41st Annual Minnesota Poetry Prizes Contest
20 Categories – Over $2500 in Cash Prizes
Submissions are currently open now until July 31st, 2025
Prizes will be awarded at our annual Gala
November 8, 2025 – Embassy Suites West – Bloomington, MN
2025-26 Call for Submissions:
Mississippi Valley Poets & Writers
Nature Area Poetry Walk
This is open to LOMP Members only.
The Theme is: Nature
The winning poems will be placed on metal signs along a walkway at Richfield Lake Park and installed on August 23rd of 2025.
Submission Deadline is May 1, 2025
View the submission page or the Richfield Poetry Walk info page below for full guidelines. The winners from previous years are up on the info page as well, we encourage you check them out!
Submission Period Now Open
The submission period for Agates, the annual publication of the League of Minnesota Poets, opens January 1, 2025 and closes April 1, 2025. Agates publishes only poems by League member poets. There will be no Agates category in our annual Minnesota Poetry Prizes contest this year. Last year 120 member poets submitted and we were able to publish poems from 77 of them.
The 2024 Minnesota Poetry Prize Results are in!
Congratulations to the winners and much applause for those who entered. We had a blast announcing our winners with all who attended our fall conference and gala. A wealth of gratitude goes out to our judges and all the donors for the prizes. We could not make it happen without them! We hope you keep writing and working on poems through the year and submit next year. Scroll through the slide show below to see our winners.
John Rezmerski Memorial Manuscript Competition 2024
Submissions are now closed
Our 3rd Annual John Rezmerski Memorial Manuscript contest is now closed for submissions. Please stay tuned for an announcement in December of 2024 for the results.
LEAGUE OF MINNESOTA POETS
John Rezmerski Memorial Manuscript Competition
The 2023 Winners are in!
FIRST PRIZE: Of the Earth and Other Desires
by Megan Muthupandiyan of Elm Grove, Wisconsin
Congratulations to Megan for winning our second annual John Calvin Rezmerski Memorial Manuscript Competition! This years competition was judged by Shirley Blackwell. This manuscript will be published by the League of Minnesota Poets Press in the Spring of 2024. Along with the first place award, the following awards were also noted by the judge as follows:
1st Honorable Mention: Caliche Road – Budd Mahan, Dallas, Texas
2nd Honorable Mention: Refugee – Erika Michael, Woodway, Washington
3rd Honorable Mention: Hammock – Charles Salmons, Pickering, Ohio
4th Honorable Mention: Xtopias – Raymond Luczak, Minneapolis, Minnesota
5th Honorable Mention: Flowers & Bones – Amy Irish, Lakewood, Colorado
6th Honorable Mention: Southland – Budd Mahan, Dallas, Texas
7th Honorable Mention: Bodies in Transition – G Gazelka, Minneapolis, Minnesota
8th Honorable Mention: Rights of the Dead – Pamela Wynn, New Brighton, Minnesota
Judge: Shirley Blackwell, New Mexico
In retirement after a career in national security where she served as researcher, writer and editor covering topics from Afghan militias to space technology, Shirley Blackwell has focused on her childhood love of poetry. She has published two books of poetry, both finalists in the NM-AZ Book Awards. She has poems in many anthologies, essays on poetry, and wrote a monthly poetry column for her local newspaper from 2008-2011. She is a past president of the New Mexico State Poetry Society and currently serves as chancellor. She chaired the College Undergraduate Poetry competition 2014-2018 for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. She is a co-funder of NFSPS BlackBerry Peach Prize (BBP) for spoken/performance poetry and advisor to its offshoot, the NFSPS-sponsored BBP National Slam Competition.
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