transforming words ideas can change the world

Have you experienced racism, prejudice, unconscious bias or microaggressions as a child or as a working adult? Write about your experiences in a poem and enter this year’s Poetry Competition.Your poem could help bring insight and illumination to the race-related issues that many people of colour experience, to build understanding and drive change. This year’s…

Black in White Poetry Competition 2023

poetry competition 2023

Past Event

Closing Date:

Have you experienced racism, prejudice, unconscious bias or microaggressions as a child or as a working adult?

Write about your experiences in a poem and enter this year’s Poetry Competition.
Your poem could help bring insight and illumination to the race-related issues that many people of colour experience, to build understanding and drive change.

This year’s categories:

  1. Workplace racism
  2. Childhood racism

You could win one of our top cash prizes per category:

1st prize
£250

2nd prize
£125

3rd prize
£75

The winning poems and around 25 highly commended entries will be published in a new Black in White book, to be launched in October during


The results are in!

We are delighted to report that the winners of the Black in White Poetry Competition 2023 were announced at the Barnet Council offices in Colindale on Saturday, 21st October. We also revealed the title of our 4th #BlackinWhite anthology, ‘Her locks unveiled’.

It was a powerful event full of emotive poetry read by some of our winners and highly commended entrants in the Workplace and Childhood categories, Charlotte Shyllon and guest poets Peju “The Spark” Abuchi IAMB and Serena Malcolm. Barnet’s Deputy Mayor, Councillor Tony Vourou, joined us to present the winners’ cheques and shared some words on what #BlackHistoryMonth means to the Council.

We also enjoyed energising music performed by 3 artists, Danny B, Keyilah and Imisi, and an insightful keynote address from Associate Professor and Public Health Team Lead at the University of Hertfordshire Dr. Marvelle Brown. We had a raffle to raise funds for Unitas, Barnet Youth Zone and were joined by their CEO Robin Moss, who spoke about the charity’s vision, mission and activities.

Congratulations to all of our winners and highly commended entrants – you can see their names in the short slide show below, and we’ll post photos and videos from the event in the coming days. Thanks to all involved in the planning and successful implementation of the event! Black in White Ltd, Black In White Team, Aretha Ahunanya, Tia Miles, Marcia McKnight.

Event Photos Montage