Poetry Contest
High school students from across the Washington Metropolitan Area are invited to submit poems to the 2025 Gaithersburg Book Festival Poetry Contest.
To participate, your entry must be no longer than one page, single-spaced 12 point Times New Roman. Submit your poem in a Word document (.doc or .docx), and include the title of the poem in the file name (e.g., The_Red_Fern.doc).
Submissions
- Deadline: February 21, 2025, by midnight ET
- Submissions must include author’s name, home address, phone number, e-mail address, school, grade (9, 10, 11 or 12), and English/writing teacher’s name on the application form (not the Word document).
- Poems must be submitted electronically at this link.
Qualifications
- Author must be a high school student (public, private or homeschooled, grades 9-12, in the 2024-25 school year) at time of entry.
- Author must live in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C.
- Only one submission per author.
- Topic: “Civic Duty”
- The entry cannot have been published elsewhere. It must be an original and sole work of the author.
- The poem must not be generated by artificial intelligence.
- By submitting the entry, the author is granting the Gaithersburg Book Festival a non-exclusive license to publish, distribute, transmit, and exhibit the poem, and any portions thereof, via any medium without financial compensation.
Prizes
- Up to 12 poems will be selected as finalists. The finalists will have their poems posted on the Gaithersburg Book Festival website prior to the Book Festival. They also will be asked to record a video of themselves reading their poem for publication on our website (which also requires a signed waiver).
- The top three poems will be announced at the Gaithersburg Book Festival, on Saturday, May 17, 2025. First, 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive $250, $100 and $50 gift certificates, respectively. A fan favorite poem, selected by voting on the website, will receive a $25 gift certificate.
If you’re interested in receiving an annual notice about contest, please email writingcontest@