The 2023 Hands up Project poetry writing competition
The two original paintings below sit on my wall in my flat in Totnes. The first is by Palestinian artist Malak Mattar and it was presented to me by Malak herself during my first visit to Gaza in 2017.
The second picture is by a 13 year old girl, Leyla El Hej Abed from Mamounia Prep girls UNRWA school, Gaza and it was also presented to me by Leyla herself during another visit to Gaza.
For our poetry competition we’d like to invite young people all over the world to handwrite a poem of maximum fifty words which is inspired by one of these two paintings. We want you to write it by hand and also decorate the piece of paper in any way that you would like to. See for example how Angela from Spain has decorated her poem which was the winner of a competition we ran in 2020.
This isn’t the first time we’ve run a poetry competition of course. Our first one took place back in 2017 and was also inspired by a painting by Malak Mattar. You can read about it, and see the entries here
The rules
1) The competition is open to anyone in the world aged 15 or under whose first language is not English.
2) The deadline for the competition is 12 o’clock (midnight) Palestine time on Friday 14th April 2023. Entries must be sent (a photo of the piece of work) as an email attachment to info@handsupproject.org
3) The piece of work must be handwritten (not typed) and written on a single piece of paper. The poem itself must be an absolute maximum of 50 words and should be written in English (or mainly in English). On the piece of paper it should also be clearly written the full name, age and country of the participant. The piece of paper may also be decorated with drawings, colours or patterns (as in the example above)
4) The best entries will be printed off and put on display for all to see at the Hands Up Project conference on the 22nd April in Harrogate, UK. The overall winner will be announced at the conference. In making their decision the judges will take into consideration the quality of the poem and also the aesthetic quality of the submission as a whole.
We can’t wait to read your entries. Good luck to you all!