Education Everywhere — The 58th annual Dyer-Ives Poetry Competition will accept entries throughout the month of February from Kent County residents who attend school at any age.
The contest was created in 1968 to encourage excellence in writing and provide recognition for local writers. Elementary school students, middle school students, high school students, undergraduate students and adults will compete against their peers for cash prizes and publication in the Grand Rapids Public Library publication, “Voices.”
For each category, organizers have chosen a national poet to take part as a National Judge. For 2026, the National Judge is Sun Yung Shin, a poet, writing and cultural worker who was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in the Chicago area. Her collection, “Unbearable Splendor,” was a finalist for the 2017 PEN USA Literary Award for Poetry and won the 2016 Minnesota Book Award for poetry. She currently lives in Minneapolis.
The competition is free to enter, but limited to one entry per person. The poem should not have been published anywhere before the contest. The deadline to enter is Feb. 28 and winners will be notified in May.
In 2019, entries from a Rockford student and a Godwin Heights student won their respective categories. Read about that competition in this SNN story.
