William Carlos Williams Annual Poetry Competition

The 39th annual William Carlos Williams poetry competition opens on September 15, 2020 and will accept submissions through December 31, 2020. Please preview the Submission Details and Eligibility Criteria below before submitting your work.  Winning poetry will be selected on the basis of craftsmanship, originality and content. Winning poets will be notified by March 1, 2021.  

Each year, this national competition, sponsored annually by the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) receives hundreds of hundreds of entries, which are judged by the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. The top three prize-winning poems receive a monetary award ($300, $200, and $100 for first, second, and third place, respectively) and will be considered for publication in the Journal of Medical Humanities. In addition, the first-, second-, and third-place prize winners are invited to NEOMED as featured readers in the annual awards ceremony in April. (Travel expenses are paid by NEOMED’s Department of Family and Community Medicine.)

Submission Details:

• Online submissions must be received before midnight (eastern time) on December 31, 2020.
• All entries will undergo blind review and should contain no identifying information other than the title of the poem.
• Students may submit up to three poems.
• Each poem is not to exceed 750 words.
• Poems must be written in English and can reflect medical as well as non-medical subjects.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Entrants must be enrolled in programs leading to the Doctor of Medicine or Doctor of Osteopathy degree in the United States, Puerto Rico, or Canada. 
• Submissions must be original, unpublished (except for college publications), and must not have won a contest at the time of submission.
• Previous monetary winners of the William Carlos Williams poetry competition are not eligible to compete again in academic year 2020-2021.