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No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.
Please pay £1.50 for each poem you submit. Under-18s can enter for free – Entrants under 18 must have parental/guardian consent. You will receive an email with an order number. Please include this order number in the email.
Sharing Stories, Shaping Societies
Black in White Poetry Competition
Please pay £1.50 for each poem you submit. Under-18s can enter for free – Entrants under 18 must have parental/guardian consent. You will receive an email with an order number. Please include this order number in the email.
Price range: £0.00 through £1.50
Have you experienced or observed racism, unconscious bias or microaggressions as a child or as a working adult?
Write a poem about it 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:
- Workplace racism
- 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 Black History Month. The contributors will receive a complimentary copy.
To enter:
Please pay £1.50 per poem and obtain a payment reference (under 18s enter free).
Please email your entry as a Word attachment to competition@ttwf.org.uk, quoting your payment reference and other required details* in the email, not in the attachment.
Don’t delay. Get writing today!
Author Charlotte Shyllon
Charlotte is a senior business professional with nearly three decades’ experience working primarily in communications and business development. Following the killing of George Floyd in 2020, she wrote her first book of poems, Black in White, to share some of her experiences of racism in the corporate world. She then ran a poetry competition for four years to elicit other people’s stories about workplace and childhood racism.
In 2024, she set up The Transforming Words Foundation to expand this work and now uses her diversity and inclusion expertise to bring insight and illumination to these important issues. Charlotte is a British Sierra Leonean and is mum to two adult children.
