Free contest, "Just Poetry" Youth Scholarship Poetry Contest, top prize: $500

Deadline: 31 March, 30 June, 30 September, 31 December of each year

OFFICIAL RULES and ENTRY PROCEDURES

ELIGIBILITY:All U.S. high school students are eligible to enter this contest. That eligibility is continuous until May 31 of their senior year. Poems must be 20 lines or less (title and spaces between stanzas do not count), unpublished, the sole work of the entrant, and not be entered in any other concurrent contest. Only poems written in the English language can be judged. Foreign phrases are acceptable only with a translation provided. Only ONE poem per poet may be entered during any 90 day span.

ENTRY FEE:

There is no entry fee and no purchase of any kind is required to enter or win the contest, except for the self-addressed, stamped envelop required for entries sent through the US mail.

PRIZES:

The Easterday Poetry Award of a $500.00 college scholarship will be awarded to the American High School Poets, "Poet of the Year". In addition there will be 4 First Place Winners (1 from each quarter), 4 Second Place Winners (1 from each quarter), 4 Third Place Winners (1 from each quarter) and 4 Editor's Choice Selections (1 from each quarter). There will also be hundreds of "JUST POETRY!!!" and Topical Winners. 1st place and Editor's Choice scholarship prizes will be $500.00 and $100.00 respectively. ALL WINNING POEMS WILL BE PUBLISHED. If you are dead set against having your poem published, we suggest you do not enter. After all, sharing your poetry is the goal.

JUDGING:

Entries will be judged on creativity, originality, imagery, artistic quality, and mastery of poetic expression. There are no theme or style requirements. It is our desire to find poets who are passionate about the subject matter about which they are writing.
All scholarship winners will be selected from an online poll of subscribers to "AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL POETS, JUST POETRY!!!, the NATIONAL POETRY QUARTERLY" based on recommendations from the LPS Judges, The Easterday Poetry Award winner will be selected in the same fashion from among all quarterly 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, as well as, all Editor's Choice Winners.

RIGHTS:

All winning poems will be published. "JUST POETRY!!!" Winners in "AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL POETS, JUST POETRY!!!, the NATIONAL POETRY QUARTERLY and "Topical Winners" in an upcoming anthology. In order to protect your work all publications will be copyrighted as an anthology by LPS Publishing and/or The Live Poets Society. However, LPS Publishing and The Live Poets Society will retain no ownership rights to your poetry. Such rights remain with the poet at all times.

DEADLINES:

Submissions are accepted 24/7. Only one submission per poet per quarter.
Estimated deadlines for each quarterly publication are:

June 30 for the Fall issue
September 30 for the Winter issue
December 31 for the Spring issue
March 31 for the Summer issue

The Easterday Poetry Award Winner will be announced in the June issue

TWO WAYS TO ENTER YOUR POEM:

EMAIL ENTRIES

E-mail entries may be sent to LPSNJ@comcast.net. Please enter "LPS Entry" in the subject space, or you may click the hyperlink at the end of this paragraph. If you use the hyperlink, the default e-mail program on the computer you enter from will be used and is the e-mail address that the judge's response will be sent to. So if you are on someone else's computer or wish to use your own personal e-mail address, we suggest that you create a new message from that e-mail program (i.e. hotmail, yahoo, aol, whatever) using the address above

Please don't forget to include your name, full mailing address, name of school, graduating year, and name of your English or writing teacher. Poems must still be 20 lines or less (not counting title or spaces between stanzas). Attachments are not accepted. In addition, if your e-mail program is set up to accept mail only from e-mail addresses approved beforehand (earthlink is the main player here), please put LPSNJ@comcast.net on your approved list or you may not receive our judges response. We will not send you junkmail and we do not share addresses with anyone else.

BY U S MAIL

If you cannot format your poem properly into a e-mail, or to enter in the traditional manner, type your one poem entry on 8.5 X 11 inch paper. Include your name, full mailing address, name of school, graduating year, and name of your English or writing teacher in the top right hand corner of the page.

Prepare a self-addressed, stamped envelope. (To do so, address a standard, #9 or 10 business-sized envelope to yourself and put a stamp on it. All mailed entries must include a self-addressed, stamped envelope in order to either return your poem to you or to notify you in the event your poem is chosen as a winner. Any entry which does not include a self-addressed, stamped envelope will be considered to be an invalid entry and will be discarded without being read or judged.)

Mail your poem and your self-addressed, stamped envelope to: (Please use standard, #9 or 10 business-sized envelope)

Live Poets Society, P.O. Box 8841, Turnersville, N.J. 08012

ALL U.S. MAIL ENTRIES MUST INCLUDE A SELF-ADDRESSED, STAMPED LETTER SIZED ENVELOPE**. Winners will be notified by mail.

All items with insufficient postage will be returned to the sender, so please be sure to use current first class postage rates.

The deadlines stated are the "postmarked by dates". If you take your entry to the post office before the close of business on or before the deadline date, it should be postmarked on that day. Ask the Postal Clerk if you have any question as to what the postmarked date would be.

More information here.