An Eastern Kentucky organization will be holding its annual poetry contest again this year. Organizers said the contest aims to foster and encourage a passion for poetry in people all over the country.
Camilla Haney, President of the Carter County Poetry Society, said the contest has existed almost as long as the society itself has.
“Well it’s just one of those things that we started doing early on, I got involved in it around the eighties, and it's just something we did annually, something we worked towards each year, we would work on different categories or whatever, so we just started the contest so it's just been something that we’ve done for years,” said Haney.
Haney said the contest is open to anyone, anywhere in the country. There are 16 categories total, with two of those reserved for children aged 9-12 and 13-15. One of the categories is the Grand Prix, which can be any style or subject of poem and has a 60-line limit.
Submissions must be in the hands of the contest chair by July 29, entries that arrive late will be disqualified.
She said that although the contest has been running for over 30 years, they work to find new ways to keep it fresh and exciting.
“We have a judge who was a poet lined up to do that, Rebecca Bailey, and she’s been in poetry for a number of years. So, she’s going to be judging the poems this year. We have usually different judges from time to time, someone with pretty little claim to poetry,” said Haney.
Haney added that the society has meetings at the Grayson Library on the second Thursday of each month and said anyone who is interested is more than welcome to stop by and enjoy the gathering.
A full list of rules and guidelines are available on the Carter County Poetry Society’s Facebook page.