YOUTH POETRY CONTEST

Students are invited to enter a youth poetry contest sponsored by The Westport Garden Club, the Westport Library, Town Poet Laureate Jessica Noyes McEntee and the Westport Arts Advisory Committee.

Who Can Enter?

The contest, affiliated with the National Garden Club's Youth Poetry Contest, is open to students kindergarten through grade 9 including public and private schools and home-schooled students.

This competition enables youth to embrace their creativity through the art of writing. The theme of the contest is:

“Seeds, Trees, and Bees…Oh My – Celebrating the Diversity of Nature”

Guidelines for Entries:

• All entries must be typed and titled.
• Include the participant's name, address, age, grade, and school on the back of the entry and the preferred email address for correspondence
• All entries become the property of National Garden Clubs, Inc.
• Poems do not have to rhyme.
• Poems may be traditional verse, acrostics, blank verse, cinquains, diamond poems, limericks, or Haiku.
• The theme should not be used as the title of any poetry. (When judging, the title is worth 10 points.)

Poems should be submitted by email to: westportctgardenclub@gmail.com by JANUARY 6, 2023

Judging Scale of Points

• Title: 10%
• Content: 40%
• Creativity: 30%
• Style: 20%
• Total: 100%

The poems selected by a jury committee will then be submitted to the regional organization, New England Garden Clubs for another round of judging.  The region's final selections will be submitted for National Garden Club Awards where winning entries will be compiled into a booklet, and made available to the winners.  Locally- poets will be invited to read from their work at a library event, open to the public to celebrate poetry

Entries should be sent by January 6, 2023, to westportctgardenclub@gmail.com

To view guidelines and see the 2022 winning entries, please visit:https://www.gardenclub.org/poetry-contest