Poetry writing competition for undergrads
wHILE some students struggle to meet English language requirements to enter university programmes, there are many who are not only proficient in the language, but also able to use it as a medium for creative writing.
Earlier at the launch of Malchin Testament:
Malaysian Poems, an edited volume of poems by Malachi Edwin Vethamani which presented 60 years of poetry writing in Malaysia, Higher Education deputy minister Datuk Dr Mary Yap proposed a competition to give undergraduates the chance to express themselves creatively in the English language.
The call has now resulted in the Malaysian Universities Poetry Writing competition (MUP). The competition, organised by the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus’s (UNMC) School of English, is targeted at undergraduate students from public and private universities in all fields of studies.
MUP will be a part of the annual English Language Carnival 2017, organised and sponsored by the Ministry of Higher Education.
According to UNMC’s CEO and Provost, Professor Graham Kendall, the university has a long history of supporting literary activities and looks forward to undergraduate students’ using the English language in creative writing.
“This is something new and exciting. We hope many students will take up the challenge and participate in the competition, UNMC is a strong advocate of the arts and is honoured to be given the opportunity to organise this competition,” said Kendall.
UNMC School of English head Dr Shivani Sivagurunathan said the competition is organised to encourage a love of writing poetry in English among university students and to stimulate excellence in creative writing.
The competition is currently opened to receive entries.
The Chair of MUP organising committee Professor Malachi Edwin Vethamani, said that all submissions must be unpublished original work (including publications in personal blogs and other communications channels) written in the English language. Each writer can submit a maximum of three poems and each poem must not exceed 40 lines. All entries must reach the organisers by Oct 9.
The submissions will be evaluated by a panel of judges. Twenty poems will be long-listed. From this twenty, ten poems will be shortlisted, of which the final three winning poems will be picked. The writers of the short-listed poems with the top three winners will be invited to read their work at the prize-giving ceremony.
The first prize winner will receive a cash prize of RM1,000, the second prize is RM750 and the third prize is RM500. Short-listed poems will receive RM200 and long-listed poems will receive RM100.
The prize-giving ceremony will be held on Nov 17 at University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus and winners will be notified by email.
Details of the competition can be viewed at www.nottingham.edu.my/English/MalaysianUniversities-Poetry-Writing-Competition and for enquiries email messages can be sent to MUP_competition@nottingham.edu.my.
This is something new and exciting. We hope many students will take up the challenge and participate in the competition.”
Graham Kendall
UNMC’s CEO and Provost