How To Enter The Bucks Co. High School Poet Of The Year Contest

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — The deadline to enter the 33rd annual Bucks County High School Poet of the Year contest is Friday, March 6.

The contest is open to freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors who live in Bucks County or attend a Bucks County high school. Home-schooled students can also enter. Previous winners are not eligible to re-enter.

To enter, students must submit three original poems.

The winner gets $300, a proclamation from the Bucks County Commissioners, and the opportunity to read at a reception on the college’s Newtown campus. The winning poems and one poem from each entrant will be published in an anthology, Writes of Passage, to be distributed at the reading. Runners-up and finalists in the contest will also be invited to read one poem at the public event, which each year attracts an overflow crowd, according to the college.

“Entering the High School Poet of the Year contest may give students a chance to discover and develop a talent they may not have realized they had,” said Ethel Rackin, the director of the Bucks County Poet Laureate Program, which runs the Bucks County High School Poet of the Year contest.

Participating in the public poetry reading may help a student stand out in the college search, the college said.

“Mentioning the contest, public reading, and anthology on college applications will demonstrate initiative, writing skills, and public speaking experience,” Rackin added. “Clearly, there’s a lot to gain from entering this contest.”

Each participant must submit three original poems with a free entry form, which can be obtained from www.bucks.edu/poets.

Entries must be postmarked by Friday, March 6 or delivered by 4 p.m. that day to: Bucks County High School Poet of the Year Contest, Department of Language and Literature, Grupp Hall 105, Bucks County Community College, 275 Swamp Road, Newtown, PA 18940

The contest will be judged by the current Bucks County Poet Laureate Mary Jo LoBello Jerome and the 2018 poet laureate Carly Volpe.