2025 Voice of Tomorrow Poetry Contest

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2025 Voice of Tomorrow Poetry Contest Rules and Guidelines

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(Read carefully. Any violation will disqualify your entry)

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Eligibility: must be a student currently enrolled in a public Kansas High School who identifies a BIPOC.

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1. Any poem submitted must be the original work of the poet.

2. Submitted poetry must be an uncurated literary work (for this contest, uncuraetd literary works are defined as poems not published in a curated collection. Examples are (online and in print) books, magazines, or anthologies.

3. Submitted poetry must not be under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere (the award will be recalled if it is discovered that the awarded poem violates this rule before publication in The Sunflower Poetry Society of Kansas anthology of award-winning and member poems. Each ranked and awarded poem following the disqualified poem will advance to fill the vacant slots and ranking reclassified to reflect the elimination and change in order).

4. Submitted poems must be original and written primarily in English. Translations are not eligible. Submitted poems must be a 12-point font size.

5. Subject: all subjects accepted

6. Form: all poetic forms accepted and encouraged

7. Limit: submitted poems must not exceed 40 lines. This requirement excludes the title.

8. Fee: There is no fee.

9. No simultaneous submissions. Poets are allowed to submit one poem for consideration. Additional entries will be considered and discarded.

10. All submissions must be electronic. Postal entries will not be accepted.

11. Winning, highly commended and honorable mention poets give The Sunflower Poetry Society of Kansas (SPSK) exclusive first publishing rights to their awarded poems. Awarded poems will appear in anthology of award-winning and member poems. After publication, printing rights revert to the published poet. The anthology editor reserves the right to alter line breaks in poems having more than 50 characters per line. This may include spaces and punctuation marks.

12. When the reading period closes, an eligible poem may not be withdrawn from submission. A poet must submit a written request to formally withdraw their submission and this can only be done during the reading period.

13. The reading period is February 1st through April 15th 2025. Awarded poems will be announced on June 1st. Recipients will be notified during the last week of May.

14.  It is important to note that we cannot accept corrections after submission.

15. Please withdraw the submission if the poem is accepted elsewhere for publication.

16. Award recipients will have up to six months from the date of issuance to negotiate monetary awards. A stop payment will be placed on any checks not negotiated within six months. The Sunflower Poetry Society of Kansas will not reissue any monetary awards that have received a stop payment due to the six month expiration and takes no responsibility for any damages caused by attempting to negotiate monetary awards after the six month period.   

 

SUBMITTING INFORMATION
You can email or upload two pages as one email or as a word document attached to an email. All submissions must be sent in the specified, accessible format to sunflowerpoetrysociety@charter.net:
 

1) Page one must contain the following information: name of the contest, tittle of the poem submitted, the poet’s name, email address or mailing address, name of high school, current grade, name of high school principal, high school phone number, school district, county of residence, and submitted poem

2) Page 2 must contain only the name of the contest and title of the submitted poem. Personal identification must not appear in the submission document anywhere, including the file name.

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OVERVIEW

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Voice of Tomorrow Poetry Contest

Sponsored by The Sunflower Poetry Society of Kansas

1st place $100

2nd place $75

3rd place $50

Honorable Mention: three poems will be selected as honorable mention and each poet will be awarded $25

Each award recipient will receive an annual membership in The Sunflower Poetry Society of Kansas ( a value of 25 dollars)

Eligibility: must be a student currently enrolled in a public Kansas High School who identifies as BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color)

Requirements:

submissions must be unpublished works

Subject: Any

Length: 40 lines excluding title of poem

Fee: There is no fee. All students currently enrolled in a public high school in the state of Kansas who identify as BIPOC may enter their selected poem for free.

Reading period for submissions: February 1st through April 15th 2025