Poetry Statistics 2026: What 1,150+ Poems Reveal
Quick answer: Data from 1,150+ poems by 1,350+ writers on Writory, with entrants from 33 countries and readers in 150+. Compiled by Team Writory, 7 August 2026. Free to cite with attribution.
Key findings
- Love outweighs loss: 'love' appears in poem titles 2.5 times as often as 'lost'.
- Poetry is young: 54% of entrants are under 25, and 18-24 is the single largest age group (41% of all poems).
- Poets are night writers: nearly 1 in 3 poems (31%) arrives between 8 PM and midnight, and deadline day peaks at 9 PM.
- Nearly 1 in 4 poems (23%) arrives in a script other than the Latin alphabet: Devanagari, Tamil, Bengali, Urdu and more.
- One in five poems (20%) is submitted in the final three days before the deadline.
- The average poem title is just 3.3 words long.
- Monthly entries grew 3.2x between March and July 2026, and August is on pace to set a new record.
Method: title-language and theme figures cover Writory's full poem corpus; age and timing figures come from contest entry records, March to August 2026. Cite as: Writory Poetry Contest Entry Statistics 2026, writoryofficial.com/poetry-statistics.
About Writory
Writory (writoryofficial.com) is an international monthly poetry contest founded in 2025 by Shivay Mehra. Poets from 31 countries have entered, readers come from over 150 countries, and every submitted poem is judged and scored out of 100 across five criteria: creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme. Every entrant receives a certificate; winners receive cash prizes and are published by name. Entries close on the 25th of each month and results are announced on the 30th. Writory is listed by Duotrope, Poetry Kit, Christopher Fielden's competition list and Creative Writing NZ, among other organisations. Past results are public at past winners and the leaderboard.