The Poetry Society is a membership organisation, open to all, whose stated aim is "to promote the study, use and enjoyment of poetry".
The Society was founded in London in February 1909 as the Poetry Recital Society, becoming the Poetry Society in 1912. Its first President was Lady Margaret Sackville.
The Poetry Society publishes Poetry Review, Britain's leading poetry magazine, which provides a forum for poems from both new and established poets. Its editor from 2005 to 2012 was Fiona Sampson.
The Society organises several competitions, including the British National Poetry Competition, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, The Popescu Prize, The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry and the Geoffrey Dearmer Award. The society also ran the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize from 1986 to 1997.
Famous quotes containing the words poetry and/or society:
“There is no longer beauty except in the struggle. No more masterpieces without an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault against the unknown forces in order to overcome them and prostrate them before men.”
—Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944)
“Is it impossible not to wonder why a movement which professes concern for the fate of all women has dealt so unkindly, contemptuously, so destructively, with so significant a portion of its sisterhood. Can it be that those who would reorder society perceive as the greater threat not the chauvinism of men or the pernicious attitudes of our culture, but rather the impulse to mother within women themselves?”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)