Ohio Poetry Association Blog

The Ohio Poetry Association (OPA) is pleased to announce the winners and honorable mentions of the 2023 High School Poetry Contests. Eligible poems were sent to the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Inc. Manningham Trust Student Poetry Contest. All winning poems receive monetary awards and publication in an OPA chapbook. The grand prize-winning poem will be published in the 2024 issue of Common Threads ,  OPA's annual anthology. We sincerely thank each contest sponsor and judge and congratulate the teachers from each school with student winning poems and honorable mentions. Special thanks to contest coordinator Jessica Weyer-Bentley for all her hard work to coordinate this year’s contests. GRAND PRIZE WINNER "Dementia" - Austin Blake, Buckeye Local H.S. Teacher: Stephanie Crust Category 1. Ethos  Sponsor and Judge: Chuck Salmons  1st: "I Set Myself to Sound" - Diana Zhang (The Seven Hills School) 2nd: "Dora" - Anna Kunkel (The Seven H...

The Ohio Poetry Association (OPA) is pleased to announce the winners and honorable mentions of the 2022 High School Poetry Contests. Eligible poems were sent to the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Inc. Manningham Trust Student Poetry Contest. All winning poems receive monetary awards and publication in an OPA chapbook, which will be distributed to the participating schools. We sincerely thank each contest sponsor and judge and congratulate the teachers from each school with student winning poems and honorable mentions. Special thanks to contest coordinator Jessica Weyer-Bentley for all her hard work to coordinate this year’s contests. Voices from the Past Sponsor: Mark Hersman — Judge: Jessica Weyer Bentley 1 st     Brooke McCroskey (Jefferson Area High School)          2 nd    Becky Smith (Buckeye High School) 3 rd     Madison Palmer (Buckeye Local High School)   Ethos Sponsor and Judge: Chu...

The Ohio Poetry Association (OPA) is pleased to announce the winners and honorable mentions of the 2020 High School Poetry Contest. Eligible poems were sent to the National Federation of State Poetry Societies Manningham Trust Student Poetry Contest. All winning poems receive monetary awards and publication in an OPA chapbook. Congratulations to all the winners! Acknowledgements We want to thank each contest sponsor and judges for their support and time. The contests would not exist without all of them. We congratulate the teachers from each school with student winning poems and honorable mentions: Bexley High School, Rikki Santer and Julie Horger; Boardman High School, Randy Nord; Bowling Green High School, Sarah Caserta;   Buckeye Local High School, Stephanie Crust; Dublin Coffman High School, Tyler Gantz; Dublin Jerome High School, Samantha Razem; Hudson High School, Gina M. VonVille; Lake High School, Chris Wise; Minster High School, Jessie Magoto; Pandora-Gilboa High Scho...

The deadline for the OPA Student Poetry Contests is just over a month away—January 15, 2016—and we hope our members and non-members will encourage their teenage children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and any high-school students in their lives to submit their poems to this free contest. But perhaps you’re unsure of how to get started. Thanks to OPA members Sandy Feen and Rikki Santer, we can offer an annotated bibliography of some of their terrific books for inspiring the writing of poetry. If you know Sandy and Rikki, or have heard them read their work at any number of poetry venues and open-mics, then you know that they’re wonderful poets. Both are also public high school teachers and creative writing instructors who are dedicated to the teaching of poetry in their own classrooms. And they’ve assembled the following annotated bibliography to aid others—such as teachers, parents, mentors—in working with young poets in creating their own poems. We think you’ll find the bibli...

In a recent article in The Atlantic , titled,   “Why Teaching Poetry is so Important,” Andrew Simmons wrote, "Poetry enables teachers to teach their students how to write, read, and understand any text. Poetry can give students a healthy outlet for surging emotions. Reading original poetry aloud in class can foster trust and empathy in the classroom community, while also emphasizing speaking and listening skills that are often neglected in high school literature classes. ” Sara Abou Rashed, OPA Grand Prize winner in the 2014-15  contests reads  her poetry at the annual picnic. Sara is from  Centennial High School.  Her teacher was Sarah E. Barry. The Ohio Poetry Association has long recognized the value of encouraging young people to participate in poetry.   For the past thirty-three years, we have been sponsoring an annual student poetry contest. This year’s contest brings opportunities for prizes and publication across ten categor...