Contest Guidelines

Deadline for submissions: Received by December 31, 2010.

First Prize, $500; Three Honorable Mention Prizes, $100 each.

Winning Poems will be published in The Merton Seasonal, a publication of scholarly articles about noted spiritual leader Thomas Merton and will be posted on the Merton Institute web site: www.mertoninstitute.org.

Only ONE unpublished poem type written in English may be submitted.

Please limit the poem to no more than 100 lines.

Type your name, address, phone number, FAX number, email address, and the title of your poem on a cover page. Attach (1) one copy of your titled poem to the cover page.

Submit your poem on a page with no identifying information. All identifying information should be on your cover page. Include a submission fee of $15.00 with the poem.

If you are submitting your poem via email, the poem must be sent as an attachment saved in Word 2003 or earlier version. Any other format will not be accepted.

 

Submit poem to: Merton Institute, 2117 Payne Street, Louisville, KY 40206 or email to: vhurst@mertoninstitute.org as a Word 2003 document attachment. If mailing, please include a $15 check made payable to The Merton Institute. No Faxed entries will be accepted.

No poems will be returned.

Poems will be judged on literary excellence, spiritual tenor, and human authenticity.

Winners will be announced by April 1, 2011. Please visit the Institute website for contest results.

All contestants will be notified via email of the contest results.
 

2011 Poetry of the Sacred Judge: Dana Gioia

Former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet. A native Californian of Italian and Mexican descent, Gioia (pronounced JOY-uh) received a B.A. and a M.B.A. from StanfordUniversity and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from HarvardUniversity.

Gioia has published three full-length collections of poetry, as well as eight chapbooks. His poetry collection, Interrogations at Noon, won the 2002 American Book Award. An influential critic as well, Gioia's 1991 volume Can Poetry Matter?, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, is credited with helping to revive the role of poetry in American public culture.

Gioia's many literary anthologies include Twentieth-Century American Poetry, 100 Great Poets of the English Language, The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction, and Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. His poems, translations, essays, and reviews have appeared in many magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Book World, The New York Times Book Review, Slate, and The Hudson Review. Gioia has written two opera libretti and is an active translator of poetry from Latin, Italian, and German.