“Select, all ye who write, a subject fit,
A subject not too mighty for your wit!
Before you lay your shoulders to the wheel,
Weigh well their strength, and all their weakness feel!”
First Prize:
$200. Publication in the Society’s website and The Society of Classical Poets Journal.
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Submission Fee:
$5 (The fee comes with a free subscription to our monthly e-Newsletter.)
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Submit:
One to three poems on any topic after you pay the $5 submission fee. All together, the poems should total 108 lines or less. Email as a Word file (doc or docx) or in the email body to submissions@classicalpoets.org. Put “High School Poetry Competition” in the subject line of the email. Include your grade level and high school name.
Poems must contain meter. Counting the number of syllables and ensuring there are a similar number in each line is sufficient. (To learn how to write poetry with meter, see a brief beginner’s guide on common iambic meter here or a more elaborate beginner’s guide to many kinds of meter here. See a guide to poetry forms here )
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Deadline:
December 31, 2021, 11:59 p.m. EST. Winners announced February 1, 2022 on our e-Newsletter and on the Society’s homepage.
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Judges:
Evan Mantyk, editor of The Society of Classical Poets Journal and website
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Who May Participate?
Any high school student, or anyone ages 13 to 19, from any country of any background. If you are outside the United States, you would need to have a PayPal account to receive the prize money should you win First Place.
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Additional Details
The poem should be written in 2021. They may be previously published. Simultaneous submissions are accepted.
Past First Place winners are prohibited from participating.
You do not have to be a Member of the Society to participate.
You will retain ownership of your submitted poetry. By submitting it to the Society for publication or for inclusion in the contest, should it rank among winners or receive an honorable mention, you give the Society permission to publish it online on this website, in the Society of Classical Poets Journal, and in publications promoting the SCP’s mission or this annual contest, but the SCP would not be able to sell your individual poem on its own or have any further rights over it beyond these purposes. You could publish it anywhere else or sell it to any publication as desired.
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Past Winners
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
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Poetry Writing Resources
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- A Simple Guide to Forms with Example Poems from the Society of Classical Poets
- “Freeware Prosody” by Expansive Poetry Online
- How to Write Classical Poetry by the Society of Classical Poets
- “The Hard Edges of a Poem” by Joseph S. Salemi
- The Prosody Handbook: A Guide to Poetic Form by Robert Beum and Karl Shapiro
- Writing Metrical Poetry by William Baer
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My high school yearbook 1975
Rockville High School, Rockville MD 20851
Checking out my high school
yearbook. Looking at their faces
still so very young to me . I look at
them looking so serious with style
of our generation. Our high school.
I whisper softly, ‘I remember you
and what you sounded like.’ I ask,
will others looking at my picture
years from now, remember me?
Did your dreams come true? Was
life all that you dreamed it would
be? I wasn’t paying attention. I was
too busy arguing with my mother
wondering if ‘he’ will ask me to the prom?
TheresaDouldCummings
I try to follow your instructions for entering my poem in the high school memory competition. Terry