The Friends’ annual Poetry Contest is a community-wide event held each spring for more than 35 years. Once the year’s theme is announced, local poets of all ages may enter their work into the competition. Winners are then invited to a ceremony at the West Roxbury Branch Library where each winning poem is read aloud.
The 2026 theme is “Beyond the Door”.
The Annual Poetry Awards Ceremony will be held on Monday April 27 at 6:30 p.m.
How to enter: Entries must be received by March 6, 2026. Please include your name, address, phone number, age, and email
Eligibility: Students and community members from the Boston metro area.
Students: Please also include your school and grade.
- Submit poems (limit:2) one of three ways:
E-mail to FriendsoftheWestRoxburyLibrary@gmail.com - Mail to:
Poetry Contest
West Roxbury Branch Library 1961 Centre St.
West Roxbury, MA 02132 - Deliver by hand to the poetry contest drop-box in the West Roxbury Branch Library lobby
Deadline: March 6, 2026
Awards Ceremony: April 27, 2026, includes grades K-8, high school, adults, and seniors
Questions? E-mail Friendsofthewestroxburylibrary@gmail.com
Notes to Contest Participants:
- Write and enter poems that connect to the contest theme
- Explore your own connections to the theme and consider writing a poem from your personal experience.
- Consider how to express your poem’s idea, story, or impression, for example:
- Voice: Who is speaking in your poem
- Imagery: language that helps paint pictures
- Sound: including rhythm and repetition
- Form or type: Free verse, haiku, sonnet, or something you invent
- Revise, and revise again. Your first draft is only a beginning.
Meet Our Judge
We are pleased and honored to have Anne Elezabeth Pluto take on the role of selecting award winners for all ages of the annual poetry contest.
Anne is Professor of Literature and Theatre at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. She is an alumna of Shakespeare & Company and was a member of the Worcester Shakespeare Company 2011 – 2016. She was a member of the Boston small press scene in the late 1980s and is one of the founders and editors at Nixes Mate Review and Nixes Mate Books. She has two full-length collections: The Deepest Part of Dark, Unlikely Stories Press, NOLA (2020), and How Many Miles to Babylon?, Lily Books, (2023).
Below are excerpts from several winning poems for the 2024 theme of “WONDER.”
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