Poetry Contests For High School Students like Scholarships

Poetry contests for high school students determined to continue their education in an accredited college or university are becoming more available.

Poetry Contests For High School Students
High School Poetry Contests

The gift of poetry has long been appreciated in the educational community. The ability to express one’s feelings and emotions in the form of poetry is something special. For that reason poetry contests for high school students that are determined to continue their educational opportunities in an accredited college or university are becoming more available. With poetry so popular these days more and more of these high school poetry contests are surfacing and there are poetry scholarships that can be won as well which really are the same thing – if you use the awards to pay for your education. Let’s talk about a few of the poetry contests for high school students that are available.

Poetry Out Loud Scholarship Contest
This scholarship was designed to encourage the youth of the nation to experience the greatness that is poetry. By allowing the student to explore, memorize, and perform poetry they can promote the art in both community and classroom. The Poetry Foundation formed an alliance with the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as state arts agencies to form classroom poetry competition all across the nation. Class competes against class until a winner for the school is chosen. Then schools compete against schools, regions against regions, and finally state against state.

March is the month for state finals and April for National finals. The winner of the state competition gets $200 and $500 to be used to purchase library books on poetry. In addition, the state winner gets a trip to Washington, DC for them and their adult chaperone for the National Finals. Those who come in second place get $100 and $200 for the library poetry books. The real money comes in if you win the National Finals. The National Champion receives $20,000. The runner up gets $10,000. The third place winner gets $5,000. Those chosen 4th through 12th will receive $1,000 and the schools of top twelve will get $500 each. This is a long journey but is well worth pursuing if you like poetry for high school students contests.

The Claremont Review Poetry Contest
Poetry contests for high school students come in many different styles and varieties. The Claremont Review Poetry Contest is held annually for students between the ages of 13 and 19. This contest is sponsored by the Claremont Review in Canada. For $20 you can submit 3 of your favorite poems. The deadline for entries related to this contest is March 15th, 2011. First prize in this annual contest is $500. The runner up receives $300 and the third place winner receives $200. You won’t get rich off this poetry contest for high school students but you will get published in the Claremont Review’s Fall issue if you are one of the winners and to top it off you will receive a copy of it as well. In addition, winning poems will be posted on abebooks.com for all to see. That kind of exposure is priceless. As a young writer you want to get your writing out there for all to see. If you are looking for an outlet to show off your ability then this may be the contest for you.

Annual High School Poetry Contest
This poetry contest for high school students is sponsored by Gannon University in Pennsylvania and is available for high school students that are Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, or Seniors. The first prize for this contest is $100 and you also receive a book that has been autographed by Cornelius Eady. They runner up gets $75 and an autographed book, and the third place winner gets $50 and an autographed book. The deadline for this contest is February 1st. Once again you are allowed to enter 3 of your poems. This high school poetry contest for students is popular because the winners get the autographed book by the African American poet Cornelius Eady.

These high school student poetry contests capture the imagination of our youth and allow them to share their invaluable insight with the world on the competitive stage. That makes these poetry contests for high school students invaluable as well and are just as good as as poetry scholarships contest to help pay for school.

High School junior Scholarships

Poetry Writing Scholarships work Perfect

If you love writing poetry you may be eligible for numerous poetry writing scholarships. Many of these scholarships for poetry are merit or need based.

Writing Scholarships for Poetry
Poetry Scholarships

If you love writing poetry, you may be eligible for numerous poetry writing scholarships. Many of these scholarships for poetry are merit or need based, but some are won, or lost, based on the results of poetry competitions. There are, however, some poetry scholarship opportunities that are overlooked. These poetry scholarships include the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund and The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, among others.

The Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund began in 2004, and it awards between $125,000 and $200,000 in scholarship awards each year. The deadline for entering the contest and your application occurs in October of each year. These awards are for lyric poems that celebrate the spirit of life. The work that you enter must be original, it must belong to you and be written by you, and it must be unpublished. As the author, you must be under the age of 40. This is an actual cash prize, as opposed to an actual scholarship, so the funds are disbursed to you, and not to your school. It’s the perfect scholarship because students can choose to spend this award any way they please.

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are available for those students who are in grades between seven and twelve. There are about 50,000 regional winners and 400 national winners in a variety of genres each year. If you are seeking a this writing scholarship, however, you should be a graduating high school senior, and you must submit between three and eight bodies of work for general writing or nonfiction writing. The deadline for entering varies from one region to another, so you will need to find out what the deadline is for your specific region. The amount of the awards vary, but the organization awards approximately $3.9 million annually.

There is literally thousands of writing contests held each year that result in cash prizes, but it is vital that you pay attention to what the awards are, how they are disbursed, and the requirements for each poetry contest. Typically, your work must be original and not used for any other contest. This means a lot of poetry writing on your part. In most cases, you will be required to submit more than one poem, and in some cases, even if it isn’t required, you will want to submit more than one body of work to increase your odds of winning the contest and the prize money.

While poetry may be your main focus, as a writer, you need to enter as many different writing contests as possible, if there is a scholarship or cash prize offered. Due to the high cost of college, you simply cannot afford to miss out on any opportunities, and one of the great things about applying for poetry writing scholarships and entering contests, is that scholarships can be used to pay for your education, while prize money can be used to pay for education or living expenses. This is the perfect scholarship as you can find today.

For more information about the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund visit http://www.dorothyprizes.org/. For information regarding the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards visit http://www.artandwriting.org/.