Welcome to Suffolk Poetry Society

Click here for our shop for publications, tickets, membership application/renewal.

Download an A5 flyer of upcoming 2025 events.

President: George Szirtes

SPS President George Szirtes receives

The King’s Gold Medal for Poetry 2024

The King has approved the award of His Majesty’s Gold Medal for Poetry for the year 2024 to George Szirtes.

Click here for the official announcement.

George Crabbe Poetry Competition 2025

The 2025 George Crabbe Poetry Competition will open on Wednesday, 01 January 2025 and close on Friday, 13 June 2025.

The adjudicator will be Elizabeth Cook.

Photo: Peter Everard Smith

Elizabeth Cook has written poetry, fiction, and libretti and was the editor of the Oxford Authors John Keats. Her fiction includes Achilles, which won a Fringe First when performed in Edinburgh, and Lux. She was librettist for Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth, commissioned by BBC Radio 3, and has published two full collections of poetry, Bowl, and When I Kiss the Sky as well as a pamphlet, The Sound of the Rain. She has written critical essays and reviews and has taught in universities, prisons, and a Franciscan friary. She was St Edmundsbury Cathedral’s first Writer in Residence, has been a Hawthornden Fellow and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen Mary University. Poetry is at the heart of her work, and she recommends reading aloud and learning poems by heart to create an inner store for rainy days.

History of the Festival of Suffolk Poetry

A pictorial history of poets performing through the years.

President: George Szirtes

SPS President George Szirtes receives

The King’s Gold Medal for Poetry 2024

The King has approved the award of His Majesty’s Gold Medal for Poetry for the year 2024 to George Szirtes.

Click here for the official announcement.

George Crabbe Poetry Competition 2025

The 2025 George Crabbe Poetry Competition will open on Wednesday, 01 January 2025 and close on Friday, 13 June 2025.

The adjudicator will be Elizabeth Cook.

Photo: Peter Everard Smith

Elizabeth Cook has written poetry, fiction, and libretti and was the editor of the Oxford Authors John Keats. Her fiction includes Achilles, which won a Fringe First when performed in Edinburgh, and Lux. She was librettist for Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth, commissioned by BBC Radio 3, and has published two full collections of poetry, Bowl, and When I Kiss the Sky as well as a pamphlet, The Sound of the Rain. She has written critical essays and reviews and has taught in universities, prisons, and a Franciscan friary. She was St Edmundsbury Cathedral’s first Writer in Residence, has been a Hawthornden Fellow and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen Mary University. Poetry is at the heart of her work, and she recommends reading aloud and learning poems by heart to create an inner store for rainy days.

History of the Festival of Suffolk Poetry

A gallery of poets performing through the years.


Turning Japanese

Download or read online Dr Tim Gardiner’s guide to short-form Japanese poetry.

Ripples Poems: Selections by Elizabeth Cook

Ripples is a regular online magazine for SPS members.

Ripples was born when we were locked-down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The best of poems from members were published in the magazine.

In celebration of this and also the 70th anniversary of SPS, 70 of the best poems from the more than 200 that were published in Ripples have been selected here.

Elizabeth Cook


2025 Dates for Your Diary

Wed 01 Jan

George Crabbe Poetry Competition opens

Adjudicator:
Elizabeth Cook

Sat 22 Feb

Winter Workshop
‘Telling it Slant or Telling it Straight’

Jacqueline Saphra
Venue: tbc

SPS AGM

Theme:
‘Beyond Conflict’

Venue: Chocolate Tiger, Market Place, Stowmarket, IP14 1DY

Fri 16 May

11th Festival of Suffolk Poetry

Workshop:
Heidi Williamson

Virtual online Zoom

Sat 17 May

11th Festival of Suffolk Poetry

Headliners:
Catherine Smith,
Lewis Buxton

John Peel Centre,
Stowmarket,
IP14 1ET

Fri 13 Jun

George Crabbe Poetry Competition closes

Adjudicator:
Elizabeth Cook

Sun 22 Jun

Members’ Readings

Theme: ‘Walls’

Castle Community Centre, Framlingham,
IP13 9BQ

Join Suffolk Poetry Society

Here is a quick way to buy a new membership to Suffolk Poetry Society.

Renew Your Subscription Quickly

You can renew your subscription quickly and simply here.


Gift Aid and SPS

Gift Aid on subscriptions and donations is very helpful to SPS’s finances and cost members and donors nothing.

Protected by Security by CleanTalk