The grade school and high school students have the opportunity to be entered in a national competition. Last year we had a boy from Cedar Rapids receive honorable mention. Each year, between 6,500 and 9,000 entries are received, and only about 300 of the highest ranking poems are selected to be published in the annual anthology, Lyrical Iowa, which will be published in late summer. With so many poems entered, Wilson said that free verse is the most popular. She said that most of those poems are too cliched and are about the same thing over and over again.
Poems are to be original, unpublished and submitted by the author.
Each person may submit up to five poems, but each poem is not to exceed 20 lines. The deadline for submitting poems to the association is Feb. 15. For more information, questions can be directed to Lucille Morgan Wilson, editor in chief of the Iowa Poetry Association at 274-4679. Copyright 1996 by the Iowa State Daily Publications Board. All rights reserved.