This year’s competition was delayed from last year due to the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Reflecting on a difficult 12 months, Plough’s director Richard Wolfenden-Brown said: “In all the strangeness and difficulty of the last year, we expect there was also a lot of creativity.
“In amongst all the poems written during lockdown, there may well be the next Plough Prize winner.”
Mr McGough added: “I am looking forward to being released from my self-inflicted lockdown, to run into a field and get behind The Plough.
“I expect the ploughshares to turn up poetic gems by the sackful.”
Described by former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy as the patron saint of poetry’, Roger McGough is one of Britain’s best-loved poets for both adults and children.