Genesee Valley Peace Poetry Contest Submission Information

To the K-8 teachers of the Genesee Valley:

We would like to invite you and your students to participate in the annual Genesee Valley Peace Poetry Contest. For the contest, which is sponsored by the Department of English at SUNY Geneseo, we ask that students write poems on the theme of peace.

Winners will receive a certificate, as well as the publication of their poems in a chapbook that will be available to students and their families. Those students selected as winners will also be invited, along with their families and any interested teachers, to read their poems at a reception hosted by the Geneseo English department on the afternoon of Sunday, April 30 at SUNY Geneseo. In addition, three students (one from K-2, one from 3-5, and one from 6-8) will be chosen as overall winners and will receive special recognition.

The goal of the contest is to give students the opportunity to reflect creatively on the theme of peace at a time when so much of what they encounter in the media is dominated by images of violence: What does peace mean to them? What brings them peace in their lives? How might young people help to create a more peaceful world? The contest does not take any formal position on any current conflicts, though we certainly welcome poems that address war from any perspective.

If you are interested in having your students participate in the contest, please collect all of the poems from your class and submit them by Friday, March 24 using the contest's online submission form. (A note: We prefer to receive submissions from entire classes when possible, rather than from individual students. This allows student submissions to be organized and judged alongside the work of their peers. One winner will be selected from each class.)

When you are ready to submit, we ask that you collect your students' submissions in a single file—either a document containing typed poems or a file with images of handwritten poems. And please make sure that the student's name, grade, school, and teacher's name are all clearly printed with each poem.

If you have any questions, or any problems using the submission form, please contact us by email at peacepoetry@geneseo.edu. We look forward to reading your students' poetry.