The Forward Arts Foundation, sponsors of The Forward Prizes for Poetry, has announced that this year, for the first time, online journals based in the UK and Ireland are permitted to nominate up to two poems from their sites for consideration in the Prize for Best Single Poem.
There are further guidelines for eligibility, available here, and only the first 20 online journals to submit will be considered. (So, be quick if you’re an editor of an online journal and thinking of submitting!)
And Other Poems has already submitted two poems from its archive. Although the majority of poems submitted to the site are previously published (and, therefore, ineligible for nomination) an increasing number of submissions feature new work.
Forward’s decision, which followed persuasive arguments by Amy Key and Emily Berry, to include online sites is a mark of the growing popularity, readership, influence and quality of online poetry publications and I welcome it.
NB – Forward tweeted on 23 February that 20 online journals had submitted so they were no longer accepting entries from them. Still, useful to know for next year.
Forward Foundation #NationalPoetryDay images the work of graphic artist Anthony Burrill
Josephine Corcoran 
Well done Emily Berry and Amy Key for helping the poetry world to move with the times.
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