BELFAST — Poet Anna M. Warrock of Somerville, Massachusetts has been announced as the judge of the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest, a statewide competition happening this year in conjunction with the 15th Annual Belfast Poetry Festival, to be held Saturday, October 19. 

Maine residents and everyone with access to a Maine post office or mailbox this summer are invited to enter. Residents and visitors to the state are all welcome: the only rule is that all entries must bear a Maine postmark.

To enter, submit one poem of up to two (2) total pages in length; each entry must be accompanied by a $5 reading fee. 

Entrants may submit more than one poem, but each additional poem is an additional $5. 

Proceeds will be used to support the festival.  

The Belfast Poetry Festival committee will screen entries and forward ten finalists to Warrock, who will choose first, second, and third place winners.  The first-place winner will receive a $100 cash prize and publication in The Maine Review. 

Winners will be invited to read the winning poem and be honored at the Belfast Poetry Festival in October 2019; the ten finalist poems and winners will also be announced in the Maine press.

Anna M. Warrock's publications include From the Other Room, winner of the first annual Slate Roof Press chapbook contest, and the chapbooks Horizon (Great Owl Press) and Smoke and Stone (Stone Soup Poetry). Her work appears in the anthology Kiss Me Goodnight: Poems and Stories by Women Who Were Girls When Their Mothers Died, for which she also wrote the introduction. Besides appearing in journals such asThe Madison Review, Harvard Review, The Sun, Phoebe, and Poiesis, her poems have been set to music, performed at Boston's Hayden Planetarium, and permanently installed in a Boston-area subway station.

Her prose has been published by The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, and she has taught poetry classes for the elderly, high school students, and adult education, and held seminars on understanding grief and loss through poetry.

Contest submissions are welcome from now until August 15, 2019; only submissions received with a Maine postmark dated August 15 or earlier will be read. Poems should be sent without the poet’s name on the poem and accompanied by a cover letter listing the poet’s name, contact information (address, email, and phone), and the title of the poem(s) submitted so that poems can be read anonymously.

Cover letters need not include biographical information. Poems sent without a cover letter or entry fee will be disqualified; checks should be made payable to the Belfast Free Library.

All poems must be original and previously unpublished.

Poems will not be returned, so do not send original copies or a SASE.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted; please note on the cover letter and notify the festival immediately of acceptance elsewhere.

Ten finalists will be notified by September 15; other confirmation of receipt should not be expected. People already showcased in this year’s festival or involved in its production are not eligible to participate.

Send entries accompanied by a cover letter with contact information and a check for $5 per poem made out to the Belfast Free Library—to:

Jacob Fricke, Belfast Poetry Festival

Attn: Maine Postmark Poetry Contest

P.O. Box 911
Belfast, ME 04915

The fifteenth annual Belfast Poetry Festival will also host its distinctive showcase of collaborative work on Saturday, October 19, 2019. An all-arts festival with poetry as the driving force, the event combines variety show, art exhibit, poetry walk, and literary showcase, and is made possible with support from The Maine Review, the City of Belfast, the Belfast Free Library, and the office of the Belfast Poet Laureate.

For more information, see BelfastPoetry.com.