“Sumer Is Icumen In,” bringing in a new round of poetry contest deadlines. Some are poetry book and chapbook publication competitions (for those of you who’ve been working on a manuscript, and choose to go this route to getting it published), others are single poem competitions, where the prize is publication in the sponsoring periodical. Gather your stamps and envelopes, or choose the contests that accept online entries—poets ready, set, go!

• Field Poetry Prize from Oberlin College Press (postmark deadline May 31)
• Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest (email entry deadline was May 18, postmark deadline May 31)
• Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize from Calyx (postmark deadline May 31)
• The Bordighera Poetry Prize for Italian American poets (postmark deadline May 31)
• War Poetry Contest from Winningwriters.com (postmark/online submission deadline May 31)
• Boston Review Poetry Contest (postmark deadline June 1)
• Barrow Street Press Book Contest (postmark deadline June 30)
• Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award from Southern Illinois University (postmark deadline July 1)
• Bright Hill Press Poetry Chapbook Competition (online submissions only, deadline not posted yet, but previous year’s postmark deadline was July 31)
• Pavement Saw Press Transcontinental Poetry Award (postmark deadline August 15)
• Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award from Red Hen Press (postmark deadline August 31)
• May Swenson Poetry Award from Utah State University Press (postmark deadline September 30)
• The Laureate Prize for Poetry from The National Poetry Review (postmark/online submission deadline September 30)
• The National Poetry Review Book Prize (postmark/online submission deadline September 30)
• The New Criterion Poetry Contest for a book-length manuscript of poems that “pay close attention to form” (postmark deadline September 30)
• Pudding House Chapbook Competition (postmark deadline September 30)
• Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award from Red Hen Press (postmark deadline September 30)
• Poetry Super Highway Contest (postmark deadline in September)

Required Reading Before You Submit To any Contests:
“What’s Really Wrong with Poetry Book Contests?,” by David Alpaugh
How to Put Together a Poetry Manuscript for Publication
“A Word To the Wise: On Entering Your Poems in Competition,” by Kurt Heintz
“You Do It Because You Love It,” by S.A. Griffin

Related Resources:
More Contest Links

Our anthology of classic war poems was gathered for wartime reading and reflection, in remembrance of those who gave their lives in the many wars fought in human history. This Memorial Day, we bring it up to the front again, as a reminder that the world is ever yet in a state of war. This year also marked the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War, and because May 31 is also Walt Whitman’s birthday, we’ve chosen his poem “The Artilleryman’s Vision” as the newest addition to our collection. It’s a hyper-real poetic incarnation of the actual experience of 19th century warfare, and a reminder that despite the vast evolutions of war technology, the human experience of combat has not changed all that much.

This year we’d like to add some new poems to our war and remembrance collection. You are invited to submit your own poems or suggest your favorite classics. Please take note of one caution: the text box on our submission page doesn’t convey your format accurately when you type a poem into it—so we ask you to use slashes (“/”) to indicate line breaks and double slashes (“//”) to indicate stanzas.

More on Walt Whitman:
Biographical Profile of the American Bard of Liberation
Library: Selected Poems from Leaves of Grass

Joseph Brodsky was always a Russian poet, even after he was exiled to America and became famous, was given the Nobel Prize and appointed U.S. Poet Laureate. His story is a compelling one, fertile ground for considering the interaction between a poet’s life and work, and there’s a new biography of Brodsky I’ve just added to my summer reading list—Joseph Brodsky: A Literary Life by his long-time friend Lev Losoff (translated by Jane Ann Miller, Yale University Press, ). The book is reviewed in this week’s New Yorker by “critic at large” Keith Gessen (himself born in Russia, but brought to the U.S. as a child), and Gessen’s essay offers a few fascinating glimpses into Brodsky’s story, including this quotation from the transcript of the trial which sent him away from Leningrad and ultimate into exile out of Russia altogether:

from The New Yorker:
“The Gift, Joseph Brodsky and the Fortunes of Misfortune,” by Keith Gessen

JUDGE: Tell the court why in between jobs you didn’t work and led a parasitic life style?
BRODSKY: I worked in between jobs. I did what I do now: I wrote poems.
JUDGE: You wrote your so-called poems? And what was useful about your frequent job changes?
BRODSKY: I began working when I was 15 years old. Everything was interesting to me. I changed jobs because I wanted to learn more about life, about people.
JUDGE: What did you do for your motherland?
BRODSKY: I wrote poems. That is my work. I am convinced... I believe that what I wrote will be useful to people not only now but in future generations.

More on Poets in Society and Making a Living:
Poets’ Work, Poets’ Jobs
Making Poetry in a Community and Making a Living as a Poet
Poets and Paid Work
Readers Respond: How Do We Make a Living?—Tell us how you survive.

This is what President Obama had to say about poetry last night at the White House: “The power of poetry is that everybody experiences it differently. There are no rules for what makes a great poem. Understanding it isn’t just about metaphor or meter. Instead, a great poem is one that resonates with us, that challenges us and that teaches us something about ourselves and the world that we live in.” Hear, hear! Video of his introduction and the entire evening of performances, plus the afternoon workshop for young poets that preceded it is already posted at WhiteHouse.gov:

• President Obama & Poets at the White House
• Poetry Student Workshop at the White House