Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine nearing 2016 deadline

The annual Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world with a prize fund of £500 for the Young Poets Award and £5500 for winning poems in its Open International and  UK NHS Awards. Awards are for a single unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme. The awards include a 1st, 2nd and 3rd Prize and 20 commendations in each of the Open and NHS categories and further commendations in the Young Poets Award.

Deadlines Open and NHS entries closed on 1^st February 2016.

Young Poets entries (age 14-18) remain open to the end of 29th February 2016.

If you wish to take part or to let poet friends know about the Young Poet awards there is still  time: entries for the 2016 Hippocrates Prize International Young Poet Award close at the end of the day (midnight in your local time zone) on 29th February 2016. 

The Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine is supported by healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust and run by the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine, which received the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts for its work on the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Awards will be presented on 15th April 2016 at a ceremony in London. Winning and commended poems are published in the annual Hippocrates Prize Anthology.
 
The Hippocrates Prize is awarded in an Open category, which anyone in the world may enter; and an NHS category, which is open to UK National Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations involved in education and training of NHS students and staff.

2015 Hippocrates Prize winners: Maya Catharine Popa and Parisa Thepmankorn from the USA and Kate Compston from the UK

Since it was founded in 2009 by clinical professor Donald Singer and poet Michael Hulse, there has been interest in the awards from over 60 countries and widespread press and broadcast media coverage. There have already been entries for the 2016 awards from 36 countries and territories from Australia to Zambia.

Poet Wendy French, Harvard physician and poet Rafael Campo, and Gareth Powell, Secretary of the Methodist Church, will judge the 2016 Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine international and UK NHS awards.

Hippocrates Prize organiser and Clinical Pharmacologist Donald Singer said:

"Engaging with health through poetry can provide valuable support for patients and their families."

Poet and Hippocrates judge Wendy French said:

"My experience as poet-in-residence at the MacMillan Cancer Centre shows how patients undergoing palliative care can find helpful support from engaging in poetry.”

The Prize is run by the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine, which received the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts for its work on the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Still time to enter for Agincourt 600 Poetry Competition – deadline 31 Jan

There’s just under 1 week left to enter the Agincourt 600 Poetry Competition! The Young Poets Network is partnering with Agincourt 600 to get young poets grappling with the history of this fascinating battle, a landmark event in European history.

Judged by acclaimed poet Daljit Nagra, the competition is open to young writers aged 5-18 from the UK, and the deadline is 31 January 2016 – so there’s still time for young poets to enter and be in with the chance of winning some brilliant prizes, including a poet visit to their school.

There are currently four challenges live on the Young Poets Network to inspire entries. From taking on the voice of a common soldier, to following the story of a mysterious lost object, to rediscovering the history of an elusive saint, these challenges are full of ideas to inspire poetry about an extraordinary piece of history. 

For teachers, there are also four separate resources to help encourage entries from students at both primary and secondary level.

Find out more about the competition, the challenges, and how to enter here.

29th February deadline for the international Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine

The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine was launched on Thursday 17^th December at an event at the MacMillan Cancer Centre at University College Hospital in London.

The Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world. The Prize is for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme.

There is a  £500 Young Poets International Award in the international Hippocrates Prize Entries for this award are open to young poets from anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years. 

There is also a £5000 first prize both for its Open International and for its NHS Awards [deadline 31st January].  
All awards are for a single unpublished poem on a medical theme. 

Entries for the 2016 Hippocrates Young Poets international prize for Poetry and Medicine close at 12 midnight GMT on the 29th February, 2016. 

Awards will be presented at a ceremony in April 2016 in London.
 
2016 Hippocrates Prize judge Wendy French recently completed a year as poet in residence, working with adult and young patients attending the MacMillan Cancer Centre.

Click here to find out more about how to enter for the 2016 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Winning and commended poems are published in the annual Hippocrates Prize Anthology.
 
Click here to order an Anthology of previous winning poems in the Hippocrates Prize.

2016 Hippocrates Prize Launch at the MacMillan Cancer Centre

Poet Siân Hughes (see below) will select the winner of the Hippocrates Young Poet Award for poetry and medicine.

The Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Notes for editors
For more on the Hippocrates Prize and the 2016 judges, contact 07447 441666 or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

Hippocrates website: hippocrates-poetry.com

 

2016 Hippocrates Young Poets Judge

Siân Hughes' first collection "The Missing" (Salt, 2009) was long-listed for Guardian first book of the year, and won the Seamus Heaney prize for a first collection.  Her sequence of poems about her mother's breast cancer won second prize in the first Hippocrates awards, and she and her mother Eleanor Cooke continue to write a shared book about this illness as treatments continue today.   In 1998 she set up the Young National Poetry Competition when she was working for The Poetry Society and she continues to promote young writers and to work with the National Academy of Gifted and Talented Youth to support the teaching of creative writing. Sian has been poet in residence in Youth and Community Centres, a Youth Theatre, a Health Centre, and is currently poet in residence in a Birmingham school when she is not teaching part time for Oxford University, working in a café or looking after her family.

The UCH MacMillan Cancer Centre
Macmillan and the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) have combined their expertise to build the UK’s most advanced cancer facility. The UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre supports the growing number of Londoners living with cancer. Over 27,000 people in London are currently living with cancer, and the number is growing. The UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre is the first of its kind in the NHS. It redefines the way cancer patients are treated, using the best diagnostic and treatment techniques to improve survival rates.  At its heart is the Macmillan Support and Information Service. A team of skilled Macmillan health professionals and volunteers, from benefits advisors to counsellors and complementary therapists, bringing the highest quality medical, emotional, practical and financial support.

Hippocrates Prize Organisers
Professor Donald Singer is a clinical pharmacologist and President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. His interests include research on discovery of new therapies, and public understanding of drugs, health and disease. Professor Michael Hulse is a poet and translator of German literature, and teaches creative writing and comparative literature at the University of Warwick. He is also editor of The Warwick Review. His latest book of poems, Half-Life (2013), was named a Book of the Year by John Kinsella.


The 2016 Hippocrates Prize is supported by:
The Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, a national medical society founded in 1918 and publisher of the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology.
The Healthy Heart Charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust, founded in 1996, which promotes research and education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation.