Stephen Spender Prize
After a bumper 20th edition in 2023, we’re delighted to announce that the 2024 prize will run from 1 May to 31 July. Read on for more details and to choose your category!
Watch our livestreamed 2023 awards event
About the Prize and how to enter in 2024
The Stephen Spender Prize is the leading annual prize for poetry in translation, with categories for pupils, teachers and individual young people in the UK and Ireland, as well as an Open category for adults from all over the world. The rules are simple: translate into English any poem from any language – from French to Farsi, from Spanish to Somali – and win publication and cash prizes!
Scroll on to discover the different prize categories and to relive the highlights of the 2023 prize.
The 2024 prize will launch on Wednesday 1 May 2024. Teachers can now register here to involve their students. All those who register will receive regular resources and activities to help them to integrate creative translation into their teaching.
What’s new for 2023-24?
The 2023 prize saw lots of exciting changes, and we’re delighted to launch a new Portuguese Spotlight for 2024! Here are the key updates:
- The Open category goes international! For the second year running, we’re thrilled to extend the Open category to adults from all over the world.
- NEW dedicated strand for schools, for teachers entering with their pupils – after its inaugural edition last year, the Schools Laureate Prize is back with a new category for primary pupils, new multimedia alternatives to the written commentary, and a new bank of suggested poems covering dozens of languages.
- NEW translation competition for teachers – Teachers at participating schools can now get creative with our free Teacher Laureate Prize!
- Celebrating Lusophone culture with the Portuguese Spotlight – In 2024, our rotating Spotlight Prize turns to poetry from the Portuguese-speaking world.
Ready to enter? Choose your category!
Portuguese Spotlight
Open to individual young people as well as teachers submitting on behalf of students, this year our Spotlight strand celebrates Portuguese and Lusophone poetry and culture.
Find out more
Open Entry
Following the Prize’s international expansion last year, in 2024 we are delighted to extend our Open category to adults aged 18+ from all over the world!
Find out more
Individual Youth Entry
Are you a budding poet aged 18 or under? Translate any poem from any language with our individual youth categories!
Find out more
Schools Laureate Prize
With categories at KS1-5, our Schools Laureate strand is the perfect way for teachers to get students of all ages involved in the Stephen Spender Prize!
Find out more
Teacher Laureate Prize
Calling all teacher-translators! If you or your colleagues are entering students for the Schools Laureate or Spotlight strands, our free Teacher Laureate Prize is for you.
Find out moreJudges
Taher Adel (Open category, Individual Youth Entry and Teacher Laureate Prize)
Taher Adel is a British-Bahraini poet and spoken word artist. He has an MA in Creative Writing and Poetry from the University of East Anglia. He was poet in residence for Wells-next-the-sea in 2019. His books include I don’t know what language I dream in (Burning Eye Books, forthcoming Sept 2023), The Names (translated into Arabic by Rewayat Reads), The Chosen Names and The Divine Names (both Sun Behind The Cloud, 2023). His poetry has also been published in Ambit, SMOKE Magazine, The New European, Gulf Daily News, Glassworks Magazine, Tedx, Poetry London Magazine and Poetry Salzburg Review.
Jennifer Wong (Open category, Individual Youth Entry and Teacher Laureate Prize)
Jennifer Wong was born and raised in Hong Kong and is now based in the UK. She studied English at Oxford University and holds an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia and a creative writing PhD from Oxford Brookes University. She is the author of three poetry collections, including 回家 Letters Home (Nine Arches Press, 2020), which was the PBS Spring 2020 Wild Card Choice. Her book, Identity, Home and Writing Elsewhere in Contemporary Chinese Diaspora Poetry, was published by Bloomsbury Academic earlier this year. She has taught at Poetry School, City Lit and Oxford Brookes University, and was writer in residence at Wasafiri in 2011 and a visiting fellow at Oxford TORCH in 2022. Her poems, translations and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is co-editor of Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology (Verve Poetry Press, 2023).
Twitter: @jennywcreative
Keith Jarrett (Schools Laureate Prize)
Keith Jarrett is a UK and FLUPP World poetry slam champion, and was selected for the International Literary Showcase as one of ten outstanding LGBT UK-based writers. His commissioned work has included bilingual English/Spanish performances in Bilbao and Madrid, working with young poets. His poetry collection, Selah, debuted in 2017 and his play, Safest Spot in Town was performed at the Old Vic and aired on BBC Four.
Keith has judged the Foyle Young Poets Award, the Polari Prize and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. He currently teaches at New York University in London, is a trustee for the Poetry Society and works as a freelance educator in secondary schools.
Resources and inspiration
Are you an educator interested in using poetry translation in the classroom, or an adult entrant looking for some guidance about translating poetry? Read on for resources, as well as tips and inspiration from previous winners and former judges of the Stephen Spender Prize.
- Explore our Prize Resources hub and Resources homepage for a wealth of resources – from booklets of suggested poems to video tutorials, poetry workshop ideas, worksheets and more.
- Scroll on to download our PDF resource for adult newcomers to poetry translation and last year’s prize booklet. Our full archive of prize booklets from previous years can downloaded from the bottom of this page.
- Head over to our YouTube channel for a range of practical walkthroughs on translating poetry and to hear from previous Prize winners and commendees.
- More ideas for using translation with children and young people can be found on our Translators in Schools sub-site, and on the Modern Poetry in Translation websites.
Selecting a Poem and the Ethics of Translation
When you enter the Stephen Spender Prize, we want you to translate poems that speak to your heart; poems that inspire you.
Through the act and process of translation, we want to open people’s eyes and minds to unfamiliar cultures and languages, and for them to engage with the linguistic traditions that form part of their own lives.
Poetry can be moving, funny, sad, intense and exciting. It can also be challenging. Poems from different times and places sometimes embody attitudes that may offend some readers, and some poets are controversial because of things that they did or said off the page.
In some instances, the sharing of a writer’s work is questioned when such controversy arises. We believe that it is important to make such matters part of public debate, rather than removing uncomfortable issues from sight.
The Stephen Spender Prize is a celebration of dialogue between cultures, and good dialogue depends on both freedom and respect.
And so, we ask two things of you when you are selecting a poem for translation.
Firstly, make sure that you are comfortable with the attitude of the poem and the conduct of the poet (if this is known), and think sensitively about how it may be read by others. If you are selecting poems for children to translate, then please take care on their behalf.
Secondly, if you think the poem is challenging for either of the above reasons, but would like to translate it anyway, you may wish to reflect on this in your commentary.
Stephen Spender Prize 2023
Congratulations to all winners and commendees of the 2023 Stephen Spender Prize! In total we received entries from over 100 languages. The prizes were awarded at a live-streamed ceremony on 16 November 2023, which you can watch in full below.
You can also meet all the stars of the Stephen Spender Prize 2023, and hear from the winning and commended poems that made the prize, over on our YouTube channel. Our special Stephen Spender Prize 2023 playlist features reflections and readings from the winning and commended translators, Outstanding Teacher commendees and original poets, as well as a special interview between two of the highly commended Romanian Spotlight translators and their teacher.
The Stephen Spender Prize 2023 was generously supported by the John S Cohen Foundation, Old Possum’s Practical Trust, the Rothschild Foundation, the Jan Michalski Foundation, and Robert and Olivia Temple and The Björnson and Prodan Foundation.
Previous Winners
Stephen Spender Prize 2022
The Stephen Spender Prize 2022 featured entries from over 90 languages. Click below to explore all the winning and commended entries.
Stephen Spender Prizewinners 2022
Stephen Spender Prize 2021
In 2021 we awarded prizes and commendations to more entrants than ever before, with the introduction of a brand new category of commendees across the adult and youth Prize categories. Find them all on our Prizewinners 2021 page!
Stephen Spender Prizewinners 2021
