When Ted Hughes suggested a poetry competition in 1980, and invited Charles Causley, Seamus Heaney and Philip Larkin to judge it with him, neither he, nor the other judges, nor the Arvon Foundation - which was to be organiser and beneficiary – had anticipated such a mighty response. Just before Christmas that year, the judges gathered to select the winning poems from a total entry of 35,000.
Philip Larkin, shrewdly it now seemed, had agreed to be a judge on condition that he read only the short-listed poems. Not so the other judges who read all 35,000. London Weekend Television's South Bank Show made a programme showing how the judges worked and how they selected the winner: Andrew Motion. It was the sheer size of the public response, and the manner in which the judges took it on, which established the Arvon Poetry Competition as a literary event of real significance.
The competition has continued to flourish and the 2004 competition will be the twelfth. Since the beginning, distinguished poets have willingly agreed to judge, and they have been joined by journalists, reviewers and publishers. Sometimes the panel has been as many as eight, sometimes only three. Sometimes the judges have been exclusively men, sometimes women; more often a mixture of the two. Sometimes, after the short-list has been agreed, the business of selecting the winners has taken days, once it was completed in a single morning.
The conditions of entry have remained unchanged. Entries must be written in the English language and must not have been previously published. There are no restrictions on subject matter, form, or length. Long poems, excluded from many other competitions, have figured prominently and achieved first prize several times. Jo Shapcott, one of the 2002 judges, wrote "The Arvon poetry competition is unusual in that there is no restriction on length for poems entered. This gives the competition a seriousness and quality others don’t have simply because it recognises that the short lyric poem, however luminous and marvellous, isn’t the end of the story".
Most important or all has been the firm rule of anonymity which means that the judges know the authors of each poem only by a number. As a result a completely unknown poet has the opportunity to compete on equal terms with someone who is published and widely read. This helps to attract little known as well as established poets and to ensure that the winning poems reflect the abundance and range of today’s poetry. This is well demonstrated by reading the 500 poems - prizewinners and those selected for special commendation - which have appeared in the nine competition anthologies to date.
Since 1982 the competition has been supported by Duncan Lawrie Limited, Private Bank. This sponsorship means that the Arvon Foundation continues to benefit from entry fees (this year it is £6 per entry) as Ted Hughes proposed it should in 1980 when he launched the first competition. The proceeds from the competition are vital in supporting Arvon’s work to encourage new writers and new writing. Arvon, a registered charity, was established in l968 to encourage and support writers.
