by Annabelle Smith
National Poetry Month occurs every April in order to highlight the importance of poetry in our culture and our lives. Since its founding in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month has grown into the largest celebration of literature in the world. There are thousands of ways to celebrate all month long: you can sign up for Poem-a-Day or Megaphone, a daily poetry podcast, learn about our state and national poet laureates, Grace Cavalieri and Joy Harjo, or write your own poetry.
This year, the writers of The Phantom are asking you to celebrate National Poetry Month by sharing your poetry with us! We are excited to announce our first National Poetry Month Writing Contest, which will be open for submissions from April 1st to April 22nd. This contest is open for everyone, meaning you don’t have to be a creative writer to enter. All you have to do is write something creative and true to you. The top three poems will be posted on The Phantom and given a special shoutout in the BISFA Newsletter!
The judges of the contest will be the writers of The Phantom. Judging will be blind, meaning the poem will be solely judged on its contents. Your name, grade, and discipline will not be taken into consideration when the judges read your poem. All poems will be given to the judges after the April 22nd, and results will be announced the following week.
You don’t have to consider yourself a poet to enter this contest. In fact, this contest is designed to highlight every student who is moved to create. Whether you write poetry in your journal, in the margins of your math homework, or write for assignments, we want to hear from you. You can be inspired by a prompt, other poets or works of literature (just be sure to credit the original writer!), or the world around you. If you’re inspired to write in any way, this contest is made for you!
There are no topic or length guidelines for this contest. Please keep in mind:
Submissions will only be open from April 1st to April 22nd. No submissions uploaded after the 22nd will be read by the judges.
All submissions must be submitted digitally.
All submissions must be uploaded as a Google Doc or a .pdf. Any scans or images will not be read by the judges.
Multiple submissions are not allowed.
When you’re ready to submit your poem, please fill out the National Poetry Month Writing Contest submission form found here. In order to make all submissions accessible for the judges, make sure you fill out the form with your personal email account and that any Google Doc uploads are owned by your personal email. Please make sure Google Doc submissions have link sharing turned on (if you are unsure how to do this, instructions can be found here).
If you have any questions or difficulty submitting your poetry, please contact us at thebisfaphantom@gmail.com or reach out to Annabelle Smith, the manager of the contest. Happy National Poetry Month, and happy writing!
To read more about National Poetry Month, visit https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/faq. To read free poetry online, visit poetryfoundation.org or poets.org.
Photo by Guillermo Galan
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