Westport Garden Club To Host 2024 Youth Poetry Contest

Information from the Westport Garden Club:

WESTPORT, CT — The Westport Garden Club is partnering with the Westport Arts Advisory Committee / Town Poet Laureate Jessica Noyes McEntee and The Westport Library to sponsor a Youth Poetry Contest for students.

The contest is affiliated with the National Garden Club’s Youth Poetry Contest and is open to students in kindergarten through ninth grade including public and private schools, home-schooled students, Special Education, English as a Second Language, and General Education students.

This competition enables youth to embrace their creativity through the art of writing.

The theme for the 2024 competition is:

“I Spy With My Little Eye, Something Green Outside – Celebrating Our Green World”

Guidelines for Entries:

All entries must be typed and titled

Include the participant's name, address, age, grade, and school on the back of the entry and the preferred email address for correspondence

All entries become the property of National Garden Clubs, Inc.

Poems do not have to rhyme.

Poems may be traditional verse, acrostics, blank verse, cinquains, diamond poems, limericks, or Haiku.

The theme should not be used as the title of any poetry. (When judging, the title is worth 10 points.)

Poems should be submitted by email to: westportctgardenclub@gmail.com by JANUARY 5, 2024

Scale of Points

Title: 10%

Content: 40%

Creativity: 30%

Style: 20%

Total: 100%

Entries are due by January 5. The poems selected by a jury committee will then be submitted to the regional organization, New England Garden Clubs for another round of judging. The region's final selections will then be submitted for National Garden Club Awards where winning entries will be compiled into a booklet and made available to the winners. Locally- poets will be invited to read from their work at a library event, open to the public to celebrate poetry in April 2024.

To view the 2023 winning entries, including local Westporter Owen Cloherty, please visit: https://gardenclub.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/ngc-youth-poetry-booklet-2023.pdf

Affiliated with the Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut, Inc., and National Garden Clubs, Inc., The Westport Garden Club of Westport, CT was founded in 1924 and consists of members who are united by an interest in gardening, a desire to further their gardening knowledge, participate in civic beautification and to promote conservation and environmental education.

For more information, visit: https://westportgardenclub.org and follow the Westport Garden Club on Facebook: Westport Garden Club and Instagram: westportctgardenclub.

The Westport Arts Advisory Committee is appointed by the First Selectman, WAAC advises on the preservation of Westport’s legacy as an arts community, oversight of the Town Art Collection and ways to increase the visibility of the arts in our community. The Town of Westport Poet Laureate serves as an ambassador for both the town and for the literary form, helping to celebrate and continue the town’s vibrant literary history. The First Selectwoman’s office appoints the Poet Laureate; WAAC administers the program. The current Poet Laureate is Jessica Noyes McEntee. For more information, visit:https://www.westportarts.org

The Westport Library is committed to empowering the individual and strengthening the community through dynamic interaction and the lively exchange of ideas. For more information, visit: https://westportlibrary.org