Enter the October Project Poetry Contest, launched in 2019 by award-winning poet/lyricist Julie Flanders in collaboration with composer Emil Adler and vocalist Marina Belica of October Project Music to encourage the art of poetry.
Submissions accepted from April 1, 2025 through April 30, 2025 at 11:59 PM EDT. No fee required. 3 poems only, please. Prizes to be announced.
Save the date! Poetry Awards Zoom Sunday, June 8th, at 4:00 PM EDT.
Enter the Poetry Contest Here!
Contest opens April 1 (12:01 AM EST), and closes April 30 (11:59 PM EST)
Please send your poem(s) as a single Word file. If sending more than one poem, include ALL in the same document. Illustrated poems may be uploaded as a PDF. View Official Rules.
The Judges
Award-winning theater and cabaret songwriter. President of the Board at New York’s Urban Stages, creator of the Harvard-Yale Cantata, 2-time Jeopardy champion, and judge for the October Project Poetry Contest from inception. Visit tomtocesongwriter.com
Published Nigerian poet, winner of Oxford University’s inaugural After the End Poetry Contest, shortlisted for their International Bridport Prize (2024), winner of the Hudson Review's inaugural Frederick Morgan Poetry Prize (2023) and finalist for the Writivism Prize for African Poetry. Debut poetry collection EXILED (Red Bird, 2025).
Published poet, teacher of writing, languages and martial arts. Winner of the 2024 October Project Poetry contest. Author of 2 poetry collections, How Many Hands to Home (Mayapple Press 2025) and What We’re Made Of (Cherry Grove 2016) and 2 chapbooks. Visit LVPDPoetry.com.
Kirsty Manning is a Best-Selling Australian author of six highly acclaimed historical novels, translated into several languages and published in Australia, New Zealand, North America, UK and South Africa. kirstymanning.com
October Project
Julie Flanders, Emil Adler and Marina Belica of American Prize, Telly and Anthem Award-winning October Project are genre-defying recording artists, producers and musical activists who collaborate in the creation of musical recordings and events. Powered by Flanders’ words, Adler’s music, and the group’s trademark harmonies, their earlier work with SONY/Epic and subsequent recordings have been enjoyed by millions on Spotify, Apple, Amazon and YouTube, with their most recent album, The Ghost of Childhood, a nominee for Self-Released Record of the Year at the 2025 Libera Awards. Their recordings have appeared on the Grammy ballot nine times, with their choral works performed by over 5000 singers nationwide and works by Flanders & Venezuelan composer Carlos Cordero performed at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall and by such esteemed choirs as Philadelphia's Mendelssohn Chorus, EXIGENCE and the Yale Glee Club. Bridging the worlds of pop, classical, a cappella and choral, Flanders, Adler & Belica continue to innovate the landscape of independent music.
Julie Flanders
With deceptively simple words, Flanders guides readers through the mysteries of the familiar to a deeper understanding of life and love, death and loss, miracles of perception, and the magic of the ordinary. Deeply satisfying, her poems are easily entered for a first read and richly reward repetition.
Flanders is an Amazon #1 Best-seller in Poetry for each of her three collections, Watermarked, Shadow Breathing and Joyride. Following upon the success of her animated poem Doubts (2018), an Official Selection at 29 film festivals, she won a 2024 Bronze Telly in writing for an experimental short of her poem The Big Sadness.
For the last 11 years, Flanders has posted a new original poem on social media each day in April during National Poetry Month and co-founded the international poetry contest that has engaged poets and poems from all over the world. She is also the originator of the hashtag #haikuTuesday, creating and encouraging posts of haikus every Tuesday, year round, contributing an archive of hundreds of poems and haikus online ever since.
Flanders is also a sought-after Creative Consultant with expertise in leadership, trance states and neuro-linguistics. Her clients include world-changers from the fields of culture, technology, thought authorship and the arts.
Julie Flanders Poetry on YouTube
