Skip to main content

OHIO POET OF THE YEAR 2025: Nominations Being Accepted

By

The Ohio Poetry Day Association (OPDA) is accepting nominations for the 2025 Ohio Poet of the Year. This annual competition invites submissions to join a prestigious list of former award winners, including Mary Oliver, David Baker, Kari Gunter-Seymour, and Maggie Smith. If you've recently published a book of poetry (self-published NOT eligible) check out the rules below and throw your hat into the ring. Poet Joanne Greenway is Chair for Ohio Poet of the Year 2025.

For those of you who aren’t as familiar with OPOTY, please check out this Ohio Poet of the Year Association site. Nomination Guidelines for Ohio Poet of the Year, 2025 are linked here, and also copied below for your convenience.


Nomination Guidelines OPOTY 

  • Poets are invited to self-nominate by submitting their books, along with their complete contact information (mailing address, phone number, and email) and a bio (50-100 words).

  • Books may also be nominated by others, such as a publisher, editor, poet colleague or poetry group. 

  • There is no form to fill out, no fee, and no letter of recommendation is necessary. 

  • The poet must be a native or a resident of Ohio or, if neither, must have previously lived in Ohio and established close ties to the state.

  • The poet must submit two copies of the book. Books will not be returned.

  • Book length: at least 48 pages of poetry. (No chapbooks.) Illustrations and photographs are not included in the page count. The page count does include: front matter and title pages.

  • Nominated books may be from a commercial, university, small or hybrid press, but vanity books and self-published books will not be considered.

  • They may have received previous awards or honors.

  • They must have been published between July 1, 2023 and May 1, 2025.

  • They must be the work of one poet, not part of an edited anthology including various poets.

  • No translations.

  • Poets who have previously entered the contest but did not win, may submit a different book.

  • No one will be chosen a second time as Poet of the Year.

 

Note: Nominated books must be received on or before May 15, 2025.


Prize Money: $200.00 and a plaque. 


The winner will be invited to speak at the OPDA luncheon and a poem from the poet’s winning entry will be the lead-off poem OPDA’s The Best of 2025 book.


Results will be announced approximately 6 weeks following the submission deadline, or around July 1, 2025.

 

Mail two copies of the book plus the additional requested information to:

 

Ohio Poet of the Year Contest

ATTN: Joanne Greenway, Contest Chair

810 Matson Pl., Unit 1602

Cincinnati, OH 45204


Questions? Contact Joanne Greenway, jgreenway978@gmail.com
Labels:
Location: Ohio, USA

Popular posts from this blog

OPA Ambassadors Report: NE Ohio with Ray McNiece

By
From the frozen tundra of the Firelands, through the rusty blast furnace of Cleveland, along the Crooked River’s ice chattering shallows of Kent, down to the worn rubber slushy tire churn of Akron, to the gritty grey clang of Youngstown there’s hot stove poetry cooking this winter all across the Northeast corner of Ohio. We boast a plethora of venues from bookstores, libraries, coffeehouses, cocktail bars and clubs where you can hear the varied carols of our poets should you dare venture out into our perpetually grey climes. Here’s a few highlights, some upcoming features and a reminder of ongoing workshops and reading series. In early December Billy Collins read at CWRU’s Maltz Center to a packed house. He often visits Cleveland thanks to George Bilgere of JCU. John Burroughs had a front row seat. The Tongue in Groove Poetry Music Jam (every third Sunday at the Millard Fillmore on Waterloo hosted by Ray McNiece) featured Mwatabu Okantah reading from his new book A Black Voice in t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Odes of October 2024 Contest Winners Announced

By
OPA is pleased to announce that our judge for 2024, Karen Scott, has chosen the three winners and three runners-up for the 2024 Odes of October contest. First prize is awarded for "Restless Peace," by Jo Anne Moser Gibbons. First prize includes an award of $65 and inclusion in the 2025 issue of Common Threads, as well being published below. Second prize goes to "Scarecrow," by Dr. Anna Cates. This prize includes an award of $25 and appears below. Third prize goes to "Fall," also by Jo Anne Moser Gibbons. This prize includes an award of $10 and appears below. Honorable mention poems were: "Rite of Passage," by Claire Scott Rubin "Alone in Silence," by Jonathan Smith "Assassination Attempt Haiku," by Susan Glassmeyer Karen said she found her task made more difficult by the high quality of submissions, so each participant should be congratulated for their work. We thank them for participating and being a member of the OPA. A spe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Barbara Sabol and Erica Reid named 2024 Ohio Poets of the Year

By
The Ohio Poetry Day Association has selected Barbara Sabol and Erica Reid as our 2024 Ohio Poets of the Year. Congratulations to these two amazing writers! Barbara Sabol was selected for her book of poems, WATERMARK: Poems of the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889 (Alternating Current Press, 2023) .  The poems in WATERMARK follow the path of the “great flood,” from the time prior to the perfect storm of events resulting in the disaster to the devastating aftermath and the reclamation of a bustling industrial city. The book is a poetic testimony of the great flood story through voices of the unidentified victims; their circumstances and lives imagined from morgue entries. The narrative also paints the backdrop of recovery and renewal, in the voices of survivors, telegraphers, aid workers, and historical figures such as Clara Barton. Watermark is a lyric narrative of this country’s largest and most dramatic flood of the 19th century, told from the perspective of those whose lives it ...
Post a Comment
Read more