UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship is instituted in remembrance of Utkarsh Verma by his mother Dr. Neena Verma, in association with the Bengaluru Poetry Festival. A poet at heart, a scientist in mind, a naturalist in spirit, and a devoted server of the cause of inclusive learning, Utkarsh transcended the mortal realm on 24th September 2014. This Fellowship honours his deep love and unique talent for poetry. In his brief yet immensely meaningful life of 22 years and 3 months, Utkarsh effortlessly combined a deep love for sciences and poetry, with commitment for wildlife conservation, and quiet service of children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. An immersive reader, Utkarsh’s vast span spread across sciences, poetry, nature, wildlife, literature, development economics and depth psychology. Taking forward Utkarsh’s legacy mission, his mother Neena has established the UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship in association with the Bengaluru Poetry Festival, apart from UTKARSH (academic) Fellowship, and UTKARSH Library endeavours that she is already running. This Fellowship is a missionary endeavour to honour and support young unpublished poets in deepening their understanding and craft for poetry.
The fellowship will comprise the following:
- Winning Citation, cash prize of INR 24,000/-, and membership to the ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship Cohort For 2025’ for the selected poet who will be recognised as ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellow 2025’.
- Appreciation letter and membership to the ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship Cohort For 2025’ for five honourable mention poets as will be selected by the Jury.
- Four-months long ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship’ program extended to the cohort of six selected poets as mentioned in points 1. & 2. above. The said Fellowship program will comprise of -
- One group learning session with an eminent poet &/or poetry expert.
- One individual mentoring session for each of the six cohort members.
- A gift basket of poetry books for each of the six cohort members.
- Publication of an e-chapbook comprising 4 poems each (including two winning poems) written by the six cohort members.
- Online ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship’ valedictory ceremony where all six cohort members will be invited to read their poems in the presence of a select audience. The recording of this ceremony will be uploaded on the Bengaluru Poetry Festival & UTKARSH Fellowship YouTube channels.
- The ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship’ award will be presented at the Bengaluru Poetry Festival. The selected ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellow’ will be invited to read one winning poem at the Festival.
CONTEST GUIDELINES:
- The annual Fellowship will be declared open on 24th June 2025. The submissions window will be open for 12 days starting 24th June and ending on 6th July 2025.
- Theme: Each applicant will submit (exactly) two poems on the theme for 2025.
Thematic Prompts
Poetry, as poet Kahlil Gibran says, is “ a deal of joy and pain and wonder ”, and “ wisdom that enchants the heart ”.
We invite you to pen poems that enchant hearts and inspire wisdom. Let a particular word, or interpreted meaning of the following thematic prompts dance you to deeper truths and invoke your creativity.
Do stick to the prompts, and write one poem each on both. The poems must be in English, in forty lines or less (excluding blank lines), original and unpublished. Please caption each poem with the thematic prompt it relates to, and a title.
1. Theme – Nature
Prompt –
“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky.”
– Kahlil Gibran
2. Theme – Love
Prompt –
“The world is indeed full of peril…
and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief,
it grows perhaps the greater."
– J.R.R. Tolkien
- Each submitted poem should be maximum 40 lines long, excluding blank lines.
- The Fellowship is open to resident Indian citizens between 18-24 years of age. The applicants should be unpublished poets, which means they have no published book or chapbook to their name, nor any publication in any print or online magazines or anthologies.
- Those related to any member of the organizing team, are not eligible to participate.
- The Fellowship seeks only English language poems.
- There is no entry fee.
- UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship is committed to honour original unpublished work. The contest requires the applicants to declare that their submitted poems are their original work, not plagiarized in part or full, and not created using Artificial Intelligence or technology in any other form.
NOTE: Any violation to this rule will attract permanent debarment from participating in the UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship. In case the Fellowship has already been awarded, and the winning poet and/or the honourable mention poet(s) are later found to have violated the no-compromise expectation of originality, their award will be withdrawn and a public announcement made to this effect.
- The selection will be done through blind evaluation by a competent jury.
- Results will be announced in the last week of July on the Bengaluru Poetry Festival social media pages, as well as individually communicated to the selected UTKARSH Poetry Fellow 2025, and the selected cohort members.
- The ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship’ award will be presented at the 9th Edition of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival on 3rd August 2025. The selected ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellow 2025’ will be invited to read one winning poem at the Festival.
- As and when they re-publish their winning entries, the selected applicants undertake to declare that their said poem was part of their ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship’ submission portfolio and the Cohort e-chapbook, and won the Fellowship Award or the honourable mention, as the case be.
