The Genomics Forum of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are offering £500 as first prize for it’s poetry competition. Second and third get £200 and £100, respectively.

Apollinaire's calligramme, 1918. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

Your task? Write a poem of no more than 50 lines on the theme of ‘improving the human’.*

Applicants can be of any nationality.

Full details are on their website. Poems must be original (’Poems should not have been published or accepted for publication elsewhere’) and sent as an email attachment with nothing identifying you – personal details are to be in the email body, not the attachment. The competition closes 7th October 2010, National Poetry Day in the UK.

Good luck!

They also have writers in residence and an upcoming short story competition; you can check out the winners of last year’s competition on-line. The current writers in residence also have blogs.

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