Submit to our Young Poets Contest

MODESTO-STANISLAUS POETRY CENTER
THE SECOND ANNUAL LEE NICHOLSON – GEORGE ROGERS POETRY CONTEST
CONTEST GUIDELINES
MONETARY PRIZES!!!

DEADLINE: MARCH 1, 2018

ABOUT LEE NICHOLSON AND GEORGE ROGERS

Beloved by generations of their students, Lee Nicholson and George Rogers dedicated much of their lives to teaching and inspiring the youth of our community. Lee Nicholson was an instructor at Modesto Junior College for thirty-two years, and had earlier taught at Turlock High School. A Modesto native, George Rogers taught for thirty years at Orville Wright Elementary School in Modesto. Both Lee and George were highly accomplished poets and lovers of the creative process, and both will long be remembered for their passionate devotion to the young people whose lives they touched.

This contest is open to all poets residing in Stanislaus County who are 16 to 25 years of age.

• Send up to three (3) poems, with subjects and themes of your own choosing
• Poems must be typed in 12 point, Times New Roman, with 1-inch margins
• 32 line limit; longer poems will not be considered
• Poems must be the poet’s original work and previously unpublished
• If sending through regular mail, please send two copies of each poem – one copy with the poet’s name, address, email, phone number in the upper right hand corner, as well as the title of the poem, and a second copy of the poem, with the title of the poem, but without the poet’s name, address, e-mail, and phone number.
• If sending through email, send poems as doc or docx attachments (one attachment with page divisions is fine; three attachments with one poem each is fine); include two copies of each poem – one copy with the poet’s name, address, email, phone number in the upper right hand corner, as well as the title of the poem and a second copy of the poem, with the title of the poem, but without the poet’s name, address, e-mail, and phone number; include CONTEST in the subject line of the email

2 ways to submit:

Through regular mail to
MoSt Poetry Center
PO Box 578940
Modesto, CA 95357

Or by email to info@mostpoetry.org
(Don’t forget to include the word CONTEST in the subject line of the email.

PRIZES:

First Place (awarded for best poem): $50.00
Second Place: $30.00
Third Place: $20.00
Submission dates: November 1, 2017 to March 1, 2018

Selected poems will be published in a chapbook. All poets submitting
poems will receive two (2) copies of the chapbook
For more information contact: info@mostpoetry.org

Great Valley Bookfest

Come join us at the Great Valley Bookfest in Manteca this weekend! We’ll have a wide range of fabulous readers on the dedicated poetry stage, including Sacramento Poet Laureate Indigo Moor. You can also visit our table in the Authors’ Alley for more information about what we do, and to learn more about becoming a member or volunteer.

Poetry Book Club

MoSt is pleased to announce the start of our Poetry Book Club! Starting in January 2018, we’ll meet four times a year and discuss a different book of poetry each time. Our first meeting will be on Wednesday, January 17 from 6:30 to 7:30 at the downtown library and our featured book will be LOOK by Solmaz Sharif. This is the most recent Northern California Book Award winner in poetry and has been taking the poetry world by storm. The library will have extra copies to check out, but the book is widely available if you’d like to get your own. Either way, you want to read it ahead of time and be prepared some great conversation. More details to follow, but as usual, this event is free and open to the public, and in the meantime, you can find more here: https://solmazsharif.com/look/

Join Our New Poetry Book Club

MoSt is pleased to announce the start of our Poetry Book Club! Starting in January 2018, we’ll meet four times a year and discuss a different book of poetry each time. Our first meeting will be on Wednesday, January 17 from 6:30 to 7:30 at the downtown library and our featured book will be LOOK by Solmaz Sharif. This is the most recent Northern California Book Award winner in poetry and has been taking the poetry world by storm. The library will have extra copies to check out, but the book is widely available if you’d like to get your own. Either way, you want to read it ahead of time and be prepared some great conversation. More details to follow, but as usual, this event is free and open to the public, and in the meantime, you can find more here: https://solmazsharif.com/look/

Second Tuesday @ Barkin’ Dog

October’s 2nd Tuesday Reading Series is on Tuesday, October 10 at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog! Our featured readers are Andrena Zawinski and Jim Beggs.

Andrena Zawinski was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA but has made the San Francisco Bay Area her home since 2000. Her latest collection of poetry is Landings. She has two previous collections: Something About (a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award) and Traveling in Reflected Light (a Kenneth Patchen Poetry Prize). Her poetry has received accolades for lyricism, form, spirituality, and social concern. She is also Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com.

Jim Beggs has only written perhaps seven poems, but he has written about a poet–his book on Henry Reed (“Naming of Parts”)–and he has set a dozen familiar poems to music or matched them to songs we all know and love.