Good morning, everyone!
We hope you’re all looking forward to tonight’s results for the Open Competition 2026. As a reminder, this will count as our monthly meet-up, but instead of a reading from a guest poet and open mic, we’ll just be announcing the results and hearing the winning poems.
As always, we’ll start at 8pm at Royal Wells Hotel in Tunbridge Wells where the results will be announced by our judge: Mimi Khalvati. Don’t forget: entry is free for members of the Kent & Sussex Poetry society, and £3 on the door for non-members.
We look forward to seeing you all there!
This year’s judge, the remarkable Mimi Khalvati will be present to announce the results. Mimi has published ten poetry collections with Carcanet Press, including The Meanest Flower, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2007, She is the founder of The Poetry School and has co-edited its three anthologies of new writing published by Enitharmon Press. Her awards include a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors, a major Arts Council Award and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of The English Society. In 2023 she was awarded the King’s Gold Medal for Poetry. In 2025 she won the inaugural Jhalak Poetry Prize with her Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2024).
The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society 