Alamance County Public Libraries (ACPL), Burlington Writers Club (BWC), and Alamance Arts invite you to submit a poem for our Poetry Stroll 2024! We plan to exhibit submitted poems around the county during National Poetry Month in April.
Last year, ACPL displayed poems at around 60 locations in downtown Burlington, Graham, Elon, Saxapahaw and Mebane, and we’d like to reach even more businesses this year. Submitted poems are printed and displayed on 11 x 17 inch posters, and each business will showcase one (or more) poem(s) from the entries we receive.
We will not have the traditional 1st/2nd/3rd prizes, but we will have Reader’s Choice Awards, voted on by everyone who visited the Poetry Stroll. Prizes will include gift cards, books and library swag.
Poems must:
- be around 20 lines long (or up to 40 short lines that would fit in two columns);
- be submitted in MS Word or text format (.doc, .docx, .txt);
- be appropriate for all audiences, as these will be displayed in public – no curse words
- and no explicit sex or violence;
- be wholly original and written by the submitter, and not published anywhere else.
We welcome poetry from people of all ages and poetry in other languages (please submit a translation alongside the entry). We will publish both on the poster, as space allows. If there isn’t enough space, we will publish the poetry in the original language it was written.
We reserve the right to choose not to publish every work submitted to us if more poems are submitted than we have space to display. Submit a maximum of two poems for this contest. Submissions will not be returned to the owner; please don’t give us your only copy of the poem! Authors retain all rights and copyright to their work.
For more information about this contest, contact Mary Beth Adams, Community Engagement Librarian, at (336) 570-6981 or madams@alamancelibraries.org.
