ENTRIES OPEN
£500 cash prize | Up to 150 words | Open worldwide
ENTER VIA THE FORM BELOW
Every life has a moment when its momentum breaks: when desire becomes hunger, when a choice becomes consequence, when what you want begins to ask something back.
The Hanged Man lives in that charged space: between surrender and survival, punishment and transformation, the self you were and the self that remains.
This is a challenge about cost. About restraint. About what darkness is revealed when there is nowhere left to turn.
For our latest Mini Challenge, we invite poets across the world to enter The Hanged Man.
Choose one or more of the prompt words below and follow it wherever it leads. Into the body. Into obsession. Into faith, loss, longing, sacrifice, memory, darkness or the unsettling places in between.
Your poem need not be literal. Previously published work is welcome. Bring us something new, something unfinished or something that has been quietly lingering in the dark, waiting for its moment.
Possession
Sacrifice
Remains
Cut
Lust
Hunger
Surrender
Flesh
Waiting
Transformation
Ritual
Punishment
Suspension
Urges
Lie
Blood
THE PRIZE
One winning poet will receive:
£500 cash
A Dark Poets Club certificate
A custom Dark Poets Club T-shirt featuring their winning poem
The Shortlist and Honourable Mentions will also be published by Dark Poets Club.
GUEST JUDGE: S.D. GOULD
We are delighted to welcome S.D. Gould as guest judge for The Hanged Man Mini Challenge.
S.D. Gould is an Australian contemporary poet whose work explores grief, neurodivergence, intimacy and the quiet catastrophes of being human. Raw, unflinching and often devastatingly intimate, his poetry moves between tenderness, dark humour and existential unease, examining the fractures beneath ordinary life and the strange, stubborn ways we survive them.
His work has appeared in Black Ice, Broken Lights and For Those That Despair, among other publications. He received an Honourable Mention in Dark Poets Prize IV, won our Dark Humour, Bitter Irony Mini Challenge and placed second in Dark Poets Prize V.
Gould brings an appreciation for poetry that takes risks, refuses easy answers and finds something unmistakably human in the darkness.
HOW TO ENTER
🩸Submit as many poems as you wish.
🩸Poems must be 150 words or fewer, excluding the title.
🩸Your poem must draw inspiration from one or more of the prompt words above.
🩸Previously published work is welcome.
🩸Please submit your poem as a Word document where possible.
🩸Include the poem title and word count in your document.
🩸Do not include your name or identifying details within the poem document, as all eligible entries will be anonymised before judging.
REDUCED ENTRY FEES
🩸1 poem: £5 (previously £6)
🩸3 poems: £8 (previously £10)
🩸5 poems: £11 (previously £14)
You may enter more than once.
DEADLINE
This is a global challenge, open to poets everywhere.
Entries close at 11:59pm Anywhere on Earth on Sunday 6 December 2026.
Wherever you are in the world, you have until the final midnight to submit your work.
SUBMIT YOUR POEM
Complete the submission form below to select your entry bundle, make payment and upload your poem or poems.
The next move is yours:
E N T E R
Be sure to follow us on either Instagram, Facebook or subscribe, to be kept up to date with announcements.
GOOD LUCK!
Everywhere the darkness touches.... 💀🖤
Enter for the chance to join our community of Dark Poets from around the world
AS FEATURED BY
