First-time writers and veteran poets alike are welcome to enter the college’s Poetry Contest. Open to current Highline students, the annual contest is a chance to win a cash prize and have your poem published.
Ten poems will win. Award amounts range from $200 (first prize) to $75 (seven honorable mention prizes).
The contest is a prelude to Highline College’s celebration of National Poetry Month, April 2019. Each poem will be displayed on a broadside in the Highline Library Exhibits and Art Gallery (Building 25, 4th floor). Contest winners and finalists will have their broadsides hang alongside nationally recognized poets.
Winners will receive a copy of their broadside. Another copy will be part of Highline’s permanent collection. Poets will also have the chance to read their work during a reception in the gallery in April.
What Is a Broadside?
Broadsides are loosely defined as single sheets of paper printed on one side. They were the most diverse form of brief, single-occasion publishing before the Civil War.
Although broadsides were first introduced in England, they became a prime means of communication in the United States, often posted in the town square.
Advertisements, song lyrics, commentaries, cartoons, and poems were printed and posted in towns across the nation.
Later, Harlem Renaissance, Concrete, and Beat writers claimed the broadside as a below-the-radar way to get their words out onto the streets.
Entry Deadline
Yasmine Leland took first place and won $200 in Highline’s 2018 Poetry Contest for “Accent” (read poem text).
Entry Guidelines
Follow these guidelines to have your poem(s) judged in Highline’s 2019 Poetry Contest:
- Be a Highline student at time of entry.
- Write poems of up to 20 lines (not including title).
- Type your submission.
- Submit up to three poems about any subject.
- Agree to have your poem put on display and used during National Poetry Month. By submitting your poem, you are giving consent.
- Send your poem(s) by 4 p.m. on Feb. 15, 2019, by email only to dmoore@highline.edu. Include Poetry Contest 2019 in the subject line. With your submission, include your name, email address and phone number.
2018 First-Place Poem
By Yasmine Leland
My mother says to me, “Yasmine, can you please talk to the bank lady
on the phone for me?” I always do, but never understand why
she asks because to my ears, her English is perfect. She cuts through
any silence like a knife. She’s sharp, but they call her dull. I’m
one whole of two halves and when he and I speak, they listen, but
when she speaks, they turn away. And I know her blood, that it
runs through mine and that it’s thousands and thousands of years of
ancestry and tradition and war and family and famine and
survival, diluted down to an accent
they call funny.