Entries Open For Bucks County’s 50th Poet Laureate Contest

Bucks Countians with a way with words have several more weeks to enter the competition that will select the county’s 50th poet laureate.

Bucks County Community College is accepting submissions from county residents age 18 and older who have not previously held the title. Entrants must submit 10 original poems in any style, form or length. There is no entry fee, and the deadline is Friday, Sept. 25.

The poet laureate will be honored at a November reading and reception at Bucks County Community College alongside 2025 Poet Laureate Madeline Marriott and the contest runners-up.

The winner will also receive a $500 honorarium and a plaque from the Bucks County Commissioners.

Entries will be reviewed by a preliminary judge, who will narrow the submissions before a final judge selects the winner and runners-up.

This year’s preliminary judge is Michelle Messina Reale, a poet, writer and professor at Arcadia University. She is the 2026 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County and director of Arcadia University’s low-residency MFA program. Her poetry collections include her latest book, “Let It Be Extravagant,” published by Bordighera Press in 2025.

Reale also is the founding and managing editor of “OVUNQUE SIAMO: New Italian-American Writing” and “The Red Fern Review.”

Jeanne Marie Beaumont will serve as the final judge. She is the author of five books of poetry, including “Placebo Effects,” a winner of the National Poetry Series, and “Lessons with Scissors.” She also is coeditor of “The Poets’ Grimm” anthology and author of the verse play “Asylum Song.”

Beaumont formerly served as director of the Frost Place Seminar and has taught at Rutgers University, the Stonecoast MFA program and the 92nd St. Y. She was born and raised in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and has lived in New York City for more than 40 years.

Submissions must be original, whether published or unpublished, and must be typewritten or word-processed, with one poem per page in black ink.

The Bucks County Poet Laureate program began in 1977 and is the longest-running poet laureate contest in Pennsylvania, according to the college. The community college also administers the Bucks County High School Poet of the Year contest each spring.

Poems and the entry form must be submitted online at bucks.edu/poetlaureateentry.

For more information, contact Dr. Ethel Rackin at ethel.rackin@bucks.edu.