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:
“The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm, sedate gaze does not see it, any more than he sees the splendor of a lightning flash. It does not persuade our judgement, it ravishes and overwhelms it.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Whenever the society is dissolved, it is certain the government of that society cannot remain ... that being as impossible, as for the frame of a house to subsist when the materials of it are scattered and dissipated by a whirlwind, or jumbled into a confused heap by an earthquake.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)