1st March deadline for 2017 Hippocrates International Young Poets (age 14 - 18) Award for Poetry and Medicine

The annual Hippocrates International Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine is a £500 (~USD 630) award for a single unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme.

New Deadline for Hippocrates International Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine: 1st March, 2017 - 12 midnight in the time zone of the applicant.

It is open to anyone in the world aged 14 – 18.

Awards will be presented on Saturday 6th May 2017 at a ceremony at Harvard Medical School. Winning and commended poems in the Young Poets Prize are published in the annual Hippocrates Prize Anthology.

Poet and teacher Maya Catherine Popa from New York City will select the winner. 

Maya said: "It is wonderful that a major prize with this kind of international visibility aims to encourage young writers from around the globe to express their interest in the interface between poetry and medicine."

She added: "As a teacher of this age group, I am often amazed at the creativity, insight, and skill of young writers. I wish more prizes aimed to showcase and support these voices." 

Maya Catherine Popa

Prize co-founder Professor Donald Singer added: "The organisers are delighted that the healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust is once again supporting this prestigious international award for young poets." 

The Cardiovascular Research Trust has as a major aim reducing preventable heart disease by educating young people about healthy lifestyle.

Since it was founded in 2012 by clinical professor Donald Singer and poet Michael Hulse, there has been interest in the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize from 15 countries, with winners and commended poets from Hong Kong, the UK, the USA and Canada.

Visit here to find out how to enter for the 2017 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Previous Hippocrates Young Poet winners: Rosalind Jana (2013), Conor McKee (2014, Paris Thepmankorn (2015)

The winner in 2013 of the inaugural Hippocrates Young Poets Prize was Rosalind Jana from Hereford Sixth Form College in England, for her poem Posterior Instrumented Fusion for Adolescent Scoliosis.

The winner of the 2014 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize was Conor McKee from Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge for his poem I Will Not Cut for Stone.

The winner of the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize was Parisa Thepmankorn from Rockaway, New Jersey, USA for her poem Intraocular Pressure.

The  winner in the 2016 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize was Catherine Wang from Hong Kong for her poem Six Pills.

Catherine Wang: 2016 Hippocrates Young Poet winner

The Hippocrates Young Poets Prize 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.

For further information about the Hippocrates international Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine and the Cardiovascular Research Trust, email hearthealthycharity@gmail.com or call +44 7494 450 805

Maya Catherine Popa is a writer and teacher in NYC. A 2015 Ruth Lilly finalist, she is the recipient of the Poetry Foundation Editor’s Prize for review. Her poetry appears in Tin House, Kenyon Review, Poetry London, and elsewhere. Her criticism and non-fiction appear widely, including in Poetry, Poets & Writers Magazine, PN Review, and The Huffington Post. Her chapbook, “The Bees Have Been Canceled,” is forthcoming from DIAGRAM New Michigan Press in the U.S., and Southword Editions in Ireland, in winter 2017.

Her awards include the Hippocrates Poetry Prize, 2nd place in the Magma Poetry Prize, 3rd Place in the Narrative N30B Prize, the Gregory O’Donoghue Competition, Parallel Universe Competition, and the Oxford Poetry Society Martin Starkie Prize. She holds an MFA from NYU and an Mst in Writing from Oxford University, where she was a Clarendon Scholar. She teaches at the Nightingale-Bamford school in New York City.