners and entrants receive
- Cash prizes for the poems that win each month.
- A participation certificate for every Ugandan entrant, issued whether the poem places or not, while the ten highest placed poems of the month go up on the public leaderboard.
- Enter three months in a row and you earn a free entry, and any month you win, the next one is free too.
- Scores on creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme stay in your profile, so twelve months of entries show real movement instead of guesswork.
Song poetry in the Acholi tradition, Luganda verse, oral praise forms written down, spoken word scripts, sonnets and free verse are all accepted at Writory.
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
Do I have to write in English to enter from Uganda?
No. Luganda, Acholi, Runyankole, Lusoga, Ateso and any other language are accepted, and the poem is judged in the language you wrote it in. Entrants need to be 13 or older, and everything is submitted online.
How do you keep the judging from coming down to one reader's taste?
A fixed sheet of five criteria, creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme, applied to every poem in the cycle. You are handed your own scores instead of a one line rejection, and that is the part most competitions leave out.
What does an entry cost from Uganda?
The fees are quoted in United States dollars, $5 for one poem, $8 for two poems and $15 for five. There is no shilling rate, so the payment converts from dollars. A win makes the next month free, and entering three months in a row does the same.
How soon after the deadline do results appear?
The 25th closes entries and the 30th publishes the outcome, so no cycle keeps you waiting past the end of the month.
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By the Writory editorial team. Updated July 2026.
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