Artwork by Whooli Chen L to r: National Poetry Competition judges Fiona Benson, David Constantine and Rachel Long (photo: Amaal Said) Fiona Benson, David Constantine and Rachel Long are the judges of the National Poetry Competition 2021, which is now open for entries The National Poetry Competition, run by The Poetry Society, is one of the world’s most prestigious prizes for a single unpublished poem. The three judges this year are outstanding and award-winning writers. Fiona Benson has won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for a First Full Collection, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Forward Prize for Best Collection. David Constantine, who was an editor of Modern Poetry in Translation for ten years, has published over a dozen volumes of poetry, and is a recipient of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Rachel Long, founder of the Octavia Poetry Collective for Women of Colour, has been recognised by the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and the Costa Poetry Award, and has previously judged one of The Poetry Society Poetry News members’ poems competitions.