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, 2024 through May 12, 2024 at 11:59 PM EDT. No fee required. 3 poems only, please. Prizes to be announced.
Enter the Poetry Contest Here!
Contest opens April 1 (12:01 AM EST), and closes May 12 (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
Singer/songwriter/recording artist/author/videographer, inducted into the Rochester, NY Music Hall of Fame, winner of five ASCAP Composer Awards, the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, and Album of the Year from NAIRD. Visit christinelavin.com
Spoken word performer and published poet, winner of the 2023 Austin Clarke Prize for Literary Excellence, the 2022 RBC PEN Canada New Voices Award, 2022 October Project Poetry Contest. Debut poetry collection Streams That Lead Somewhere (2023). Visit farehmalik.com
Published poet and poet-in-residence for the Episcopal Church of Connecticut, oncologist and winner of the 2020 October Project Poetry Contest. Debut poetry collection Ghost Fires (2023).
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
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. Their most recent recordings have appeared on the Grammy ballot in each of the last 3 years, with Flanders choral works performed last year at the Kennedy Center (Eugene Rogers conducting), Carnegie Hall and Philadelphia's Mendelssohn Chorus (Dominick DiOrio). 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 best-seller in poetry for each of her 2 collections, Joyride and Shadow Breathing. Following upon the success of the animated short of her poem “Doubts,” an Official Selection at nearly 30 film festivals, The Big Sadness, an experimental short written and narrated by Flanders and directed by Samuel Flanders, surged to over 250,000 YouTube views in its first month of release.
For the last 10 years, Flanders has posted a new original poem on social media each day in April during National Poetry Month 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
