About Us
Our aims and objectives are:
to promote an awareness of the values of equality and peace,
to encourage and promote creativity, expression and excellence through peace poetry,
to work in partnership with Leeds-based organisations to create an environment for the exploration and discussion of the selected theme,
to organise peace poetry competitions annually or biennially for schools and adults in Leeds,
to encourage inclusive engagement and participation in the Leeds Peace Poetry competition,
to invite a celebrated poet or poets to preside as chief judge for each competition,
to organise a gala celebration event for shortlisted and winning entries of the competition,
to create a strong presence and a high profile for Leeds Peace Poetry,
to publicise the winning and highly recommended poems.
to promote an awareness of the values of equality and peace,
to encourage and promote creativity, expression and excellence through peace poetry,
to work in partnership with Leeds-based organisations to create an environment for the exploration and discussion of the selected theme,
to organise peace poetry competitions annually or biennially for schools and adults in Leeds,
to encourage inclusive engagement and participation in the Leeds Peace Poetry competition,
to invite a celebrated poet or poets to preside as chief judge for each competition,
to organise a gala celebration event for shortlisted and winning entries of the competition,
to create a strong presence and a high profile for Leeds Peace Poetry,
to publicise the winning and highly recommended poems.
Who We Are |
Leeds Peace Poetry was established in 2003 by a group of people connected with Together for Peace, Leeds City Council - Education Leeds (now Leeds Children's Services) and Arts at Trinity. Since then, others have become involved. We are constantly looking for volunteers from organisations and individuals who wish to help us to further our aims.
Currently, our steering group is made up of individuals with a track record of promoting equality and peace and with enthusiasm for Leeds Peace Poetry. Organisations represented include the University of Leeds (School of English), Leeds City Council Children's Services (Schools) and Leeds Library and Information Services. Officers are Rehana Minhas (Chair), Professor John Whale (Vice-Chair) and Richard Wilcocks (Secretary, Website) Contact us at [email protected] From a University of Leeds perspective, we have been delighted to join in with this long-standing and successful event since it coincided with the Olympics seven years ago. Since then, we have had the privilege of reading and selecting the prize-winners along with our distinguished chief judges and have been able to offer venues on campus for our prize-giving gala celebrations. From my own point of view as Director of the University of Leeds Poetry Centre - and as a poet myself - this is obviously a fantastic opportunity to engage with a wider public in the making of poems. Most of our entries in the past few years have been in the Primary School category; and here we have been delighted by the enthusiasm and creativity shown by both children and teachers across the Leeds region. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the last few competitions has been the work not just of individuals, but of whole classes of children - so much so that we have added a new class category to our list of prizes. The Leeds Peace Poetry competition also, of course, gives us the chance to demonstrate how poetry matters - how it can give powerful expression to some of the key issues of our time. John Whale 2019 OUR JUDGES ARE PICTURED BELOW Matt Howard's first full collection, Gall, was published by The Rialto in 2018 and was winner of the 2018 East Anglian Book Award for Poetry, shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Prize in 2019 and won Best First Collection in the inaugural Laurel Prize 2020. His second collection, Broadlands is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in 2024. After eleven years working for the RSPB, Matt is now the Douglas Caster Fellow in Poetry at the University of Leeds. Emily Zobel Marshall is of French-Caribbean and British heritage and grew up in the mountains of Snowdonia in North Wales. She is a Reader in Postcolonial Literature at Leeds Beckett University. She is an expert on the trickster figure in the folklore, oral cultures and literature of the African Diaspora and has published widely in these fields, including her books Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance (University of the West Indies Press 2012) and American Trickster: Trauma Tradition and Brer Rabbit (Rowman and Littlefield 2019). Emily has had poems published in the Peepal Tree Press anthology Weighted Words (2021), Magma, Smoke Magazine, The Caribbean Writer and Stand. Her collection, Bath of Herbs, was published by Peepal Tree Press in July 2023. 
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