Submission Window Opened: JANUARY 15, 2025
Entry fee: $10 Academy members / $15 non-members
Submission Deadline: MARCH 31, 2025
Lead Judge: Denise Sweet
- 1st-place winners of the Wisconsin People & Ideas Poetry Contest will receive a one-week artist residency at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point.
- Winners will receive a prize of $500 for 1st place, $250 for 2nd place, and $100 for 3rd place.
- All winners are invited to read their work at the Wisconsin Book Festival.
- 1st-3rd-place winning poems will be published in print and online issues of Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine.
- Honorable mention poems selected by the lead judge will be published in subsequent issues of the magazine.
Eligibility
- Authors must be age 18 or older and reside or attend school in Wisconsin. All submissions must be original and previously unpublished work, whether online or in print.
- Current Wisconsin Academy staff, board, and Foundation board members are not eligible. If you have questions about eligibility, please reach us at contact@wisconsinacademy.org.
Submission Guidelines
- One entry consists of 1-3 poems. You may submit multiple entries, and each additional entry requires paying a contest fee.
- Please include a cover page with the author's name, address, phone number, email address, and poem titles
- One (1) poem per page, up to three (3) poems per submission
- Typed, single-spaced
- 12-point clearly readable font. For example: Times New Roman, Garamond, etc.)
- 45 lines maximum per poem (including lines between stanzas).
- Please do not include your name on the manuscript pages.
Print or electronic submissions will be accepted.
Electronic Submissions
Electronic submissions (and judging) will be managed via AirTable. After registering, participants will receive a link to submit their manuscript.
2025 Writing Contests opened on January 15!!
Submission Deadline: March 31, 2025
Print Submissions
- Print submissions must be postmarked, delivered, or date-stamped by 11:59 pm on the contest due date. Submissions postmarked or hand-delivered after the deadline will not be considered and the entry fee will be retained to cover handling.
- Keep a copy of your manuscript. Print manuscripts will be recycled, not returned. If you are able, we encourage you to submit online rather than in print.
- Every contestant must be able to provide an electronic version of their manuscript by email if needed.
Entries may be mailed or hand-delivered to
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
1922 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53726
Contest semifinalists to be announced soon!
The 1st-place winner will be published in the fall 2025 issue of Wisconsin People & Ideas; 2nd-place and 3rd-place winners will be published in subsequent issues.
2025 Poetry Contest Judge
Denise Sweet served as the second Poet Laureate for the state of Wisconsin (2005-2008). Her book Songs For Discharming won the Council for Wisconsin Writer’s Posner Award for poetry in 1998. Other publications include Know By Heart (1990), Days of Obsidian, Days of Grace (1992; one of four authors), and Nitawichige (1996; one of four authors). She has presented nearly 100 readings in Wisconsin and around the United States, as well as Canada, Mexico, London, England, and Guatemala.
Sweet has served as poet-in-residence in various venues such as Grand Marais Art Colony in northern Minnesota, and Apostle Island National Lakeshore in northern Wisconsin, and Split Rock Arts Program in Duluth, Minnesota. In 2003, Sweet taught creative writing and helped develop a community theatre program at Rough High School Rock on the Navajo nation reservation in Arizona. As a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, she was the director of "Who We Are, What Is Ours: Young Writers Workshop," UW- Green Bay’s first self-sponsored pre-college program for students of color.
Aside from the publications listed, Sweet’s work has been featured in public art exhibits as well as part of multi-media presentations of Native American creative expression. Additionally, Sweet has delivered the keynote address at the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, the Multi-Ethnic Youth Leadership Conference, and the Texas State University Annual Native American Literary Symposium. She is a professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
