Mississippi Valley Poets & Writers Nature Area Poetry Walk
2025-26 Call for Submissions
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, 2023
Guidelines:
Poems
- Submission is through the League Contest and via Submittable through our Mississippi Valley website.
- Cost is $5.00 per poem
- Maximum of 12 lines, excluding one title line and one space line below title.
- Maximum 40 characters per line.
- Poems may be in any form, style or structure, as long as they adhere to length and line limits.
- Poems must be family-friendly with no adults-only language or explicit imagery.
- Poems may be new/unpublished or previously published. If previously published, include name of publication in which the poem first appeared, year it was published, and a statement that the submitter has retained the right to republish the poem.
- We prefer submissions in 12-point Times New Roman font, single spaced.
- A cover letter is required with the poetry submission and must include name, contact information including mailing address, a maximum 100-word bio, and the titles of the poem submitted.
- Submit only once and only one poem during the submission period. (Doc, Docx)
- Selected poems will be posted for approximately two years.
- Poems must be written in English.
- Poems can be translated into Spanish.
- (All winning poems will be read in English & Spanish for the QR codes on the signs)
- All poems will be posted in English, but read in English and Spanish. If you can translate your work to Spanish, then send your poem in both languages.
- Expect a response by the end of June. Signs will be installed in August of 2025.
Deadline for Submission (for 2023) April 15th , 2025.
Go to: https://leagueofmnpoet.submittable.com/submit
Questions: Questions about the submission process should be directed to: Annette.gagliardi (at) gmail.com
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR 2023 RICHFIELD LAKE PARK POETRY WALK WINNERS!
Thank you to all who participated in our contest! Here are the winners and links to their poems.
Winning poems have been placed on signs at the Richfield Lake Park Preserve. The Poetry Walk is located right behind the Lake Winds Coop off Lyndale and 65th and is a beautiful .8-mile walk, with benches for rest and contemplation. On the stroll around the lake, you can read or listen to the poems on each of ten signs, which include a QR code, so you can hear the poems read in English and in Spanish. You can also read and hear the poems at the links below.
Judged by: Paula Cisewski
Translator: Sarah Degnos Riveros
Narrator: Maggie Gagliardi
Nature Poetry Walk Winners – 2023-2024
- Windblown – Margit Berman
- Walking Alone – Kelly Westhoff
- Translation – Athena Kildegaard
- For Autumn Murray McCartan
- Little Prayer – Kait Quinn
- Shush – Becky Boling
- Urban Wetland – Mary Lux
- Look Now – Mary Kay Rummel
- To Do Better – Donna Isaac
- Frog – Marsh Muirhead
Margit Berman is a writer, activist, psychologist & faculty at Augsburg University, the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and artistic director of Jackson Street Arts in St. Paul. Her poetry is published in If Poetry Magazine, in The Quarry at Split This Rock, in Foreign Policy in Focus, and Try to Have Your Writing Make Sense.
Kelly Westhoff writes essays and haiku. Inspiration strikes while walking. She has been an eighth-grade teacher, freelance writer and an independent bookstore employee. She lives in the Minneapolis area with her husband and son. She can be found online at KellyWesthoff.com or on Instagram @KellyWesthoffWrites.
Athena Kildegaard has authored six books of poetry and is co-editor of an anthology of poems about motherhood. Her poems have been set to music by a variety of composers. She has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board & two fellowships from the Lake Region Arts Council.
Murray McCartan is a League of Minnesota Poets member and a High School Special Education Instructor. She’d like to find time to solve the mysteries of her golf swing or take a nap. Poetry credits include: Sunlight Press, Main Channel Voices, Poems of Hope and Reassurance, Studio One, and Offerings.
Kait Quinn flushes the sting of living by writing poetry. Her poetry is in Reed Magazine, Last Leaves Magazine, Crosswinds Poetry, Chestnut Review, and others. By day, Kait is a legal assistant living in Minneapolis with her partner, their regal cat and their very polite Aussie mix.
A “Naturalized” Minnesotan since 1983 and retired professor since 2019, Becky Boling has published creative nonfiction, dramatic monologues, short stories, poetry (The Ekphrastic Review, Lost Lake Folk Opera, Willows Wept Review, Persimmon Tree, 3rdWednesday Magazine, Moss Puppy Magazine, Misfit Magazine, visualverse.org). MPR’s Pandemic Poetry featured her poems. She shares the post of Northfield’s Poet Laureate, D. E. Green.
Mary Lux, formerly a librarian, is exploring Minnesota as a new resident, interested in its watershed ways, its winter beauty, its prairie past and its history of indigenous and immigrant peoples. She practiced poetry for many years, in Wisconsin. She has published, participated in many poetry groups and readings.
Mary Kay Rummel’s ninth poetry book, Nocturnes: Between Flesh and Stone is published by Blue Light Press. Her books have won awards from New Rivers Press, Bright Hill Press and Blue Light Press. She has performed poetry in many venues and led workshops for all ages and groups of students.
Donna Isaac is a teaching artist and organizer of community readings & workshops through the League of MN Poets’ chapters, co-hosts Literary Bridges. Her published work includes Footfalls (Pocahontas Press); Tommy (Red Dragonfly Press); Holy Comforter (Red Bird Chapbooks); and Persistence of Vision (Finishing Line Press), including many poems in literary journals.
Marsh Muirhead is a writer, retired dentist, pilot and flight instructor, living on the Mississippi, in Bemidji. His fiction and poetry have been published in Rattle, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry East, Cutthroat, Water~Stone Review, and elsewhere
The Richfield Nature Area Poetry Walk has been made possible by the following sponsors:
Congratulations to our 2021 Richfield Poetry Walk Winners!
Thank you to all who participated! Here are the winners and links to their poems. Winning poems will be place on signs at the Richfield Nature Preserve. Stay tuned for more announcements on when they will be in place.
You can read the poems at the links below. Each poem has been translated into Spanish and has a record attached as well. These poems were translated by Maria Lander Cabrere and Eileen LaFontaine. They were narrated by Maggie Gagliardi and Alejandra Camacho.
Nature Poetry Walk Winners – 2021
Judged by Doug Wilhide
Morgan Grace Willow — Counting Swallows
Susan Coultrap-McQuin — Prairie Promise
Laura Kozy Lanik — Earth Dance